| |
| IN my own shire, if I was sad, | |
| Homely comforters I had: | |
| The earth, because my heart was sore, | |
| Sorrowed for the son she bore; | |
| And standing hills, long to remain, | 5 |
| Shared their short-lived comrade’s pain | |
| And bound for the same bourn as I, | |
| On every road I wandered by, | |
| Trod beside me, close and dear, | |
| The beautiful and death-struck year: | 10 |
| Whether in the woodland brown | |
| I heard the beechnut rustle down, | |
| And saw the purple crocus pale | |
| Flower about the autumn dale; | |
| Or littering far the fields of May | 15 |
| Lady-smocks a-bleaching lay, | |
| And like a skylit water stood | |
| The bluebells in the azured wood. | |
| |
| Yonder, lightening other loads, | |
| The seasons range the country roads, | 20 |
| But here in London streets I ken | |
| No such helpmates, only men; | |
| And these are not in plight to bear, | |
| If they would, another’s care. | |
| They have enough as ’tis: I see | 25 |
| In many an eye that measures me | |
| The mortal sickness of a mind | |
| Too unhappy to be kind. | |
| Undone with misery, all they can | |
| Is to hate their fellow man; | 30 |
| And till they drop they needs must still | |
| Look at you and wish you ill. | |
| |
