10 Best Famous Valley Poems

Here is a collection of the top 10 all-time best famous Valley poems. This is a select list of the best famous Valley poetry. Reading, writing, and enjoying famous Valley poetry (as well as classical and contemporary poems) is a great past time. These top poems are the best examples of valley poems.

• All Famous Valley Poems

 Along the garden terrace, under which 
A purple valley (lighted at its edge 
By smoky torch-flame on the long cloud-ledge 
Whereunder dropped the chariot), glimmers rich, 
A quiet company we pace, and wait 
The dinner-bell in prae-digestive calm. 
So sweet up violet banks the Southern balm 
Breathes round, we care not if the bell be late: 
Though here and there grey seniors question Time 
In irritable coughings. With slow foot 
The low rosed moon, the face of Music mute, 
Begins among her silent bars to climb. 
As in and out, in silvery dusk, we thread, 
I hear the laugh of Madam, and discern 
My Lady's heel before me at each turn. 
Our tragedy, is it alive or dead?

MY heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains 
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk, 
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains 
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk: 
'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot, 5 
But being too happy in thine happiness, 
That thou, light-wing¨¨d Dryad of the trees, 
In some melodious plot 
Of beechen green, and shadows numberless, 
Singest of summer in full-throated ease. 10 

O for a draught of vintage! that hath been 
Cool'd a long age in the deep-delv¨¨d earth, 
Tasting of Flora and the country-green, 
Dance, and Proven?al song, and sunburnt mirth! 
O for a beaker full of the warm South! 15 
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene, 
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim, 
And purple-stain¨¨d mouth; 
That I might drink, and leave the world unseen, 
And with thee fade away into the forest dim: 20 

Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget 
What thou among the leaves hast never known, 
The weariness, the fever, and the fret 
Here, where men sit and hear each other groan; 
Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last grey hairs, 25 
Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies; 
Where but to think is to be full of sorrow 
And leaden-eyed despairs; 
Where beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes, 
Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow. 30 

Away! away! for I will fly to thee, 
Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards, 
But on the viewless wings of Poesy, 
Though the dull brain perplexes and retards: 
Already with thee! tender is the night, 35 
And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne, 
Cluster'd around by all her starry Fays 
But here there is no light, 
Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown 
Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways. 40 

I cannot see what flowers are at my feet, 
Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs, 
But, in embalm¨¨d darkness, guess each sweet 
Wherewith the seasonable month endows 
The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild; 45 
White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine; 
Fast-fading violets cover'd up in leaves; 
And mid-May's eldest child, 
The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine, 
The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves. 50 

Darkling I listen; and, for many a time 
I have been half in love with easeful Death, 
Call'd him soft names in many a mus¨¨d rhyme, 
To take into the air my quiet breath; 
Now more than ever seems it rich to die, 55 
To cease upon the midnight with no pain, 
While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad 
In such an ecstasy! 
Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain¡ª 
To thy high requiem become a sod. 60 

Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird! 
No hungry generations tread thee down; 
The voice I hear this passing night was heard 
In ancient days by emperor and clown: 
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path 65 
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home, 
She stood in tears amid the alien corn; 
The same that ofttimes hath 
Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam 
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn. 70 

Forlorn! the very word is like a bell 
To toll me back from thee to my sole self! 
Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well 
As she is famed to do, deceiving elf. 
Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades 75 
Past the near meadows, over the still stream, 
Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep 
In the next valley-glades: 
Was it a vision, or a waking dream? 
Fled is that music:¡ªdo I wake or sleep? 80 

 As the Sun withdrew his rays from the garden, and the moon threw cushioned beams upon the flowers, I sat under the trees pondering upon the phenomena of the atmosphere, looking through the branches at the strewn stars which glittered like chips of silver upon a blue carpet; and I could hear from a distance the agitated murmur of the rivulet singing its way briskly into the valley. 

When the birds took shelter among the boughs, and the flowers folded their petals, and tremendous silence descended, I heard a rustle of feet though the grass. I took heed and saw a young couple approaching my arbor. The say under a tree where I could see them without being seen. 

After he looked about in every direction, I heard the young man saying, "Sit by me, my beloved, and listen to my heart; smile, for your happiness is a symbol of our future; be merry, for the sparkling days rejoice with us. 

"My soul is warning me of the doubt in your heart, for doubt in love is a sin. "Soon you will be the owner of this vast land, lighted by this beautiful moon; soon you will be the mistress of my palace, and all the servants and maids will obey your commands. 

"Smile, my beloved, like the gold smiles from my father's coffers. 

"My heart refuses to deny you its secret. Twelve months of comfort and travel await us; for a year we will spend my father's gold at the blue lakes of Switzerland, and viewing the edifices of Italy and Egypt, and resting under the Holy Cedars of Lebanon; you will meet the princesses who will envy you for your jewels and clothes. 

"All these things I will do for you; will you be satisfied?" 

In a little while I saw them walking and stepping on flowers as the rich step upon the hearts of the poor. As they disappeared from my sight, I commenced to make comparison between love and money, and to analyze their position in the heart. 

Money! The source of insincere love; the spring of false light and fortune; the well of poisoned water; the desperation of old age! 

I was still wandering in the vast desert of contemplation when a forlorn and specter-like couple passed by me and sat on the grass; a young man and a young woman who had left their farming shacks in the nearby fields for this cool and solitary place. 

After a few moments of complete silence, I heard the following words uttered with sighs from weather-bitten lips, "Shed not tears, my beloved; love that opens our eyes and enslaves our hearts can give us the blessing of patience. Be consoled in our delay our delay, for we have taken an oath and entered Love's shrine; for our love will ever grow in adversity; for it is in Love's name that we are suffering the obstacles of poverty and the sharpness of misery and the emptiness of separation. I shall attack these hardships until I triumph and place in your hands a strength that will help over all things to complete the journey of life. 

"Love - which is God - will consider our sighs and tears as incense burned at His altar and He will reward us with fortitude. Good-bye, my beloved; I must leave before the heartening moon vanishes." 

A pure voice, combined of the consuming flame of love, and the hopeless bitterness of longing and the resolved sweetness of patience, said, "Good-bye, my beloved." 

They separated, and the elegy to their union was smothered by the wails of my crying heart. 

I looked upon slumbering Nature, and with deep reflection discovered the reality of a vast and infinite thing -- something no power could demand, influence acquire, nor riches purchase. Nor could it be effaced by the tears of time or deadened by sorrow; a thing which cannot be discovered by the blue lakes of Switzerland or the beautiful edifices of Italy. 

It is something that gathers strength with patience, grows despite obstacles, warms in winter, flourishes in spring, casts a breeze in summer, and bears fruit in autumn -- I found Love.

 I 

The bitterness. the misery, the wretchedness of childhood 
Put me out of love with God. 
I can't believe in God's goodness; 
I can believe 
In many avenging gods. 
Most of all I believe 
In gods of bitter dullness, 
Cruel local gods 
Who scared my childhood. 

II 

I've seen people put 
A chrysalis in a match-box, 
"To see," they told me, "what sort of moth would come." 
But when it broke its shell 
It slipped and stumbled and fell about its prison 
And tried to climb to the light 
For space to dry its wings. 

That's how I was. 
Somebody found my chrysalis 
And shut it in a match-box. 
My shrivelled wings were beaten, 
Shed their colours in dusty scales 
Before the box was opened 
For the moth to fly. 

III 

I hate that town; 
I hate the town I lived in when I was little; 
I hate to think of it. 
There wre always clouds, smoke, rain 
In that dingly little valley. 
It rained; it always rained. 
I think I never saw the sun until I was nine -- 
And then it was too late; 
Everything's too late after the first seven years. 

The long street we lived in 
Was duller than a drain 
And nearly as dingy. 
There were the big College 
And the pseudo-Gothic town-hall. 
There were the sordid provincial shops -- 
The grocer's, and the shops for women, 
The shop where I bought transfers, 
And the piano and gramaphone shop 
Where I used to stand 
Staring at the huge shiny pianos and at the pictures 
Of a white dog looking into a gramaphone. 

How dull and greasy and grey and sordid it was! 
On wet days -- it was always wet -- 
I used to kneel on a chair 
And look at it from the window. 

The dirty yellow trams 
Dragged noisily along 
With a clatter of wheels and bells 
And a humming of wires overhead. 
They threw up the filthy rain-water from the hollow lines 
And then the water ran back 
Full of brownish foam bubbles. 

There was nothing else to see -- 
It was all so dull -- 
Except a few grey legs under shiny black umbrellas 
Running along the grey shiny pavements; 
Sometimes there was a waggon 
Whose horses made a strange loud hollow sound 
With their hoofs 
Through the silent rain. 

And there was a grey museum 
Full of dead birds and dead insects and dead animals 
And a few relics of the Romans -- dead also. 
There was a sea-front, 
A long asphalt walk with a bleak road beside it, 
Three piers, a row of houses, 
And a salt dirty smell from the little harbour. 

I was like a moth -- 
Like one of those grey Emperor moths 
Which flutter through the vines at Capri. 
And that damned little town was my match-box, 
Against whose sides I beat and beat 
Until my wings were torn and faded, and dingy 
As that damned little town. 

IV 

At school it was just as dull as that dull High Street. 
The front was dull; 
The High Street and the other street were dull -- 
And there was a public park, I remember, 
And that was damned dull, too, 
With its beds of geraniums no one was allowed to pick, 
And its clipped lawns you weren't allowed to walk on, 
And the gold-fish pond you mustn't paddle in, 
And the gate made out of a whale's jaw-bones, 
And the swings, which were for "Board-School children," 
And its gravel paths. 

And on Sundays they rang the bells, 
From Baptist and Evangelical and Catholic churches. 
They had a Salvation Army. 
I was taken to a High Church; 
The parson's name was Mowbray, 
"Which is a good name but he thinks too much of it --" 
That's what I heard people say. 

I took a little black book 
To that cold, grey, damp, smelling church, 
And I had to sit on a hard bench, 
Wriggle off it to kneel down when they sang psalms 
And wriggle off it to kneel down when they prayed, 
And then there was nothing to do 
Except to play trains with the hymn-books. 

There was nothing to see, 
Nothing to do, 
Nothing to play with, 
Except that in an empty room upstairs 
There was a large tin box 
Containing reproductions of the Magna Charta, 
Of the Declaration of Independence 
And of a letter from Raleigh after the Armada. 
There were also several packets of stamps, 
Yellow and blue Guatemala parrots, 
Blue stags and red baboons and birds from Sarawak, 
Indians and Men-of-war 
From the United States, 
And the green and red portraits 
Of King Francobello 
Of Italy. 

V 

I don't believe in God. 
I do believe in avenging gods 
Who plague us for sins we never sinned 
But who avenge us. 

That's why I'll never have a child, 
Never shut up a chrysalis in a match-box 
For the moth to spoil and crush its brght colours, 
Beating its wings against the dingy prison-wall.

The outlook wasn't brilliant for the Mudville nine that day, 
The score stood four to two, with but one inning more to play. 

And then when Cooney died at first, and Barrows did the same, 
A pall-like silence fell upon the patrons of the game. 

A straggling few got up to go in deep despair. 
The rest clung to that hope which springs eternal in the human breast. 
They thought, "if only Casey could but get a whack at that. 
We'd put up even money now, with Casey at the bat." 

But Flynn preceded Casey, as did also Jimmy Blake; 
and the former was a hoodoo, while the latter was a cake. 

So upon that stricken multitude, grim melancholy sat; 
for there seemed but little chance of Casey getting to the bat. 

But Flynn let drive a single, to the wonderment of all. 
And Blake, the much despised, tore the cover off the ball. 

And when the dust had lifted, 
and men saw what had occurred, 
there was Jimmy safe at second and Flynn a-hugging third. 

Then from five thousand throats and more there rose a lusty yell; 
it rumbled through the valley, it rattled in the dell; 

it pounded through on the mountain and recoiled upon the flat; 
for Casey, mighty Casey, was advancing to the bat. 

There was ease in Casey's manner as he stepped into his place, 
there was pride in Casey's bearing and a smile lit Casey's face. 

And when, responding to the cheers, he lightly doffed his hat, 
no stranger in the crowd could doubt t'was Casey at the bat. 

Ten thousand eyes were on him as he rubbed his hands with dirt. 
Five thousand tongues applauded when he wiped them on his shirt. 

Then, while the writhing pitcher ground the ball into his hip, 
defiance flashed in Casey's eye, a sneer curled Casey's lip. 

And now the leather-covered sphere came hurtling through the air, 
and Casey stood a-watching it in haughty grandeur there. 

Close by the sturdy batsman the ball unheeded sped -- 
"That ain't my style," said Casey. 

"Strike one!" the umpire said. 
From the benches, black with people, there went up a muffled roar, 
like the beating of the storm waves on a stern and distant shore. 

"Kill him! Kill the umpire!" shouted someone on the stand, 
and it's likely they'd have killed him had not Casey raised his hand. 

With a smile of Christian charity, great Casey's visage shone, 
he stilled the rising tumult, he bade the game go on. 

He signaled to the pitcher, and once more the dun sphere flew, 
but Casey still ignored it, and the umpire said, "Strike two!" 

"Fraud!" cried the maddened thousands, and echo answered "Fraud!" 
But one scornful look from Casey and the audience was awed. 

They saw his face grow stern and cold, they saw his muscles strain, 
and they knew that Casey wouldn't let that ball go by again. 

The sneer has fled from Casey's lip, the teeth are clenched in hate. 
He pounds, with cruel violence, his bat upon the plate. 

And now the pitcher holds the ball, and now he lets it go, 
and now the air is shattered by the force of Casey's blow. 

Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright. 
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light. 
And, somewhere men are laughing, and little children shout, 

but there is no joy in Mudville 
mighty Casey has struck out. 

 (After Pushkin) 
Look at the bare wood hand-waxed floor and long 
White dressing-gown, the good child's writing-desk 
And passionate cold feet
Summoning music of the night - tumbrils, gongs
And gamelans - with one neat pen, one candle
Puttering its life out hour by hour. 
Is "Tell Him I love him" never a good idea? You can't wish this
Unlived - this world on fire, on storm 
Alert, till the shepherd's song 
Outside, some hyper-active yellowhammer, bulbul,
Wren, amplified in hills and woods, tell her to bestow 
A spot of notice on the dawn.
*
"I'm writing to you. Well, that's it, that's everything.
You'll laugh, but you'll pity me too. I'm ashamed of this.
I meant to keep it quiet. You'd never have known, if -
I wish - I could have seen you once a week. To mull over, day 
And night, the things you say, or what we say together.
But word is, you're misogynist. Laddish. A philanderer
Who says what he doesn't mean. (That's not how you come across 
To me.) Who couldn't give a toss for domestic peace - 
Only for celebrity and showing off - 
And won't hang round in a provincial zone 
Like this. We don't glitter. Though we do,
Warmly, truly, welcome you.
*
"Why did you come? I'd never have set eyes 
On a star like you, or blundered up against
This crazed not-sleeping, hour after hour
In the dark. I might have got the better of
My clumsy fury with constraint, my fret
For things I lack all lexica and phrase-book art
To say. I might have been a faithful wife; a mother.
But that's all done with. This is Fate. God. 
Sorted. Here I am - yours, to the last breath. 
I couldn't give my heart to anyone else.
My life till now has been a theorem, to demonstrate
How right it is to love you. This love is love to death.
*
"I knew you anyway. I loved you, I'm afraid,
In my sleep. Your eyes, that denim-lapis, grey-sea- 
Grey-green blue, that Chinese fold of skin
At the inner corner, that shot look 
Bleeping "vulnerable" under the screensaver charm, 
Kept me alive. Every cell, every last gold atom
Of your body, was engraved in me 
Already. Don't tell me that was dream! When you came in, 
Staring round in your stripey coat and brocade 
Vest, I nearly died! I fainted, I was flame! I recognized
The you I'd always listened to alone, when I wrote
Or tried to wrestle my scatty soul into calm.
*
"Wasn't it you who slipped through the transparent
Darkness to my bed and whispered love? Aren't you
My guardian angel? Or is this arrant
Seeming, hallucination, thrown 
Up by that fly engineering a novel does
So beguilingly, or poems? Is this mad? 
Are there ways of dreaming I don't know?
Too bad. My soul has made its home
In you. I'm here and bare before you: shy,
In tears. But if I didn't heft my whole self up and hold it there - 
A crack-free mirror - loving you, or if I couldn't share
It, set it out in words, I'd die.
*
"I'll wait to hear from you. I must. Please let me hope.
Give me one look, from eyes I hardly dare
To look back at. Or scupper my dream 
By scolding me. I've given you rope
To hang me: tell me I'm mistaken. You're so much in
The world; while I just live here, bent on jam 
And harvest, songs and books. That's not complaint.
We live such different lives. So - this is the end. It's taken 
All night. I'm scared to read it back. I'm faint
With shame and fear. But this is what I am. My crumpled bed,
My words, my open self. All I can do is trust
The whole damn lot of it to you."
*
She sighs. The paper trembles as she presses down 
The pink wax seal. Outside, a milk mist clears
From the shimmering valley. If I were her guardian
Angel, I'd divide myself. One half would holler
Don't! Stay on an even keel! Don't dollop over
All you are, to a man who'll go to town 
On his next little fling. If he's entranced today 
By the way you finger your silk throat inside your collar,
Tomorrow there'll be Olga, Sally, Jane. But then I'd whisper
Go for it, petal. Nothing's as real as what you write.
His funeral, if he's not up to it. What we feel
Is mortal, and won't come again.
*
So cut, weeks later, to an outside shot: the same girl
Taking cover ("Dear God, he's here, he's come!")
Under fat red gooseberries, glimmering hairy stars:
The old, rude bushes she has hide-and-seeked in all 
Her life, where mother commands the serfs to sing
While picking, so they can't hurl
The odd gog into their mouths. No one could spy
Her here, not even the sun in its burn-time. Her cheeks 
Are simmering fire.
We're talking iridescence, a Red Admiral's last tremble
Before the avid schoolboy plunks his net.
Or imagine
* 
A leveret - like the hare you shot, remember? 
Which ran round screaming like a baby?
Only mine is shivering in papery winter corn,
While the hunter (as it might be, you) stomps his Hush 
Puppies through dead brush. Everything's quiet.
She's waited - how long? - ages: stoking pebbly embers
Under the evening samovar, filling 
The Chinese teapot, sending coils of Lapsang Suchong
Floating to the ceiling in the shadows, tracing O and E 
In the window's black reflection, one finger 
Tendrilling her own breath on the glass. 
Like putting a shell to your ear to hear the sea 
*
When it's really your own red little sparkle, the echo 
Of marching blood. She's asking a phantom 
World of pearled-up mist for proof
That her man exists: that gamelans and tumbrils
Won't evade her. But now, among 
The kitchen garden's rose-haws, mallow, Pernod- 
Coloured pears, she unhooks herself thorn by thorn 
For the exit aria. For fade-out. Suddenly there he is
In the avenue, the man she's written to - Charon
Gazing at her with blazing eyes! Darth Vader
From Star Wars. She's trapped, in a house she didn't realize
Was burning. Her letter was a gate to the inferno.
........
(This poem appeared in Pushkin: An Anthology, ed. E. Feinstein, Carcanet 1999)

 Children, I come back today 
To tell you a story of the long dark way 
That I had to climb, that I had to know 
In order that the race might live and grow. 
Look at my face -- dark as the night -- 
Yet shining like the sun with love's true light. 
I am the dark girl who crossed the red sea 
Carrying in my body the seed of the free. 
I am the woman who worked in the field 
Bringing the cotton and the corn to yield. 
I am the one who labored as a slave, 
Beaten and mistreated for the work that I gave -- 
Children sold away from me, I'm husband sold, too. 
No safety , no love, no respect was I due.

Three hundred years in the deepest South: 
But God put a song and a prayer in my mouth . 
God put a dream like steel in my soul. 
Now, through my children, I'm reaching the goal. 

Now, through my children, young and free, 
I realized the blessing deed to me. 
I couldn't read then. I couldn't write. 
I had nothing, back there in the night. 
Sometimes, the valley was filled with tears, 
But I kept trudging on through the lonely years. 
Sometimes, the road was hot with the sun, 
But I had to keep on till my work was done: 
I had to keep on! No stopping for me -- 
I was the seed of the coming Free. 
I nourished the dream that nothing could smother 
Deep in my breast -- the ***** mother. 
I had only hope then , but now through you, 
Dark ones of today, my dreams must come true: 
All you dark children in the world out there, 
Remember my sweat, my pain, my despair. 
Remember my years, heavy with sorrow -- 
And make of those years a torch for tomorrow. 
Make of my pass a road to the light 
Out of the darkness, the ignorance, the night. 
Lift high my banner out of the dust. 
Stand like free men supporting my trust. 
Believe in the right, let none push you back. 
Remember the whip and the slaver's track. 
Remember how the strong in struggle and strife 
Still bar you the way, and deny you life -- 
But march ever forward, breaking down bars. 
Look ever upward at the sun and the stars. 
Oh, my dark children, may my dreams and my prayers 
Impel you forever up the great stairs -- 
For I will be with you till no white brother 
Dares keep down the children of the ***** Mother.

 Earth has not anything to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty:
This City now doth like a garment wear
The beauty of the morning; silent , bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky,
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
Never did the sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill;
Ne'er saw I, never felt a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!

 When Julius Fabricius, Sub-Prefect of the Weald,
In the days of Diocletian owned our Lower River-field,
He called to him Hobdenius-a Briton of the Clay,
Saying: "What about that River-piece for layin'' in to hay?"

And the aged Hobden answered: "I remember as a lad
My father told your father that she wanted dreenin' bad.
An' the more that you neeglect her the less you'll get her clean.
Have it jest as you've a mind to, but, if I was you, I'd dreen."

So they drained it long and crossways in the lavish Roman style--
Still we find among the river-drift their flakes of ancient tile,
And in drouthy middle August, when the bones of meadows
 show,
We can trace the lines they followed sixteen hundred years ago.

Then Julius Fabricius died as even Prefects do,
And after certain centuries, Imperial Rome died too.
Then did robbers enter Britain from across the Northern main
And our Lower River-field was won by Ogier the Dane.

Well could Ogier work his war-boat --well could Ogier wield his
 brand--
Much he knew of foaming waters--not so much of farming land.
So he called to him a Hobden of the old unaltered blood,
Saying: "What about that River-piece; she doesn't look no good?"

And that aged Hobden answered "'Tain't for me not interfere.
But I've known that bit o' meadow now for five and fifty year.
Have it jest as you've a mind to, but I've proved it time on ' time,
If you want to change her nature you have got to give her lime!"

Ogier sent his wains to Lewes, twenty hours' solemn walk,
And drew back great abundance of the cool, grey, healing chalk.
And old Hobden spread it broadcast, never heeding what was
 in't.--
Which is why in cleaning ditches, now and then we find a flint.

Ogier died. His sons grew English-Anglo-Saxon was their name--
Till out of blossomed Normandy another pirate came;
For Duke William conquered England and divided with his men,
And our Lower River-field he gave to William of Warenne.

But the Brook (you know her habit) rose one rainy autumn night 
And tore down sodden flitches of the bank to left and right.
So, said William to his Bailiff as they rode their dripping rounds:
"Hob, what about that River-bit--the Brook's got up no bounds? "

 And that aged Hobden answered: "'Tain't my business to advise,
But ye might ha' known 'twould happen from the way the valley
 lies.
 Where ye can't hold back the water you must try and save the
 sile.
 Hev it jest as you've a mind to, but, if I was you, I'd spile!"

 They spiled along the water-course with trunks of willow-trees,
 And planks of elms behind 'em and immortal oaken knees.
 And when the spates of Autumn whirl the gravel-beds away
 You can see their faithful fragments, iron-hard in iron clay.
. . . . . . . . . . 
 Georgii Quinti Anno Sexto, I, who own the River-field,
 Am fortified with title-deeds, attested, signed and sealed, 
 Guaranteeing me, my assigns, my executors and heirs
 All sorts of powers and profits which-are neither mine nor theirs,

 I have rights of chase and warren, as my dignity requires.
 I can fish-but Hobden tickles--I can shoot--but Hobden wires.
 I repair, but he reopens, certain gaps which, men allege,
 Have been used by every Hobden since a Hobden swapped a
 hedge.

Shall I dog his morning progress o'er the track-betraying dew?
Demand his dinner-basket into which my pheasant flew?
Confiscate his evening ****** under which my conies ran,
And summons him to judgment? I would sooner summons Pan.

His dead are in the churchyard--thirty generations laid.
Their names were old in history when Domesday Book was made;
 And the passion and the piety and prowess of his line
 Have seeded, rooted, fruited in some land the Law calls mine.

 Not for any beast that burrows, not for any bird that flies,
 Would I lose his large sound council, miss his keen amending
 eyes.
 He is bailiff, woodman, wheelwright, field-surveyor, engineer,
 And if flagrantly a poacher--'tain't for me to interfere.

 "Hob, what about that River-bit?" I turn to him again,
 With Fabricius and Ogier and William of Warenne.
 "Hev it jest as you've a mind to, but"-and here he takes com-
 mand.
 For whoever pays the taxes old Mus' Hobden owns the land.

HAND in hand! and lip to lip!

Oh, be faithful, maiden dear!
Fare thee well! thy lover's ship

Past full many a rock must steers
But should he the haven see,

When the storm has ceased to break,
And be happy, reft of thee,--

May the Gods fierce vengeance take!

Boldly dared is well nigh won!

Half my task is solved aright;
Ev'ry star's to me a sun,

Only cowards deem it night.
Stood I idly by thy side,

Sorrow still would sadden me;
But when seas our paths divide,

Gladly toil I,--toil for thee!

Now the valley I perceive,

Where together we will go,
And the streamlet watch each eve,

Gliding peacefully below
Oh, the poplars on yon spot!

Oh, the beech trees in yon grove!
And behind we'll build a cot,

Where to taste the joys of love!