Classic Poem

Oh! the beech lawns at Beechley, how charming they wound
By the long eastern landridge of highwooded ground;
And its low-lying dingle, with wandering rill,
And low-leaning beech-lawns, that reached to the hill;
May its dairies do well,
And may God speed its plough,
For those I knew dwell there,
But where are they now?

And there stood the houses, some high and some small,
With their flow'r-warding pales and their rose-behung wall,
And westward and northward outsprang a long streech
Of grass-land, bestudded with elm and with beech.
And late in the day,
Some maid by her cow
Was singing full gay there,
But where is she now?

And there, in the dusk, in fine weather, we played
At our game " Hide and seek" in the nook and the shade,
With " I spy," or " Run yonder," or " Am I not near,
Jane Hunt or John Hine?" or " Ha! ha! you are here;"
Or cunning Ned Knoles,
By stall or by mow,
Finds out such queer holes there,
And where is he now?

Or at cricket, while one, in a quick-handed fight
With the ball, saw in glory his wicket upright,
The ball fleetly roll'd and it sprang, and it flew,
It was out in the field, and at home at the shoe;
Or it hit a man out,
Oh! he could not tell how;
While others would shout there
" Well where are you now?"

'Tis long since my footsteps have trodden the ground
Where few, I should fear, of my friends would be found.
But tell me, I pray you, all ever you can
Of the life and the loss of the maid and the man,
The Hinds, and the Harleys,
Oh! How are they? How?
And the Burnleys and Deans; there
Oh! where are they now?