Classic Poem

I.

Ah! what a storm of wind and hail!
Another quart of Witney ale,
We'll test the cellar's mettle,
And Emma, of her work deprived, —
Our Hebe at the " Rose Revived, " , —
Shall serve us in the settle.

II.

The mowers from the field shall stray,
The fisher from the lonely bay
Shall leave his pool forlorner,
The snooded, shy dock-gatherers too
Shall lift their skirts of dusky blue,
And line the chimney-corner.

III

And through the gusts of whirling rain
The cuckoo's voice may call in vain
From boughs and steaming thickets;
We'll listen to the jerking crock,
The ticking of the eight-day clock,
The chirping of the crickets.

IV

Until some topic, lightly sprung,
Unloose the timid rustic tongue
To news of crops or weather,
And men and women, touched to speech,
Respond and babble, each to each,
Till all discourse together.

V

Until the wonted ale-house chat
With knotty points of this and that,
And heat of Whig and Tory,
Resolve into the single stream
Of one old man's disjointed theme,
An ancient country story.

VI

I sit and watch from out the pane
The silvery Windrush through the rain
Haste down to join the Isis,
Half listening to the simple tale
That winds along, thro' draughts of ale,
On to its measured crisis.

VII

Or watch the head of him who tells
These long-drawn rural miracles, —
His worn old cheek that flushes,
His eye that darts above his pipe
Keen as the flashing of a snipe
Through beds of windless rushes.

VIII

He tells, — for this was long ago,
The winter of the heavy snow,
And none but he remembers, —
What fate in love to George befell,
The keeper up at Stanlake Well, —
Then stirs the fragrant embers,

IX

Then starts anew: — " When I was young
More champion Berkshire men were flung
By George in wrestling matches,
Than sacks of wheat could stand a-row
Inside yon shed, or martens go
To build within these thatches.

X

His back was like a three-year ash,
His eye had got the steady flash
That's death to hare or pheasant;
And when he walked the woods at night
The tramps would take to sudden flight, —
To meet him was not pleasant.