Classic Poem

That many-tunn'd farmhouse that stands
A little off the old high road,
When landlords lived upon their lands,
Was long its landlord's dear abode;
And often thence, with horn-call'd hounds,
High-steeded, through the gate he sped,
The while the whirring grey-wing'd doves
Flew out of dovecotes overhead.

And after that, below the tun,
There burnt, for happy souls, the fire
Of one whose name has blest his son,
A farmer fit to be a squire;
And while his barley-sowing sped,
On dusty mould, in springtide light,
From those old dovecotes' many doors
The grey-wing'd doves arose in flight.

And while through days of longsome span
His corn was sunn'd from green to red,
His son grew up from boy to man,
And now is master in his stead;
For him the loaded waggons roll
To staddled ricks that rustle dry,
And there for him the grey-wing'd doves
Around the mossy dovecotes fly.

There oft his sister, then a child—
That's now a mother, fair, though staid—
His merry playmate, flitted wild,
And tittering, through light and shade,
On tiptoe, fanning, in her speed,
The gold-like straws beside her shoe;
While to the dovecotes, nigh at hand,
The grey-wing'd doves in haste upflew.

And still with fondness, and with praise,
The brother's and the sister's mind
Behold their homespent childhood's days,
So fair, and left so far behind,
As I behold, in thought, the time
When first the lord of wall and sward
There dwelt, and first the grey-wing'd doves
Flew out from dovecotes in the yard.