Classic Poem

I'd a house by a rock, out aside from the way,
With windowy walls to the sunside of day,
Beside a fair hill, with a well wooded ridge,
And under its side a clear stream and a bridge.
There whistles the blackbird when spring blossoms white,
And white flits the owl in the dusk of the night.
And there in the day-heat the wind, freshly cool,
Floats up from the stream with its wide waving pool,
And choosing and using the hours for the best,
We cheery, though weary, at night sat at rest.

But if it were fear'd that the house's high roof
Would not, in a storm-wind, be found weather proof,
A rock-room had I whence a fire draught would rise,
While lamp-flames would give us a light for the eyes.
And there, without fear that the strong rocken wall,
Or the thick stonen roof would so shake as to fall,
Full well might we chatter or sing, without fears
Of housewrecks or list'nings of outsiders' ears,
But warm from the storm for the night in the dry
Should be in full glee while the winds rattled by.

But my burrow'd house is less good for a man
In hidelock from foes than the old one at Banne;
Where hid an old owner, a kingsman, at times
When kingsmen were hunted as guilty of crimes.
And thither he stepp'd by a passage unshown,
And stone-hidden door, from a dove-cot of stone.
The draft of his charcoal, that burnt without smoke,
Rose out from the ground through an old hollow oak.
And sought, but uncaught, by the foes' prowling bands,
He, lurking and smirking, kept out of their hands.