Classic Poem

I sat me where an ash tree's head
From o'er a bankside reach'd around,
With outcast shade that overspread
Some grass, and eke some stubbled ground,
While hedges up the hillock's brows
Held out their now befruited boughs.

The children and the birds well knew
Where hung the berried bramble bows,
Or where were sloes of meally blue,
Or heps, the children of the rose,
Or elderberries over head
Were black, or boughs of haws were red.

There near the wheatrick's yellow back,
That shone like gold before the sky,
Some rooks with wings of glossy black
Came on down wheeling from on high,
And lightly pitched upon their feet
Among the stubble of the wheat.

And then some swallows floated by,
All sweeping out their airy bow,
And rising up from low to high,
Or swooping down from high to low,
Now soon to strike their longer flight,
Away from our land's chilly light.

‘The rooks,’ I thought, ‘will still behold
These trees, leafbare, in driven sleet,
The swallows shun our winter cold
For clearer skies and glowing heat.
And which is best? To have no year
Of home, or lifelong dwelling here?’

On sunny days we often yearn
To speed us to some other land
And men of other tongues, and learn
Their ways of life, and works of hand;
Aye, how the world of lands is fill'd
With many menkinds many-skilled.

But since we lack the wings of gold
That waft men over all the earth,
And find our livelihood withhold
Our life to this our land of birth;
So let it be, since like a dove
We find us here enough to love.