Classic Poem

Come, love, and while the landscape glows
Red in the setting sun,
Let us repair to Stanley Farm,
Where thou wast wooed and won.

The river runs through a narrow glen,
And shooting past the mill,
It lingers near the burial-ground
Where the dark dead lie still.

Then fresh and free it shooteth through
The bridge at headlong speed;
But when the village bridge is past,
It comes to marsh and mead;

And broadening out with slacken'd pace,
It fringes green flat land,
Where, blanched white by frequent floods,
Long lines of pollards stand.

And now within its shallow pools.
The blue-winged hern doth wade,
Still as a stone, with crooked neck
Above his floating shade.

And water-lilies fringe the brim,
And all is sedge and reed,
Save one small stream within the midst,
That winds and winds with speed.

Then down comes Thornby Beck and gains
The river with a cry,
And on the two together run,
Under the English sky.

And strong and deep the stream has grown,
As well as broad and wide,
On reaching Stanley Farm, that sits
Upon the water's side.

How still it is! how bright it is,
These happy summer weeks,
When cattle wade, in the dark blue pools
Broken to silvern streaks!

But, love, hast thou forgot the Yule,
Twenty long years ago?
The level meads around the stream
Were white with ice and snow.

The river was frozen white and blue,
In its cold weedy bed;
A deep black fog filled all the air,
And in the fog, o'erhead,

Just hovering close to earth, as small
As a school-boy's pink balloon,
The wandering sun looked strange and cold
As the red wintry moon.

The fog was dark, and darkest there
Above the river's bed,
And from the windows of the farm
All day the lights gleamed red.

But when the sun's ball rolled from sight,
The wind began to blow,
The chilly fog was cleft in twain,
And the moon lit up the snow!

A deep blue flower with a golden heart
Hung downwards, was the sky,
And white and cold in swathes of snow
Did mead and hamlet lie.

And ever and anon the wind
Blew up a cloud so pale,
And held it o'er the yellow moon,
Like a thin lawny veil.

And through its folds the bright'ning morn
Gazed, breathing soft and slow,
Till, melted with her breath, the cloud
Was shriven into snow.

Then ever in the bright'ning beam,
As each soft cloud stole by,
We saw dark figures on the stream
Gliding with merry cry.

Men and maidens, old and young,
The skaters frolicked there;
Like shapes within a dream, their forms
Stole through the mystic air.