Classic Poem

As I walk'd thinking through a little grove,
Some girls that gathered flowers came passing me,
Saying, " Look here! look there!" delightedly.
" Oh, here it is!" " What's that?" " A lily, love."
" And there are violets!"
" Further for roses! Oh, the lovely pets —
The darling beauties! Oh, the nasty thorn!
Look here, my hand's all torn!"
" What's that that jumps!" " Oh, don't! it's a grasshopper!"
" Come run, come run,
Here's bluebells!" " Oh, what fun!"
" Not that way! Stop her!"
" Yes, this way!" " Pluck them, then!"
" Oh, I've found mushrooms! Oh, look here!" " Oh, I'm
Quite sure that further on we'll get wild thyme."

" Oh, we shall stay too long, it's going to rain!
There's lightning, oh there's thunder!"
" Oh, shan't we hear the vesper-bell, I wonder?"
" Why, it's not nones, you silly little thing;
And don't you hear the nightingales that sing
Fly away O die away?"
" Oh, I hear something! Hush!"
" Why, where? what is it, then?" " Ah! in that bush!"
So every girl here knocks it, shakes and shocks it,
Till with the stir they make
Out skurries a great snake.
" O Lord! O me! Alack! Ah me! alack!"
They scream, and then all run and scream again,
And then in heavy drops down comes the rain.

Each running at the other in a fright,
Each trying to get before the other, and crying,
And flying, stumbling, tumbling, wrong or right;
One sets her knee
There where her foot should be;
One has her hands and dress
All smothered up with mud in a fine mess;
And one gets trampled on by two or three.
What's gathered is let fall
About the wood and not picked up at all.
The wreaths of flowers are scattered on the ground;
And still as screaming hustling without rest
They run this way and that and round and round,
She thinks herself in luck who runs the best.

I stood quite still to have a perfect view,
And never noticed till I got wet through.