Come queen of months in
Wi all thy merry
The restless cuckoo absent
And twittering swallows chimney
And hedge row crickets notes that
From every bank that fronts the
And swathy bees about the
That stops wi every bloom they
And every minute every
Keep teazing weeds that wear a
And toil and childhoods humming
For there is music in the
The village childern mad for
In school times leisure ever
That crick and catch the bouncing
And run along the church yard
Capt wi rude figured slabs whose
In times bad memory hath no
Oft racing round the nookey
Or calling ecchos in the
And jilting oer the weather
Viewing wi jealous eyes the
Oft leaping grave stones leaning
Uncheckt wi mellancholy
The green grass swelld in many a
Where kin and friends and parents
Unthinking in their jovial
That time shall come when they shall
As lowly and as still as
While other boys above them
Heedless as they do now to
The unconcious dust that lies
The shepherd goes wi happy
Wi moms long shadow by his
Down the dryd lanes neath blooming
That once was over shoes in
While martins twitter neath his
Which he at early morning
The driving boy beside his
Will oer the may month beauty
And cock his hat and turn his
On flower and tree and deepning
And oft bursts loud in fits of
And whistles as he reels
Crack[ing] his whip in starts of joyA happy dirty driving
The youth who leaves his corner
Betimes for neighbouring village
While as a mark to urge him
The church spires all the way in
Wi cheerings from his parents
Starts neath the joyous smiles of
And sawns wi many an idle
Wi bookbag swinging in his
And gazes as he passes
On every thing that meets his
Young lambs seem tempting him to
Dancing and bleating in his
Wi trembling tails and pointed
They follow him and loose their
He smiles upon their sunny
And feign woud join their happy
The birds that sing on bush and
Seem chirping for his
And all in fancys idle
Seem keeping holiday but
He lolls upon each resting
To see the fields so sweetly
To see the wheat grow green and
And list the weeders toiling
Or short not[e] of the changing
Above him in the white thorn
That oer the leaning stile bends
Loaded wi mockery of
Mozzld wi many a lushing
Of crab tree blossoms delicate
He often bends wi many a
Oer the brig rail to view the
Go sturting by in sunny
And chucks in the eye dazzld
Crumbs from his pocket oft to
The swarming struttle come to
Them where they to the bottom
Sighing in fancys joy the
Hes cautiond not to stand so
By rosey milkmaid tripping
Where he admires wi fond
And longs to be there mute till
He often ventures thro the
At truant now and then to
Rambling about the field and
Seeking larks nests in the
And picking flowers and boughs of
To hurd awhile and throw
Lurking neath bushes from the
Of tell tale eyes till schools noon
Listing each hour for church clocks
To know the hour to wander
That parents may not think him
Nor dream of his rude doing
Dreading thro the night wi dreaming
To meet his masters wand
Each hedge is loaded thick wi
And where the hedger late hath
Tender shoots begin to
From the mossy stumps
While sheep and cow that teaze the grainwill nip them to the root
They lay their bill and mittens
And on to other labours
While wood men still on spring
And thins the shadow
Wi sharpend axes felling
The oak trees budding into
Where as they crash upon the groundA crowd of labourers gather
And mix among the shadows
To rip the crackling staining
From off the tree and lay when
The rolls in lares to meet the
Depriving yearly where they
The green wood pecker of its
That early in the spring
Far from the sight of troubling
And bord their round holes in each
In fancys sweet
Till startld wi the woodmans
It wakes from all its dreaming
The blue bells too that thickly
Where man was never feared to
And smell smocks that from view
Mong rustling leaves and bowing
And stooping lilys of the
That comes wi shades and dews to
White beady drops on slender
Wi broad hood leaves above their
Like white robd maids in summer
Neath umberellas shunning
These neath the barkmens crushing
Oft perish in their blooming
Thus stript of boughs and bark in
Their trunks shine in the mellow
Beneath the green surviving
That wave above them in the
And waking whispers slowly
As if they mournd their fallen
Each morning now the weeders
To cut the thistle from the
And ruin in the sunny
Full many wild weeds of their
Corn poppys that in crimson
Calld 'head achs' from their sickly
And carlock yellow as the
That oer the may fields thickly
And 'iron weed' content to
The meanest spot that spring can
Een roads where danger hourly
Is not wi out its purple
And leaves wi points like thistles
Thickset that have no strength to
That shrink to childhoods eager
Like hair-and with its eye of
And scarlet starry points of
Pimpernel dreading nights and
Oft calld 'the shepherds weather glass'That sleep till suns have dyd the
Then wakes and spreads its creeping
Till clouds or threatning shadows
Then close it shuts to sleep
Which weeders see and talk of
And boys that mark them shut so soonwill call them 'John go bed at
And fumitory too a
That superstition holds to
Whose red and purple mottled
Are cropt by maids in weeding
To boil in water milk and
For washes on an
To make their beauty fair and
And scour the tan from summers
And simple small forget me
Eyd wi a pinshead yellow spotI'th'2 middle of its tender
That gains from poets notice
These flowers the toil by crowds
And robs them of their lowly
That met the may wi hopes as
As those her suns in gardens
And oft the dame will feel
As childhoods memory comes to
To turn her hook away and
The blooms it lovd to gather
My wild field catalogue of
Grows in my ryhmes as thick as
Tedious and long as they may
To some, they never weary
The wood and mead and field of grainI coud hunt oer and oer
And talk to every blossom
Fond as a parent to a
And cull them in my childish
By swarms and swarms and never
When their lank shades oer morning
Shrink from their lengths to little
And like the clock hand pointing
Is turnd and tells the morning
They leave their toils for dinners
Beneath some hedges bramble
And season sweet their savory
Wi joke and tale and merry
Of ancient tunes from happy
While linnets join their fitful
Perchd oer their heads in frolic
Among the tufts of motling
The young girls whisper things of
And from the old dames hearing
Oft making 'love knotts' in the
Of blue green oat or wheaten
And trying simple charms and
That rural superstition
They pull the little blossom
From out the knapweeds button
And put the husk wi many a
In their white bosoms for
Who if they guess aright the
That loves sweet fancys trys to
Tis said that ere its lain an
Twill blossom wi a second
And from her white breasts
Bloom as they ne'er had lost a
When signs appear that token
As they are neath the bushes
The girls are glad wi hopes of
And harping of the holidayA hugh blue bird will often
Along the wheat when skys grow
Wi clouds-slow as the gales of
In motion wi dark shadowd
Beneath the coming storm it
And lonly chirps the wheat hid
That came to live wi spring
And start when summer browns the
They start the young girls joys
Wi 'wet my foot' its yearly
So fancy doth the sound
And proves it oft a sign of
About the moor 'mong sheep and
The boy or old man wanders
Hunting all day wi hopful
Each thick sown rushy thistly
For plover eggs while oer them
The fearful birds wi teazing
Trying to lead their steps
And coying him another
And be the weather chill or
Wi brown hats truckd beneath his
Holding each prize their search has
They plod bare headed to the
Now dames oft bustle from their
Wi childern scampering at their
To watch the bees that hang and
In clumps about each thronging
And flit and thicken in the
While the old dame enjoys the
And raps the while their warming pansA spell that superstition
To coax them in the garden
As if they lovd the tinkling
And oft one hears the dinning
Which dames believe each swarm
Around each village day by
Mingling in the warmth of
Sweet scented herbs her skill
To rub the bramble platted
Fennels thread leaves and crimpld
To scent the new house of the
The thresher dull as winter
And lost to all that spring
Still mid his barn dust forcd to
Swings his frail round wi weary
While oer his head shades thickly
And hides the blinking owl
And bats in cobweb corners
Sharing till night their murky
The sunshine trickles on the
Thro every crevice of the
And makes his barn where shadows
As irksome as a prisoners
And as he seeks his daily
As schoolboys from their tasks will stealile often stands in fond
To see the daisy in his
And wild weeds flowering on the
That will his childish sports
Of all the joys that came wi
The twirling top the marble
The gingling halfpence hussld
At pitch and toss the eager
To pick up heads, the smuggeld
Neath hovels upon sabbath
When parson he is safe from
And clerk sings amen in his
The sitting down when school was
Upon the threshold by his
Picking from mallows sport to
Each crumpld seed he calld a
And hunting from the stackyard
The stinking hen banes belted
By youths vain fancys sweetly
Christning them his loaves of
He sees while rocking down the
Wi weary hands and crimpling
Young childern at the self same
And hears the self same simple
Still floating on each happy
Touchd wi the simple scene so
Tears almost start and many a
Regrets the happiness gone
And in sweet natures
His heart is sad while all is
How lovly now are lanes and
For toils and lovers sunday
The daisey and the
For which the laughing childern stoopA hundred times throughout the
In their rude ramping summer
So thickly now the pasture
In gold and silver sheeted
As if the drops in april
Had woo'd the sun and swoond to
The brook resumes its summer
Purling neath grass and water
And mint and flag leaf swording
Their blooms to the unheeding
And taper bowbent hanging
And horse tail childerns bottle
And summer tracks about its
Is fresh again where cattle
And on its sunny bank the
Stretches his idle length
Soon as the sun forgets the
The moon looks down on the lovly
And the little star his friend and
Travelling together side by
And the seven stars and charleses
Hangs smiling oer green woods
The heaven rekindles all
Wi light the may bees round the
Swarm not so thick in mornings
As stars do in the evening
All all are nestling in their
The flowers and birds and pasture
The firetail, long a stranger,
To his last summer haunts and
To hollow tree and crevisd
And in the grass the rails odd
That featherd spirit stops the
To listen to his note
And school boy still in vain
The secrets of his hiding
In the black thorns crowded
Thro its varied turns and
The nightingale its ditty
Hid in a multitude of
The boy stops short to hear the
And 'sweet jug jug' he mocks
The yellow hammer builds its
By banks where sun beams earliest
That drys the dews from off the
Shading it from all that
Save the rude boy wi ferret
That hunts thro evry secret
He finds its pencild eggs
All streakd wi lines as if a
By natures freakish hand was
To scrawl them over like a
And from these many mozzling
The school boy names them 'writing larks'Bum barrels twit on bush and
Scarse bigger then a bumble
And in a white thorns leafy
It builds its curious
Wi hole beside as if a
Had built the little barrel
Toiling full many a lining
And bits of grey tree moss
Amid the noisey rooky
Beneath the firdales branches
The little golden crested
Hangs up his glowing nest
And sticks it to the furry
As martins theirs beneath the
The old hens leave the roost
And oer the garden pailing
To scrat the gardens fresh turnd
And if unwatchd his crops to
Oft cackling from the prison
To peck about the houseclose
Catching at butterflys and
Ere they have time to try their
The cattle feels the breath of
And kick and toss their heads in
The ass beneath his bags of
Oft jerks the string from leaders
And on the road will eager
To pick the sprouting thistle
Oft answering on his weary
Some distant neighbours sobbing
Dining the ears of driving
As if he felt a fit of
Wi in its pinfold circle
Of all its company
Starvd stock no longer noising
Lone in the nooks of foddering
Each skeleton of lingering
By winters tempests beaten
Nodds upon props or bolt
Stands swarthy in the summer
And oer the green grass seems to
Like stump of old time wasted
All that in winter lookd for
Spread from their batterd haunts
To pick the grass or lye at
Beneath the mild hedge shadows
Sweet month that gives a welcome
To toil and nature and to
Yet one day mid thy many
Is dead to all its sport and
Old may day where's thy glorys
All fled and left thee every
Thou comst to thy old haunts and
Unnoticd as a stranger
No flowers are pluckt to hail the
Nor cotter seeks a single
The maids no more on thy sweet
Awake their thresholds to
Wi dewey flowers-May locks new
And princifeathers cluttering
And blue bells from the woodland
And cowslip cucking balls to
Above the garlands swinging
Hang in the soft eves sober
These maid and child did yearly
By many a folded apron
But all is past the merry
Of maidens hurrying
To crown at eve the earliest
Is gone and dead and silent
The laugh raisd at the mocking
Tyd to the cows tail last that
The kerchief at arms length
Held up by pairs of swain and
While others bolted
Bawling loud wi panting breath'Duck under water' as they
Alls ended as they ne'er
While the new thing that took thy
Wears faded smiles upon its
And where enclosure has its
It spreads a mildew oer her
The herd no longer one by
Goes plodding on her morning
And garlands lost and sports nigh
Leaves her like thee a common
Yet summer smiles upon thee
Wi natures sweet unalterd
And at thy births unworshipd
Fills her green lap wi swarms of
To crown thee still as thou hast
Of spring and summer months the queen.
