Book Description:
Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: 'Watch the ploughboy duck for the crab and miss, While the bedesmen munch their dole, And the buxom wench leaves a lickerish kiss On the rim of the rounding bowl: ' See the children troop, ere they dint their beds, And, hushing their pagan glee, Raise dimpled hands, bow flaxen heads, And pray at their mother's knee. ' Or, perched perchance at the windmill top, I shall gaze upon gray roofed farms, When the clouds are still and the hurricanes drop ; Or up in my brawny arms ' Catch the idle winds as they lag at play, That in toil they may take their share, And round and round dip my foamless way Through the sea of the shoreless air. ' I shall listen, hushed, to the stars at night, Shall abide betwixt earth and sky : While one lives and works at a lofty height, One may change, but one does not die. XXVII ' In the stream you love, I may find a home, Where the quince by the miller's door Floats flowers as white as his unsluiced foam, Or the meal on his powdered floor. xxv1n 'And there I shall live in the mill wheel's chase, And sweat in the mid day heat ; But the spray of my making will cool my face, And the water drip bathe my feet. ' I shall whirl till the wheat be ground and fanned To meal for the cottager's pan : O, 'tis merry and wise to go hand in hand With Nature, to profit Man. Or my boughs may be curved to the river boat's keel. And I, as the currents swing And ripple about my ribs, shall feel As if stirred with the sap of Spring. ' My crew will be only Youth and Grace, She lissom, he steel, of limb ; His bronzed brow bent on her wildrose face, And her wildrose face on him. ' His voice will repeat some poet's song To the stroke of the rhythmic oar, Till her maiden pulses quicken and...
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