MARY’S EVENING SIGH
How bright with pearl the western sky!
How glorious far and wide,
Yon lines of golden clouds that lie
So peaceful side by side!
Their deep’ning tints, the arch of light, 5
All eyes with rapture see;
WILD FLOWERS (1806)
BARNHAM WATER
Fresh from the Hall of Bounty sprung,
WILD FLOWERS (1806)
THE WOODLAND HALLÓ. (Perhaps) adapted for Music.
In our cottage, that peeps from the skirts of the wood,
I am mistress, no mother have I;
Yet blithe are my days, for my father is good,
And kind is my lover hard by;
WILD FLOWERS (1806)
LOVE OF THE COUNTRY. WRITTEN AT CLARE-HALL, HERTS. June 1804
Welcome silence! welcome peace!
O most welcome, holy shade!
Thus I prove as years increase,
My heart and soul for quiet made.
WILD FLOWERS (1806)
A VISIT TO RANELAGH
To Ranelagh, once in my life,
By good-natur’d force I was driv’n;
The nations had ceas’d their long strife,
WILD FLOWERS (1806)
SHOOTER’S HILL
(1)
All editions include a footnote by Bloomfield:] Sickness may be often an incentive
to poetical composition; I found it so; and I esteem the following lines only because
to poetical composition; I found it so; and I esteem the following lines only because
WILD FLOWERS (1806)
THE BROKEN CRUTCH. A TALE
‘I tell you, Peggy,’ said a voice behind
A hawthorn hedge, with wild briars thick entwin’d,
Where unseen trav’llers down a shady way
Journey’d beside the swaths of new-mown hay,
WILD FLOWERS (1806)
THE HORKEY. A PROVINCIAL BALLAD
advertisement.
In the descriptive ballad which follows, it will be evident that I have endeavoured
to preserve the style of a gossip, and to transmit the memorial of a custom, the extent
or antiquity of which I am not acquainted with, and pretend not to inquire.
WILD FLOWERS (1806)
ABNER AND THE WIDOW JONES, A FAMILIAR BALLAD
Well! I’m determin’d; that’s enough:—
Gee, Bayard! move your poor old bones.
I’ll take to-morrow, smooth or rough,
To go and court the Widow Jones.