WHITE AND BLUE

My love is of comely height and straight,

And comely in all her ways and gait,

She shows in her face the rose's hue,

And her lids on her eyes, are white on blue.

When Elemley club-men walk'd in May,

And folk came in clusters every way,
As soon as the sun dried up the dew,
And clouds in the sky were white on blue,

She came by the down with tripping walk,

By daisies and shining banks of chalk,

And brooks with the crowfoot flow'rs to strew

The sky-tinted water, white on blue;

She nodded her head as play'd the band,
She tapp'd with her foot as she did stand,
She danc'd in a reel, and wore all new

A skirt with a jacket, white and blue.

I singled her out from thin and stout,

From slender and stout I chose her out,
And what in the evening could I do

But give her my breast-knot white and blue?

WINTER COMING

I'm glad we have wood in store awhile,
For soon we must shut the door awhile,
As winterly winds may roar awhile,

And scatter the whirling snow.

The swallows have now all hied away,

And most of the flowers have died away,

And boughs, with their leaves all dried away, Are windbeaten to and fro.

Your walks in the ashtree droves are cold, Your banks in the timber'd groves are cold, Your seats on the garden coves are cold, Where sunheat did lately glow.

No rosebud is blooming red to-day,

No pink for your breast or head to-day,
O'erhanging the garden bed to-day,

Is nodding its sweet head low.

No more is the swinging lark above,
And air overclouded dark above,

So baffles the sun's last spark above,
That shadows no longer show.

So now let your warm cheek bloom to-night, While fireflames heat the room to-night, Dispelling the flickering gloom to-night,

While winds of the winter blow.

WINTER WEATHER

WHEN stems of elms may rise in row,
Dark brown, from hillocks under snow,
And woods may reach as black as night,
By sloping fields of cleanest white.
If shooters by the snowy rick,

Where trees are high, and wood is thick,
Can mark the tracks the game may prick,

They like the winter weather.

Or where may spread the grey-blue sheet

Of ice, for skaters' gliding feet,

That they uplift, from side to side,

Long yards, and hit them down to slide