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He praised his land, his horses, his machines;

He praised his ploughs, his cows, his hogs, his dogs;

He praised his hens, his geese, his guinea-hens;

His pigeons, who in session on their roofs
Approved him, bowing at their own deserts:

Then from the plaintive mother's teat he took
Her blind and shuddering puppies, naming each,

And naming those, his friends, for whom they

were:

Then crost the common into Darnley chase

To show Sir Arthur's deer. In copse and fern

Twinkled the innumerable ear and tail.

Then, seated on a serpent-rooted beech,

He pointed out a pasturing colt, and said:
'That was the four-year-old I sold the Squire.'
And there he told a long long-winded tale
Of how the Squire had seen the colt at grass,
And how it was the thing his daughter wish'd,
And how he sent the bailiff to the farm

To learn the price, and what the price he ask'd,

And how the bailiff swore that he was mad,

But he stood firm; and so the matter hung;

He

gave them line and five days after that He met the bailiff at the Golden Fleece, Who then and there had offer'd something more, But he stood firm; and so the matter hung;

He knew the man; the colt would fetch its price;

He

gave them line and how by chance at last

(It might be May or April, he forgot,

The last of April or the first of May)

He found the bailiff riding by the farm,
And, talking from the point, he drew him in,
And there he mellow'd all his heart with`ale,
Until they closed a bargain, hand in hand.

Then, while I breathed in sight of haven, he,

Poor fellow, could he help it? recommenced,

And ran thro' all the coltish chronicle,
Wild Will, Black Bess, Tantivy, Tallyho,
Reform, White Rose, Bellerophon, the Jilt,

Arbaces, and Phenomenon, and the rest,

Till, not to die a listener, I arose,

And with me Philip, talking still; and so
We turn'd our foreheads from the falling sun,
And following our own shadows thrice as long
As when they follow'd us from Philip's door,
Arrived, and found the sun of sweet content
Re-risen in Katie's eyes, and all things well.

I steal by lawns and grassy plots,

I slide by hazel covers;

I move the sweet forget-me-nots

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I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance,
Among my skimming swallows;

I make the netted sunbeam dance
Against my sandy shallows.

I murmur under moon and stars

In brambly wildernesses;
I linger by my shingly bars;

I loiter round my cresses;

And out again I curve and flow

To join the brimming river,

For men may come and men may go,
But I go on for ever.

Yes, men may come and go; and these are gone, All gone. My dearest brother, Edmund, sleeps, Not by the well-known stream and rustic spire, But unfamiliar Arno, and the dome

Of Brunelleschi; sleeps in peace: and he,

Poor Philip, of all his lavish waste of words
Remains the lean P. W. on his tomb:

I scraped the lichen from it: Katie walks

By the long wash of Australasian seas

Far off, and holds her head to other stars,

And breathes in converse seasons. All are gone.'

So Lawrence Aylmer, seated on a stile

In the long hedge, and rolling in his mind
Old waifs of rhyme, and bowing o'er the brook

A tonsured head in middle age forlorn,

Mused, and was mute. On a sudden a low breath

Of tender air made tremble in the hedge

The fragile bindweed-bells and briony rings;
There stood a maiden near,

And he look'd up.

Waiting to pass. In much amaze he stared

On eyes a bashful azure, and on hair

In gloss and hue the chestnut, when the shell

Divides three-fold to show the fruit within:

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Then, wondering, ask'd her Are you from the

farm?'

'Yes' answer'd she..

Pray stay a little pardon

me;

What do they call you?'-'Katie.'

strange.

That were

What surname?'-Willows.'-No!'- 'That is

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Indeed!' and here he look'd so self-perplext,

That Katie laugh'd, and laughing blush'd, till he
Laugh'd also, but as one before he wakes,

Who feels a glimmering strangeness in his dream.

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