61. Cheery Beggar   
   
   
BEYOND Mágdalen and by the Bridge, on a place called there the Plain,      
    In Summer, in a burst of summertime      
    Following falls and falls of rain,      
When the air was sweet-and-sour of the flown fineflower of      
Those goldnails and their gaylinks that hang along a lime;           5   
   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .
    The motion of that man’s heart is fine      
    Whom want could not make píne, píne      
That struggling should not sear him, a gift should cheer him      
Like that poor pocket of pence, poor pence of mine.
   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .

62. ‘Denis, whose motionable, alert, most vaulting wit’   
   
   
DENIS, whose motionable, alert, most vaulting wit      
Caps occasion with an intellectual fit.      
Yet Arthur is a Bowman: his three-heeled timber ’ll hit      
The bald and bóld blínking gold when áll ’s dóne      
Right rooting in the bare butt’s wincing navel in the sight of the sun.
   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .           5   

63. ‘The furl of fresh-leaved dogrose down’   
   
   
THE FURL of fresh-leaved dogrose down      
His cheeks the forth-and-flaunting sun      
Had swarthed about with lion-brown      
    Before the Spring was done.      
   
His locks like all a ravel-rope’s-end,           5   
  With hempen strands in spray—      
Fallow, foam-fallow, hanks—fall’n off their ranks,      
  Swung down at a disarray.      
   
Or like a juicy and jostling shock      
  Of bluebells sheaved in May           10   
Or wind-long fleeces on the flock      
  A day off shearing day.      
   
Then over his turnèd temples—here—      
  Was a rose, or, failing that,      
Rough-Robin or five-lipped campion clear           15   
  For a beauty-bow to his hat,      
And the sunlight sidled, like dewdrops, like dandled diamonds      
  Through the sieve of the straw of the plait.
   .   .   .   .   .   .   .      

64. The Woodlark   
   
   
TEEVO cheevo cheevio chee:      
O where, what can tháat be?      
Weedio-weedio: there again!      
So tiny a trickle of sóng-strain;      
And all round not to be found           5   
For brier, bough, furrow, or gréen ground      
Before or behind or far or at hand      
Either left either right      
Anywhere in the súnlight.      
Well, after all! Ah but hark—           10   
‘I am the little wóodlark.
   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .      
To-day the sky is two and two      
With white strokes and strains of the blue
   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .      
Round a ring, around a ring      
And while I sail (must listen) I sing
   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .           15   
The skylark is my cousin and he      
Is known to men more than me
   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .      
          …when the cry within      
Says Go on then I go on      
Till the longing is less and the good gone           20   
   
But down drop, if it says Stop,      
To the all-a-leaf of the tréetop      
And after that off the bough
   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .      
I ám so véry, O soó very glad      
That I dó thínk there is not to be had…
   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .           25   
The blue wheat-acre is underneath      
And the braided ear breaks out of the sheath,      
The ear in milk, lush the sash,      
And crush-silk poppies aflash,      
The blood-gush blade-gash           30   
Flame-rash rudred      
Bud shelling or broad-shed      
Tatter-tassel-tangled and dingle-a-dangled      
Dandy-hung dainty head.
   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .      
And down … the furrow dry           35   
Sunspurge and oxeye      
And laced-leaved lovely      
Foam-tuft fumitory
   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .      
Through the velvety wind V-winged      
To the nest’s nook I balance and buoy           40   
With a sweet joy of a sweet joy,      
Sweet, of a sweet, of a sweet joy      
Of a sweet—a sweet—sweet—joy.’

65. Moonrise   
   
   
I AWOKE in the Midsummer not to call night, ' in the white and the walk of the morning:      
The moon, dwindled and thinned to the fringe ' of a finger-nail held to the candle,      
Or paring of paradisaïcal fruit, ' lovely in waning but lustreless,      
Stepped from the stool, drew back from the barrow, ' of dark Maenefa the mountain;      
A cusp still clasped him, a fluke yet fanged him, ' entangled him, not quit utterly.           5   
This was the prized, the desirable sight, ' unsought, presented so easily,      
Parted me leaf and leaf, divided me, ' eyelid and eyelid of slumber.      

66. ‘Repeat that, repeat’   
   
   
REPEAT that, repeat,      
Cuckoo, bird, and open ear wells, heart-springs, delightfully sweet,      
With a ballad, with a ballad, a rebound      
Off trundled timber and scoops of the hillside ground, hollow hollow hollow ground:      
The whole landscape flushes on a sudden at a sound.           5   

67. On a piece of music   
   
   
HOW all ’s to one thing wrough

68. ‘The child is father to the man’   
   
   
‘THE CHILD is father to the man.’      
How can he be? The words are wild.      
Suck any sense from that who can:      
‘The child is father to the man.’      
No; what the poet did write ran,           5   
‘The man is father to the child.’      
‘The child is father to the man!’      
How can he be? The words are wild.      

69. ‘The shepherd’s brow, fronting forked lightning, owns’   
   
   
THE SHEPHERD’S brow, fronting forked lightning, owns      
The horror and the havoc and the glory      
Of it. Angels fall, they are towers, from heaven—a story      
Of just, majestical, and giant groans.      
But man—we, scaffold of score brittle bones;           5   
Who breathe, from groundlong babyhood to hoary      
Age gasp; whose breath is our memento mori—      
What bass is our viol for tragic tones?      
He! Hand to mouth he lives, and voids with shame;      
And, blazoned in however bold the name,           10   
Man Jack the man is, just; his mate a hussy.      
And I that die these deaths, that feed this flame,      
That … in smooth spoons spy life’s masque mirrored: tame      
My tempests there, my fire and fever fussy.      

70. To his Watch   
   
   
MORTAL my mate, bearing my rock-a-heart      
Warm beat with cold beat company, shall I      
Earlier or you fail at our force, and lie      
The ruins of, rifled, once a world of art?      
The telling time our task is; time’s some part,           5   
Not all, but we were framed to fail and die—      
One spell and well that one. There, ah thereby      
Is comfort’s carol of all or woe’s worst smart.      
   
Field-flown, the departed day no morning brings      
Saying ‘This was yours’ with her, but new one, worse,           10   
And then that last and shortest…