AMONG
THE TIMOTHY
Long hours
ago, while yet the morn was blithe,
Nor sharp athirst had drunk
the beaded dew,
A reaper came, and swung his cradled scythe
Around this stump, and, shearing
slowly, drew
Far round among the clover,
ripe for hay,
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A circle
clean and grey;
And here among the scented swathes that gleam,
Mixed with dead daisies, it
is sweet to lie
And watch the grass and the
few-clouded sky,
Nor
think but only dream.
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For when
the noon was turning, and the heat
Fell down most heavily on field
and wood,
I too came hither, borne on restless feet,
Seeking some comfort for an
echoing mood.
Ah, I was weary of the drifting
hours,
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The
echoing city towers,
The blind grey streets, the jingle of the throng,
Weary of hope that like a shape
of stone,
Sat near at hand without a smile
or moan,
And
weary most of song.
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And those
high moods of mine that someone made
My heart a heaven, opening like
a flower,
A sweeter world where I in wonder strayed,
Begirt with shapes of beauty
and the power
Of dreams that moved through that enchanted clime
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With
changing breaths of rhyme,
Were all gone lifeless now like those white leaves.
That hang all winter, shivering
dead and blind
Among the sinewy beeches in
the wind,
That vainly calls and grieves.
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Ah! I will
set no more mine overtaskèd brain
To barren search and toil that
beareth nought,
Forever following with sorefooted pain
The crossing pathways of unbournèd
thought;
But let it go, as one that hath
no skill,
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To take
what shape it will,
An ant slow-burrowing in the earthy gloom,
A spider bathing in the dew
at morn,
Or a brown bee in wayward fancy
borne
From
hidden bloom to bloom.
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Hither and
thither o’er the rocking grass
The little breezes, blithe as
they are blind,
Teasing the slender blossoms pass and pass,
Soft-footed children of the
gipsy wind,
To taste of every purple-fringèd
head
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Before
the bloom is dead;
And scarcely heed the daisies that, endowed
With stems so short they cannot
see, up-bear
Their innocent sweet eyes distressed,
and stare
Like
children in a crowd.
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Not far to
fieldward in the central heat,
Shadowing the clover, a pale
poplar stands
With glimmering leaves that, when the wind comes, beat
Together like innumerable small
hands,
And with the calm, as in vague
dreams astray,
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Hang
wan and silver-grey;
Like sleepy mænads, who in pale surprise,
Half-wakened by a prowling beast,
have crept
Out of the hidden covert, where
they slept,
At noon
with languid eyes.
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The crickets
creak, and through the noonday glow,
That crazy fiddler of the hot
mid-year,
The dry cicada plies his wiry bow
In long-spun cadence, thin and
dusty sere:
From the green grass the small
grasshoppers’ din 65
Spreads
soft and silvery thin:
And ever and anon a murmur steals
Into mine ears of toil that
moves alway,
The crackling rustle of the pitch-forked hay
And
lazy jerk of wheels.
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As so I lie
and feel the soft hours a wane,
To wind and sun and peaceful
sound laid bare,
That aching dim discomfort of the brain
Fades off unseen, and shadowy-footed
care
Into some hidden corner creeps
at last
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To slumber
deep and fast;
And gliding on, quite fashioned to forget,
From dream to dream I bid my
spirit pass
Out into the pale green ever-swaying
grass
To brood,
but no more fret.
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And hour
by hour among all shapes that grow
Of purple mints and daisies
gemmed with gold
In sweet unrest my visions come and go;
I feel and hear and with quiet
eyes behold;
And hour by hour, the ever-journeying
sun,
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In gold
and shadow spun,
Into mine eyes and blood, and through the dim
Green glimmering forest of the
grass shines down,
Till flower and blade, and every
cranny brown,
And
I are soaked with him.
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