trinkie
24-Sep-07, 20:07
THE RUSTIC MUSE
by Harry Graham. c. 1900
The pessimistic bard to whom
All inspiration is denied,
Should leave his small suburban room
And see the country-side,
Where Nature loves in winter-time
To deck the very trees with rime.
In fields where Orpheus made his home
No bard, however disso-lute,
(With half-a-hundredweight of loam,
Attached to either boot)
Could call a spade a spade, ah, no !
Nor to the rake exclaim “What Hoe !”
Though yokels may be deemed uncouth
And cowmen thought “beyond the pail”
By those whose Lexicon of Youth
Knows no such word as “Flail”
I love these clods of rustic mould,
If Peach is Silver, Silo's Gold.
A mangel at the meadow's rim,
Where Giles his ruthless harrow guides,
A simple wurzel is to him,
And nothing much besides,
He drees his weird ( or weirds his dree)
And oh, the deference to me !
I love to cull the buttercup,
To watch hops hop, and snowdrops drop,
To plant my bulbs (the right way up)
And make my fuchsias pop,
Like City men, to water stocks,
Or ( like a shepherd ) tend my phlox.
Then, fellow poets, come away
By Train or Tube or Underground,
Where Wordsworth, Tennyson and Gray,
Their inspiration found
And Mr Austin still pursues
His prototypes' elusive Muse.
by Harry Graham. c. 1900
The pessimistic bard to whom
All inspiration is denied,
Should leave his small suburban room
And see the country-side,
Where Nature loves in winter-time
To deck the very trees with rime.
In fields where Orpheus made his home
No bard, however disso-lute,
(With half-a-hundredweight of loam,
Attached to either boot)
Could call a spade a spade, ah, no !
Nor to the rake exclaim “What Hoe !”
Though yokels may be deemed uncouth
And cowmen thought “beyond the pail”
By those whose Lexicon of Youth
Knows no such word as “Flail”
I love these clods of rustic mould,
If Peach is Silver, Silo's Gold.
A mangel at the meadow's rim,
Where Giles his ruthless harrow guides,
A simple wurzel is to him,
And nothing much besides,
He drees his weird ( or weirds his dree)
And oh, the deference to me !
I love to cull the buttercup,
To watch hops hop, and snowdrops drop,
To plant my bulbs (the right way up)
And make my fuchsias pop,
Like City men, to water stocks,
Or ( like a shepherd ) tend my phlox.
Then, fellow poets, come away
By Train or Tube or Underground,
Where Wordsworth, Tennyson and Gray,
Their inspiration found
And Mr Austin still pursues
His prototypes' elusive Muse.