Street Music

The city's labour, in lumbering throes,On the other side of my garden-wall,Like the pant of an engine, fell and rose;And my mind ran faster than facile penCould follow it over the paper, whenI suddenly heard an old, old tune,And lived again in that month of June,And again I saw it all.

My nostrils greeted the scent of the hayIn fields where the pollards drew down rain,Where low in the hollow the cattle layChewing the cud, and flicking the flies,With lazy content in their dreamy eyes,Unstreaked by thoughtful pain.

The white-walled cottage with moss-grown thatch,The thin spire peering above the hill,Under the coppice a clover-patch,A swinging gate, and a sun-kiss'd maid;And I heard once more what those sweet lips said;And those sweet lips said: 'I will.'

Her hair fell rippling over her neck,Her face a-blush like a budding rose,So soft, so pure, with never a speck.Ah! who would have thought of the scatter'd leaves,And the aphis at heart! How the face deceives,Though blind Love thinks he knows!

Then my lips were parched with a longing thirst,And my temples throbbed as though they wouldburst,Till the tune died away, and another ranFrom under the hand of the organ-man:And June was not, but November drear,Wearing her weeds for the dying year.