| |
| HOW often in the summer-tide, | |
| His graver business set aside | |
| Has stripling Will, the thoughtful-eyed, | |
| As to the pipe of Pan, | |
| Stepped blithesomely with lover’s pride | 5 |
| Across the fields to Anne. | |
| |
| It must have been a merry mile, | |
| This summer stroll by hedge and stile, | |
| With sweet foreknowledge all the while | |
| How sure the pathway ran | 10 |
| To dear delights of kiss and smile, | |
| Across the fields to Anne. | |
| |
| The silly sheep that graze to-day, | |
| I wot, they let him go his way, | |
| Nor once looked up, as who should say: | 15 |
| “It is a seemly man.” | |
| For many lads went wooing aye | |
| Across the fields to Anne. | |
| |
| The oaks, they have a wiser look; | |
| Mayhap they whispered to the brook: | 20 |
| “The world by him shall yet be shook, | |
| It is in nature’s plan; | |
| Though now he fleets like any rook | |
| Across the fields to Anne.” | |
| |
| And I am sure, that on some hour | 25 |
| Coquetting soft ’twixt sun and shower, | |
| He stooped and broke a daisy-flower | |
| With heart of tiny span, | |
| And bore it as a lover’s dower | |
| Across the fields to Anne. | 30 |
| |
| While from her cottage garden-bed | |
| She plucked a jasmine’s goodlihede, | |
| To scent his jerkin’s brown instead; | |
| Now since that love began, | |
| What luckier swain than he who sped | 35 |
| Across the fields to Anne? | |
| |
| The winding path whereon I pace, | |
| The hedgerow’s green, the summer’s grace, | |
| Are still before me face to face; | |
| Methinks I almost can | 40 |
| Turn poet and join the singing race | |
| Across the fields to Anne! | |
| |
