Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. V. Browning to Rupert Brooke

William Barnes (1801–1886)

White and Blue

MY love is of comely height and straight,

And comely in all her ways and gait,

She shows in her face the rose’s hue,

And her lids on her eyes are white on blue.

When Elemley club-men walk’d in May,

And folk came in clusters every way,

As soon as the sun dried up the dew,

And clouds in the sky were white on blue,

She came by the down with tripping walk,

By daisies and shining banks of chalk,

And brooks with the crowfoot flow’rs to strew

The sky-tinted water, white on blue;

She nodded her head as play’d the band,

She tapp’d with her foot as she did stand,

She danc’d in a reel, and wore all new

A skirt with a jacket, white and blue.

I singled her out from thin and stout,

From slender and stout I chose her out,

And what in the evening could I do

But give her my breast-knot white and blue?