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Hope.

I SHALL not see him yet, I know, for still
Between us lies an unsurmounted hill,

And tho' I hurry and pant, his pace is slow;
Yet shall I see his sunny face and hair
(For he will surely come to meet me) there

In the last valley somewhere, that I know.

What tho' he pauses in the pleasant wheat
To watch the lark mount skyward? do my feet
Pause or my eyes desert the path they climb ?
What tho' he strays where pleasant voices call
Of thrush or dove or woodland waterfall?

My ears hear nothing till that meeting-time.

Will my strength last me?—did not someone say The way was ever easier all the way,

The road less rough, the barren waste less bare? The briers are long since past, the stones cut less, This hill is not so steep, let me but press

Across the peak, I know he will be there.

Rose-Fruit.

THEY praised me when they found the new-born bud, And all my blood

Flamed, as I burst in blossom, to requite

Their dear delight.

And still they praised my beauty, as I

In the sun's view;

grew

“Then what will be their joy," said I, "to find My fruit behind?"

But when the wind came, and revealed at last
My heart set fast,

They said, ""Twere well this cumbering thing should

go;

New buds will blow."

The South Country.

WHEN I am living in the Midlands
That are sodden and unkind,

I light my lamp at evening,
My work is left behind;

And the great hills of the South Country
Come back into my mind.

The great hills of the South Country
They stand along the sea:

And it's there walking in the high woods

That I could wish to be,

And the men that were boys when I was a boy Walking along with me.

The men that live in North England

I saw them for a day.

Their hearts are set upon the waste fells,
Their skies are fast and grey :

From their castle walls a man may see

The mountains far away.

The men that live in West England
They see the Severn strong,
A-rolling on rough water brown,
Light aspen leaves along.

They have the secrets of the rocks,
And the oldest kind of song.

But the men that live in the South Country
Are the kindest and most wise,

They get their laughter from the loud surf,
And the faith in their happy eyes
Comes surely from our sister the spring
When over the sea she flies;

The violets suddenly bloom at her feet,
She blesses us with surprise.

I never get between the pines

But I smell the Sussex air,

Nor I never come on a belt of sand

But my home is there;

And along the sky the line of the downs
So noble and so bare.

A lost thing could I never find,
Nor a broken thing mend;
And I fear I shall be all alone

When I get towards the end.
Who will be there to comfort me,
Or who will be my friend?

I will gather and carefully make my friends
Of the men of the Sussex Weald,
They watch the stars from silent folds,
They stiffly plough the field.

By them and the God of the South Country
My poor soul shall be healed.

If I ever become a rich man,
Or if ever I grow to be old,

I will build a house with a deep thatch
To shelter me from the cold,
And there shall the Sussex songs

And the story of Sussex told.

be

sung

I will hold my house in the high wood,

Within a walk of the sea,

And the men that were boys when I was a boy Shall sit and drink with me.

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