POETRY.
THE REPROBATE.
I SNOW where linnets make their nests And broom), heaths where rabbits burrow,
I know, before a blade is seen, When corn will gently fledge the furrow.
I know old moles with bodies shiny As any grocer's Sunday hat, And pools where ancient pike swim gravely, That may have swum round Ararat.
There's not a man in all the county That hears a cuckoo call so soon, Or sees, before I do, a swallow, Or lives so lazily in June.
I can make Oxford chairs from osiers That grow along the swampy flats. Perhaps 'twas parson's life in Oxford That made his eyes as blind as bats.
Parson says I'm a lazy rascal, Ripe for the place where bad 'uns go; But to us bad 'uns sometimes happen Things that the parsons never know.
Once, when the sky was blood and water, A thrush between two showers called clear; I felt in me, as sharp as passion, The vinegar and nail and spear.
R. HOWARD SPRING.
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