THE PADDOCK
Well, Mother Heavy-top, what news of you this morning? Come off a minute, and let me see. (She scatters grain.) What! Five, already—and a couple more shells chipp’d? Well done, old lady! Now, only a little more patience, and won’t you be proud, by-and-by?
How pretty the house looks from here!....
....Ah! how I love it. Stump and stone,
Tussock and turf—the whole dear place!
Each bit of boarding in the walls,
Each drop of water in the race!
Nothing so common but it’s rare,
So coarse, but I can find it fair,
So wanting, worn, or out of gear,
But oh, it’s precious—being here!
You, little twig on yonder tree,
More by a mine you are to me
Than all the forests grown elsewhere.
The very clouds that wander by,
The sun that sees, the roofing sky,
Grow, by their neighbourhood, so dear,
That....Ah! I cannot see them clear.
My blessed, blessed home!....Let be!
You’ll have the whole heart out of me—
A little more, and it must break
With loving and felicity!
Nay, but sure to any eye,
Beautiful you needs must be:—
’Twixt the black, Bush-cover’d hills,
And yon tussock’s tawny sea,
Spreading out this isle of clean,
Fresh and flock-besprinkled green:
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