Page:Poems by William Wordsworth (1815) Volume 1.djvu/239

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179

XXII.

THE IDIOT BOY.



'Tis eight o'clock,—a clear March night,
The Moon is up—the Sky is blue,
The Owlet in the moonlight air,
He shouts from nobody knows where;
He lengthens out his lonely shout,
Halloo! halloo! a long halloo!


—Why bustle thus about your door,
What means this bustle, Betty Foy?
Why are you in this mighty fret?
And why on horseback have you set
Him whom you love, your Idiot Boy?


Beneath the Moon that shines so bright,
Till she is tired, let Betty Foy
With girt and stirrup fiddle-faddle;
But wherefore set upon a saddle
Him whom she loves, her Idiot Boy?