Autumn Evening
The Shadows flickering, the daylight dying,
And I upon the old red sofa lying,
The great brown shadows leaping up the wall,
The sparrows twittering; and that is all.
I thought to send my soul to far-off lands,
Where fairies scamper on the windy sands,
Or where the autumn rain comes drumming down
On huddled roofs in an enchanted town.
But O, my sleepy soul, it will not roam,
It is too happy and too warm at home:
With just the shadows leaping up the wall,
The sparrows twittering; and that is all.
poem by Frances Darwin Cornford
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In France
The poplars in the fields of France
Are golden ladies come to dance ;
But yet to see them there is none
But I and the September sun.
The girl who in their shadow sits
Can only see the sock she knits ;
Her dog is watching all the day
That not a cow shall go astray.
The leisurely contented cows
Can only see the earth they browse ;
Their piebald bodies through the grass
With busy, munching noses pass.
Alone the sun and I behold
Processions crowned with shining gold
The poplars in the fields of France,
Like glorious ladies come to dance.
poem by Frances Darwin Cornford
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Pre-Existence
I laid me down upon the shore
And dreamed a little space;
I heard the great waves break and roar;
The sun was on my face.
My idle hands and fingers brown
Played with the pebbles grey;
The waves came up, the waves went down,
Most thundering and gay.
The pebbles, they were smooth and round
And warm upon my hands,
Like little people I had found
Sitting among the sands.
The grains of sands so shining-small
Soft through my fingers ran;
The sun shone down upon it all,
And so my dream began:
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poem by Frances Darwin Cornford
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Feri's Dream
I Had a little dog, and my dog was very small;
He licked me in the face, and he answered to my call;
Of all the treasures that were mine, I loved him most of all.
His nose was fresh as morning dew and blacker than the night;
I thought that it could even snuff the shadows and the light;
And his tail he held bravely, like a banner in a fight.
His body covered thick with hair was very good to smell ;
His little stomach underneath was pink as any shell;
And I loved him and honoured him, more than words can tell.
We ran out in the morning, both of us, to play,
Up and down across the fields for all the sunny day ;
But he ran so swiftly--he ran right away.
I looked for him, I called for him, entreatingly. Alas,
The dandelions could not speak, though they had seen him pass,
And nowhere was his waving tail among the waving grass.
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poem by Frances Darwin Cornford
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The Old Witch in the Copse
I am a Witch, and a kind old Witch,
There's many a one knows that--
Alone I live in my little dark house
With Pillycock, my cat.
A girl came running through the night,
When all the winds blew free:--
'O mother, change a young man's heart
That will not look on me.
O mother, brew a magic mead
To stir his heart so cold.'
'Just as you will, my dear,' said I;
'And I thank you for your gold.'
So here am I in the wattled copse
Where all the twigs are brown,
To find what I need to brew my mead
As the dark of night comes down.
Primroses in my old hands,
Sweet to smell and young,
And violets blue that spring in the grass
Wherever the larks have sung.
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poem by Frances Darwin Cornford
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