To My Mother

"Long hours ago, while yet the morn was blithe,     Nor sharp athirst had drunk the beaded dew,     A reaper came, and swung his cradled scythe"

"Far up in the wild and wintery hills in the heart of the cliff-broken woods,     Where the mounded drifts lie soft and deep in the noiseless soli"

"To the distance! Ah, the distance!     Blue and broad and dim!     Peace is not in burgh or meadow,     But beyond the rim.     Aye, beyond i"

"Oh earth, oh dewy mother, breathe on us     Something of all thy beauty and thy might,     Us that are part of day, but most of night,     Not"

"Here morning in the ploughman's songs is met     Ere yet one footstep shows in all the sky,     And twilight in the east, a doubt as yet,     S"

"The Text is taken from Percy's Reliques (1765), vol. i. p. 71, 'given from two MS. copies, transmitted from Scotland.' Herd had a very similar bal"