In Vain

"Have you been catching of fish, Tom Noddy?         Have you snared a weeping hare?     Have you whistled, 'No Nunny,'and gunned a poor bunny,"

"Sand, sand; hills of sand;         And the wind where nothing is      Green and sweet of the land;         No grass, no trees,         No bir"

"Like an old battle, youth is wild With bugle and spear, and counter cry, Fanfare and drummery, yet a child Dreaming of that sweet chivalry, T"

"There was nought in the Valley      But a Tower of Ivory, Its base enwreathed with red      Flowers that at evening      Caught the sun's cr"

"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"