The City Clerk

'Tis strange how my head runs on! 'tis a puzzle to
understand
Such fancies stirring in me, for a whiff of hay in the
Strand!

I see the old farmhouse, and garden wall, and the bees;
I see the mowers stretch'd, with their bottles, under the
trees;
I hear the little brook a-ripple down in the dell;

I hear the old-folk croon — 'Our son, he is doing well!'
O yes, I am doing well; but I'd be again, for a day,
A simple farmer's lad, among the girls in the hay.