A Ballad

In winter, afternoons are short;
It was a winter afternoon.
The milking was already done;
I took my man, I took my gun.
That we might have some sport.

We stooped behind the tallest brake;
There was a bush of golden furze;
The furze has scent so rich and full
It makes the sense a little dull:
I hardly felt awake.

Oh, could it be the whirr of game,
That sudden, little spring of noise!
Robin was shouting in the wind;
He must have left me far behind,
So faint his whistle came.

I felt the bushes with my hand:
There was a certain furrowed nook —
The gorse with fire was black and brown.
But there the music drew me down
Into a clear, white land.

There was more grass than I could see,
The grass was marked with pale, green rings;
And oh, the sudden joy I felt
To see them dancing at full pelt,
The whole Fair Family.

We did not touch the pale, green rings,
I think we eddied through the air;
A swirl of dew was in my face,
And, looking downward, I could trace
The mark of pale, green rings.

The measure scarcely was begun;
I could have danced a hundred years!
But Robin, he would surely scoff —
Straightway I broke the measure off:
My eyes blinked in the sun.

If Robin should be come to harm!
I looked for him to left, to right:
In winter, afternoons are short,
It was too late to think of sport;
I turned back to the farm.

My mother all the tale should know.
How thick the trees above the hedge!
There was a pond that I must pass;
I looked in it as in a glass;
My hair was white as snow.

The servants saw me pass and smiled.
But that was not the worst, for when
I looked in at the parlour door
The children rose up from the floor:
I had no wife or child.

They gathered round me in a flock;
The mistress jeered. But who was he.
That old man with the bald, bent head?
Oh, he would know I had been dead,
He would not feel the shock.

His master was away from home,
He said, and rose to give me food;
" But my old master has been lost
These fifty years." A terror crost
His breast, and he was dumb.

I could not touch the wheaten bread,
So plain I saw the clear, white land.
O cursed, cursed elfin-race.
Mid living men I have no place,
And yet I am not dead.

I travel on from town to town.
But always by a dusty road.
By market-streets, by booths and fairs;
I have great terror of the snares
Upon the furzy down.

But I must see my home once more.
Nor fear to eat the wheaten bread.
Oh, some day I must see my friend.
And eat with him, and make an end,
For Robin is fourscore.