Early-Heart

‘Early-Heart tends no geese like ours;
Every one is a swan,
Fit to sing with a nightingale,
Or say to a goose, Begone!’

‘Alack, poor souls,’ quoth Early-Heart,
‘Then yours be only geese?
Nor only so; but your sheep are sheep;
And mine have a golden fleece!’

Quoth Early-Heart, ‘And if mine be swans,
Right true you say, hereby.
So take your little and leave my much;
For the lad in luck am I!’

Waddle and quack, and bleat and baa,
They quacked and they baa’d, ’tis true.
But Early-Heart followed a white, white flock,
And the hills were far and blue.