Cho.  Boot, saddle, to horse, and away!”

ROBERT BROWNING.

* * * * *

ACROSS THE FIELDS TO ANNE.

From Stratford-on-Avon a lane runs westward through the fields a mile to the little village of Shottery, in which is the cottage of Anne Hathaway, Shakespeare’s sweetheart and wife.

How often in the summer tide,
His graver business set aside,
Has stripling Will, the thoughtful-eyed,
As to the pipe of Pan
Stepped blithsomely with lover’s pride
Across the fields to Anne!

It must have been a merry mile,
This summer-stroll by hedge and stile,
With sweet foreknowledge all the while
How sure the pathway ran
To dear delights of kiss and smile,
Across the fields to Anne.

The silly sheep that graze to-day,
I wot, they let him go his way,
Nor once looked up, as who should say: 
“It is a seemly man.” 
For many lads went wooing aye
Across the fields to Anne.

The oaks, they have a wiser look;
Mayhap they whispered to the brook: 
“The world by him shall yet be shook,
It is in nature’s plan;
Though now he fleets like any rook
Across the fields to Anne.”

And I am sure, that on some hour
Coquetting soft ’twixt sun and shower,
He stooped and broke a daisy-flower
With heart of tiny span,
And bore it as a lover’s dower
Across the fields to Anne.

While from her cottage garden-bed
She plucked a jasmine’s goodlihede,
To scent his jerkin’s brown instead;
Now since that love began,
What luckier swain than he who sped
Across the fields to Anne?

The winding path wheron I pace,
The hedgerows green, the summer’s grace,
Are still before me face to face;
Methinks I almost can
Turn poet and join the singing race
Across the fields to Anne!

RICHARD BURTON.

* * * * *

GREEN THINGS GROWING.

The green things growing, the green things growing,
The faint sweet smell of the green things growing! 
I should like to live, whether I smile or grieve,
Just to watch the happy life of my green things growing.

Oh the fluttering and the pattering of those green things growing! 
How they talk each to each, when none of us are knowing;
In the wonderful white of the weird moonlight
Or the dim dreamy dawn when the cocks are crowing.

I love, I love them so—­my green things growing! 
And I think that they love me, without false showing;
For by many a tender touch, they comfort me so much,
With the soft mute comfort of green things growing.

And in the rich store of their blossoms glowing,
Ten for one I take they’re on me bestowing: 
Oh, I should like to see, if God’s will it may be,
Many, many a summer of my green things growing!