II.

    Away, away, and away,
      To an old palm-land of tombs,
    Washed clear of our yesterday
      And where never a snowdrop blooms,
    Nor wild becks talk as they go
      Of tender hope we had known,
    Nor mosses of memory grow
      All over the wayside stone.

    III.

    Farewell, farewell, and farewell,
      As voice of a lover’s sigh
    In the wind let yon willow wave
      ‘Farewell, farewell, and farewell.’ 
    The sparkling frost-stars brave
      On thy shrouded bosom lie;
    Thou art gone apart to dwell,
      But I fain would have said good-bye. 
        For love of thee in thy grave
          I have lived a better man,
          O my Mary Anne,
          My Mary Anne.

Mrs. Thorpe (aside). O hearts! why, what a song!  To think on it, and he a married man!

  Mrs. Jillifer (aside). Bless you, that makes for nothing, nothing at
      all,
They take no heed upon the words.  His wife,
Look you, as pleased as may be, smiles on him.

Mrs. T. (aside). Neighbours, there’s one thing beats me.  We’ve enough
O’ trouble in the world; I’ve cried my fill
Many and many a time by my own fire: 
Now why, I’ll ask you, should it comfort me
And ease my heart when, pitiful and sweet,
One sings of other souls and how they mourned? 
A body would have thought that did not know
Songs must be merry, full of feast and mirth. 
Or else would all folk flee away from them.

  Mrs. S. (aside). ’Tis strange, and I too love the sad ones best.

Mrs. T. (aside). Ay, how they clap him! 
’Tis as who should say,
Sing! we were pleased; sing us another song;
As if they did not know he loves to sing. 
Well may he, not an organ pipe they blow
On Sunday in the church is half so sweet;
But he’s a hard man.

Mrs. J. (aside). Mark me, neighbours all, Hard though he be—­ay, and the mistress hard—­ If he do sing ’twill be a sorrowful Sad tale of sweethearts, that shall make you wish Your own time would come over again, although Were partings in ’t and tears.  Hist! now he sings.

Young farmer sings again.

‘Come hither, come hither.’  The broom was in blossom all over yon rise;
  There went a wide murmur of brown bees about it with songs from the wood. 
’We shall never be younger!  O love, let us forth, for the world ’neath our
      eyes,
  Ay, the world is made young e’en as we, and right fair is her youth and
      right good.’

Then there fell the great yearning upon me, that never yet went into words;
  While lovesome and moansome thereon spake and falter’d the dove to the
      dove. 
And I came at her calling, ‘Inherit, inherit, and sing with the birds;’
  I went up to the wood with the child of my heart and the wife of my love.