ALONG the pastoral ways I go,
To get the healing of the trees,
The ghostly news the hedges know;
To hive me honey like the bees,
Against the time of snow.
The common hawthorn that I see,
Beside the sunken wall astir,
Or any other blossoming tree,
Is each God's fair white gospeller,
His book upon the knee.
A gust-broken bough; a pilfered nest;
Rumors of orchard or of bin;
The thrifty things of east and west, --
The countryside becomes my Inn,
And I its happy guest.
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