With joy all relics of the past I hail; The heath-bell, lingering in our cultured moor, Or the dull sound of the slip-shoulder'd flail, Still busy on the poor man's threshing-floor: I love this unshorn hedgerow, which survives Its stunted neighbours, in this farming age: The hatch and house-leek, where old Alice lives With her old herbal, trusting every page; I love the spinning-wheel, which hums far down In yon lone valley, though, from day to day, The boom of Science shakes it from the town. Ah! sweet old world! thou speedest fast away! My boyhood's world! but all last looks are dear; More touching is the death-bed than the bier! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...FATIGUE; EPIGRAM by HILAIRE BELLOC THE GARDEN YEAR by SARA COLERIDGE A VALEDICTION: OF MY NAME IN THE WINDOW by JOHN DONNE ART ABOVE NATURE: TO JULIA by ROBERT HERRICK NATURAL HISTORY by MOTHER GOOSE THE GIFT by GEORGE WILLIAM RUSSELL CHELSEA by LILLIAN M. (PETTES) AINSWORTH |