Click in the field, then press CTRL+C to copy the HTML code
<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=419494" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Cross Roads; Or, The Haymaker's Story</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">Stopt by the storm, that long in sullen black<br>From the south-west stained its encroaching track,<br>Haymakers, hustling from the rain to hide,<br>Sought the grey willows by the pasture-side;<br>And there, while big drops bow the grassy stems,<br>And bleb the withering hay with pearly gems,<br>Dimple the brook, and patter in the leaves,<br>The song or tale an hour's restraint relieves.<br>And while the old dames gossip at their ease,<br>And pinch the snuff-box empty by degrees,<br>The young ones join in love's delightful themes,<br>Truths told by gipsies, and expounded dreams;<br>And mutter things kept secrets from the rest,<br>As sweethearts' names, and whom they love the best;<br>And dazzling ribbons they delight to show,<br>And last new favours of some veigling beau,<br>Who with such treachery tries their hearts to move,<br>And, like the highest, bribes the maidens' love.<br>The old dames, jealous of their whispered praise,<br>Throw in their hints of man's deluding ways;<br>And one, to give her counsels more effect,<br>And by example illustrate the fact<br>Of innocence oercome by flattering man,<br>Thrice tapped her box, and pinched, and thus began.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Now wenches listen, and let lovers lie,<br>Ye'll hear a story ye may profit by;<br>I'm your age treble, with some oddments to't,<br>And right from wrong can tell, if ye'll but do't:<br>Ye need not giggle underneath your hat,<br>Mine's no joke-matter, let me tell you that;<br>So keep ye quiet till my story's told,<br>And don't despise your betters cause they're old.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'That grave ye've heard of, where the four roads meet,<br>Where walks the spirit in a winding-sheet,<br>Oft seen at night, by strangers passing late,<br>And tarrying neighbours that at market wait,<br>Stalking along as white as driven snow,<br>And long as one's shadow when the sun is low;<br>The girl that's buried there I knew her well,<br>And her whole history, if ye'll hark, can tell.<br>Her name was Jane, and neighbour's children we,<br>And old companions once, as ye may be;<br>And like to you, on Sundays often strolled<br>To gipsies' camps to have our fortunes told;<br>And oft, God rest her, in the fortune-book<br>Which we at hay-time in our pockets took,<br>Our pins at blindfold on the wheel we stuck,<br>When hers would always prick the worst of luck;<br>For try, poor thing, as often as she might,<br>Her point would always on the blank alight;<br>Which plainly shows the fortune one's to have,<br>As such like go unwedded to the grave,--<br>And so it proved.--The next succeeding May,<br>We both to service went from sports and play,<br>Though in the village still; as friends and kin<br>Thought neighbour's service better to begin.<br>So out we went:--Jane's place was reckoned good,<br>Though she bout life but little understood,<br>And had a master wild as wild can be,<br>And far unfit for such a child as she;<br>And soon the whisper went about the town,<br>That Jane's good looks procured her many a gown<br>From him, whose promise was to every one,<br>But whose intention was to wive with none.<br>Twas nought to wonder, though begun by guess;<br>For Jane was lovely in her Sunday dress,<br>And all expected such a rosy face<br>Would be her ruin--as was just the case.<br>The while the change was easily perceived,<br>Some months went by, ere I the tales believed;<br>For there are people nowadays, Lord knows,<br>Will sooner hatch up lies than mend their clothes;<br>And when with such-like tattle they begin,<br>Don't mind whose character they spoil a pin:<br>But passing neighbours often marked them smile,<br>And watched him take her milkpail oer a stile;<br>And many a time, as wandering closer by,<br>From Jenny's bosom met a heavy sigh;<br>And often marked her, as discoursing deep,<br>When doubts might rise to give just cause to weep,<br>Smothering their notice, by a wished disguise<br>To slive her apron corner to her eyes.<br>Such signs were mournful and alarming things,<br>And far more weighty than conjecture brings;<br>Though foes made double what they heard of all,<br>Swore lies as proofs, and prophesied her fall.<br>Poor thoughtless wench! it seems but Sunday past<br>Since we went out together for the last,<br>And plain enough indeed it was to find<br>She'd something more than common on her mind;<br>For she was always fond and full of chat,<br>In passing harmless jokes bout beaus and that,<br>But nothing then was scarcely talked about,<br>And what there was, I even forced it out.<br>A gloomy wanness spoiled her rosy cheek,<br>And doubts hung there it was not mine to seek;<br>She neer so much as mentioned things to come,<br>But sighed oer pleasures ere she left her home;<br>And now and then a mournful smile would raise<br>At freaks repeated of our younger days,<br>Which I brought up, while passing spots of ground<br>Where we, when children, 'hurly-burlied' round,<br>Or 'blindman-buffed' some morts of hours away--<br>Two games, poor thing, Jane dearly loved to play.<br>She smiled at these, but shook her head and sighed<br>When eer she thought my look was turned aside;<br>Nor turned she round, as was her former way,<br>To praise the thorn, white over then with May;<br>Nor stooped once, though thousands round her grew,<br>To pull a cowslip as she used to do:<br>For Jane in flowers delighted from a child--<br>I like the garden, but she loved the wild--<br>And oft on Sundays young men's gifts declined,<br>Posies from gardens of the sweetest kind,<br>And eager scrambled the dog-rose to get,<br>And woodbine-flowers at every bush she met.<br>The cowslip blossom, with its ruddy streak,<br>Would tempt her furlongs from the path to seek;<br>And gay long purple, with its tufty spike,<br>She'd wade oer shoes to reach it in the dyke;<br>And oft, while scratching through the briary woods<br>For tempting cuckoo-flowers and violet buds,<br>Poor Jane, I've known her crying sneak to town,<br>Fearing her mother, when she'd torn her gown.<br>Ah, these were days her conscience viewed with pain,<br>Which all are loth to lose, as well as Jane.<br>And, what I took more odd than all the rest,<br>Was, that same night she neer a wish exprest<br>To see the gipsies, so beloved before,<br>That lay a stone's throw from us on the moor:<br>I hinted it; she just replied again--<br>She once believed them, but had doubts since then.<br>And when we sought our cows, I called, 'Come mull!'<br>But she stood silent, for her heart was full.<br>She loved dumb things: and ere she had begun<br>To milk, caressed them more than eer she'd done;<br>But though her tears stood watering in her eye,<br>I little took it as her last good-bye;<br>For she was tender, and I've often known<br>Her mourn when beetles have been trampled on:<br>So I neer dreamed from this, what soon befell,<br>Till the next morning rang her passing-bell.<br>My story's long, but time's in plenty yet,<br>Since the black clouds betoken nought but wet;<br>And I'll een snatch a minute's breath or two,<br>And take another pinch, to help me through.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'So, as I said, next morn I heard the bell,<br>And passing neighbours crossed the street, to tell<br>That my poor partner Jenny had been found<br>In the old flag-pool, on the pasture, drowned.<br>God knows my heart! I twittered like a leaf,<br>And found too late the cause of Sunday's grief;<br>For every tongue was loosed to gabble oer<br>The slanderous things that secret passed before:<br>With truth or lies they need not then be strict,<br>The one they railed at could not contradict.<br>Twas now no secret of her being beguiled,<br>For every mouth knew Jenny died with child;<br>And though more cautious with a living name,<br>Each more than guessed her master bore the blame.<br>That very morning, it affects me still,<br>Ye know the foot-path sidles down the hill,<br>Ignorant as babe unborn I passed the pond<br>To milk as usual in our close beyond,<br>And cows were drinking at the water's edge,<br>And horses browsed among the flags and sedge,<br>And gnats and midges danced the water oer,<br>Just as I've marked them scores of times before,<br>And birds sat singing, as in mornings gone,--<br>While I as unconcerned went soodling on,<br>But little dreaming, as the wakening wind<br>Flapped the broad ash-leaves oer the pond reclin'd,<br>And oer the water crinked the curdled wave,<br>That Jane was sleeping in her watery grave.<br>The neatherd boy that used to tend the cows,<br>While getting whip-sticks from the dangling boughs<br>Of osiers drooping by the water-side,<br>Her bonnet floating on the top espied;<br>He knew it well, and hastened fearful down<br>To take the terror of his fears to town,--</div><div style="margin:10px 0">A melancholy story, far too true;<br>And soon the village to the pasture flew,<br>Where, from the deepest hole the pond about,<br>They dragged poor Jenny's lifeless body out,<br>And took her home, where scarce an hour gone by<br>She had been living like to you and I.<br>I went with more, and kissed her for the last,<br>And thought with tears on pleasures that were past;<br>And, the last kindness left me then to do,<br>I went, at milking, where the blossoms grew,<br>And handfuls got of rose and lambtoe sweet,<br>And put them with her in her winding-sheet.<br>A wilful murder, jury made the crime;<br>Nor parson 'lowed to pray, nor bell to chime;<br>On the cross roads, far from her friends and kin,<br>The usual law for their ungodly sin<br>Who violent hands upon themselves have laid,<br>Poor Jane's last bed unchristian-like was made;<br>And there, like all whose last thoughts turn to heaven,<br>She sleeps, and doubtless hoped to be forgiven.<br>But, though I say't, for maids thus veigled in<br>I think the wicked men deserve the sin;<br>And sure enough we all at last shall see<br>The treachery punished as it ought to be.<br>For ere his wickedness pretended love,<br>Jane, I'll be bound, was spotless as the dove,<br>And's good a servant, still old folks allow,<br>As ever scoured a pail or milked a cow;<br>And ere he led her into ruin's way,<br>As gay and buxom as a summer's day:<br>The birds that ranted in the hedge-row boughs,<br>As night and morning we have sought our cows,<br>With yokes and buckets as she bounced along,<br>Were often deafed to silence with her song.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But now she's gone:--girls, shun deceitful men,<br>The worst of stumbles ye can fall agen;<br>Be deaf to them, and then, as twere, ye'll see<br>Your pleasures safe as under lock and key.<br>Throw not my words away, as many do;<br>They're gold in value, though they're cheap to you.<br>And husseys hearken, and be warned from this,<br>If ye love mothers, never do amiss:<br>Jane might love hers, but she forsook the plan<br>To make her happy, when she thought of man.<br>Poor tottering dame, it was too plainly known,<br>Her daughter's dying hastened on her own,<br>For from the day the tidings reached her door<br>She took to bed and looked up no more,<br>And, ere again another year came round,<br>She, well as Jane, was laid within the ground;<br>And all were grieved poor Goody's end to see:<br>No better neighbour entered house than she,<br>A harmless soul, with no abusive tongue,<br>Trig as new pins, and tight's the day was long;<br>And go the week about, nine times in ten<br>Ye'd find her house as cleanly as her sen.<br>But, Lord protect us! time such change does bring,<br>We cannot dream what oer our heads may hing;<br>The very house she lived in, stick and stone,<br>Since Goody died, has tumbled down and gone:<br>And where the marjoram once, and sage, and rue,<br>And balm, and mint, with curled-leaf parsley grew,<br>And double marygolds, and silver thyme,<br>And pumpkins neath the window used to climb;<br>And where I often when a child for hours<br>Tried through the pales to get the tempting flowers,<br>As lady's laces, everlasting peas,<br>True-love-lies-bleeding, with the hearts-at-ease,<br>And golden rods, and tansy running high<br>That oer the pale-tops smiled on passers-by,<br>Flowers in my time that every one would praise,<br>Though thrown like weeds from gardens nowadays;<br>Where these all grew, now henbane stinks and spreads,<br>And docks and thistles shake their seedy heads,<br>And yearly keep with nettles smothering oer;--<br>The house, the dame, the garden known no more:<br>While, neighbouring nigh, one lonely elder-tree<br>Is all that's left of what had used to be,<br>Marking the place, and bringing up with tears<br>The recollections of one's younger years.<br>And now I've done, ye're each at once as free<br>To take your trundle as ye used to be;<br>To take right ways, as Jenny should have ta'en,<br>Or headlong run, and be a second Jane;<br>For by one thoughtless girl that's acted ill<br>A thousand may be guided if they will:<br>As oft mong folks to labour bustling on,<br>We mark the foremost kick against a stone,<br>Or stumble oer a stile he meant to climb,<br>While hind ones see and shun the fall in time.<br>But ye, I will be bound, like far the best<br>Love's tickling nick-nacks and the laughing jest,<br>And ten times sooner than be warned by me,<br>Would each be sitting on some fellow's knee,<br>Sooner believe the lies wild chaps will tell<br>Than old dames' cautions, who would wish ye well:<br>So have your wills.'--She pinched her box again,<br>And ceased her tale, and listened to the rain,<br>Which still as usual pattered fast around,<br>And bowed the bent-head loaded to the ground;<br>While larks, their naked nest by force forsook,<br>Pruned their wet wings in bushes by the brook.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The maids, impatient now old Goody ceased,<br>As restless children from the school released,<br>Right gladly proving, what she'd just foretold,<br>That young ones' stories were preferred to old,<br>Turn to the whisperings of their former joy,<br>That oft deceive, but very rarely cloy.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=John+Clare">John Clare</a><div class=q>
<img src="https://www.citatepedia.ro/g/32share.png" style="float:left" alt="Share">
<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=419494" data-title="The Cross Roads; Or, The Haymaker's Story de John Clare" data-description="Stopt by the storm, that long in sullen black
From the south-west stained its encroaching track,
Haymakers, hustling from the rain to hide,
Sought the grey willows by the pasture-side;
And there, while big drops bow the grassy stems,
And bleb the ..."></div>
</div>
</div>