The Negro Boy (1806, Stirling)/The Wish

Divider from 'The Negro Boy', a chapbook printed in Stirling in 1806

THE WISH

When the trees are all bare, not a leaf to be seen,
and the meadow their beauty have lost;
When nature's disrob'd of her mantle of green
and the streams are fast bound with the frost:
While the peasant inactive stands shiv'ring with cold
as bleak the winds northerly blow:
When the innocent flocks run for ease to the fold:
with their fleeces all covered with snow:

In the yard while the cattle are fodder'd with straw
and send forth their breath like a stream!
And neat looking dairy maid sees she must thaw
fleaks of ice, which she finds in her cream:
When the sweet country maiden, as fresh as the rose
as she carelessly trips often slides,
And the rustics loud laugh, if by falling she shews:
all the charms that her modesty hides;

When the birds to the barn door hover for food.
as with silence they rest on the spray:
And the poor tired hare in vain seeks the wood,
lest her footsteps her cause should betray,
When the lads and the lasses, in company join'd,
in a croud round the embers are met,
Talk of fairies and witches that ride in the wind.
and of Ghosts, till their all in a sweat:

Heav'n grant in this season it may be my lot,
with the nymph whom I love and admire,
Whilst the icicles hang from the eves of my cot
I may thither in safety retire.
Where in neatness and quiet, and free from surprise
we me live and no hardships endure,
Nor feel any turbulent pasions arise,
but such as each other may cure.