VOICES

Harken, harken, neighbour, harken! There be little childer jangling, There be childer up-long wrangling By the thorn-tree in the wood. Nay, them noises you are hearing, Out of yonder blue-bell clearing, Are the wild cat’s kitlings playing, While their mother’s hunting food.

Harken, harken, neighbour, harken! There’s the pixy bells a-ringing, And the dinky pixies singing Through the curtain of the rain. Nay, ’tis but a flock of plover— Golden plover now come over, From the places of their summer, To their winter home again.

Harken, harken, neighbour, harken! There’s some poor, unhappy devil Homing drunk after a revel, Drowned in snow and lost in night. Nay, that creepy, crawly yowling Be red fox up over howling, Pads acold and belly empty, Hunger-starven for a bite.

Harken, harken, neighbour, harken! To the sound of woman’s wailing— A sad woman, quailing, railing, Like the sob of wind-swept leaves. Nay, that ban’t no cry of woman, Nor the moan of any human: ’Tis the murmur of the hill-tops And “the calling of the cleaves.”