Dearie I! When I up and follows
Grand-dad Cooper’s cross-cut road,
The road that from Hawk’s Hill to Green Lane Hollows
Is nought but rabbits and cuckoos and swallows
And fields with turnip sowed,
Dearie I! the road that over
Badger’s Warren and Turnstile Hill
Skirts park-fence by Witham’s Cover,
Where old man Rob caught young Nell’s lover,
And leads to Dead Man’s Mill,
Dearie I! I do stop and hear
Out of wind a terrible sound;
And Almighty, he do whisper clear
Like a girt wold owl long-side my ear--
“Nancy girl, this be holy ground!”
Dearie I! And he says to me--
“You’ve been here, Nancy, long ere this!”
And he lifts the veil of his mystery
From the face of his abyss.
And high Hawk Hill and Green Lane Hollows
Grow only dreams that I have dreamed;
And Grand-dad’s road with its cuckoos and swallows,
The road an old fox-bitch still follows,
Is a fairy-place that only seemed!
And Dead Man’s Mill grows doubly dead,
For its old-time pond of terribleness,
And him it drowned, like mists are fled!
And nought bides there but nothingness!
Gone, gone--all gone--shadows and dreams!
Dearie I! and ’twere Grand-dad’s road
Whereon a’ drove Squire Withy’s teams
And many a turnip-load!