The brook along the Romsey road
With cresses fringed about,
Holds waving fins and streaming weeds
And bubbles bright as crystal beads
And root-bound reaches whither speeds
Startled the shadowy trout.
As southward runs the Romsey road
The sunny wind blows harsh
With yellow shale and whirling sands
That sting the faces and the hands
Of us who leave the wooded lands
Of pleasant Michelmarsh.
Where southward runs the Romsey road
Southward lagged Betsey-Jane
Clutching my hand, and still the grit
Lay rough between our fingers, it
Smarted on Betsey’s face and knit
Her little brows with pain.
A bend was in the Romsey road,
Shut off by elms the wind
Was stilled, below a bridge the brook
Came dimpling forth, and Betsey shook
Her fingers free and ran to look,—
I held her frock behind.
On the far shore a wag-tail dipped
His beak,—we gazed below,
And Betsey was content to stand
And see the trout and hold my hand,
And watch them wave above the sand
Until we turned to go.
The brook along the Romsey road
With cresses fringed about
Ran all day long in Betsey’s head,
She played at wag-tails while she fed,
And even as she went to bed
She babbled of the trout.