Page:Poems - Southey (1799) volume 2.djvu/202

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And show that something lives. Sure this is better Than a great hedge of yew that makes it look All the year round like winter, and for ever Dropping its poisonous leaves from the under bough So dry and bare!OLD MAN.Ah! so the new Squire thinks And pretty work he makes of it! what 'tis To have a stranger come to an old house!STRANGER.It seems you know him not?OLD MAN.No Sir, not I. They tell me he's expected daily now,But in my Lady's time he never came But once, for they were very distant kin. If he had played about here when a child In that fore court, and eat the yew-berries, And sat in the porch threading the jessamine flowers, That fell so thick, he had not had the heart To mar all thus.
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