Читать книгу The Lazy Minstrel - Ashby-Sterry Joseph - Страница 3

A CAPITAL luncheon I've had at the "Lion,"

I've drifted down here with the light Summer breeze;

I land at the bank, where the turf's brown and dry on,

And lazily list to the music of trees!

O, sweet is the air, with a perfume of clover,

O, sleepy the cattle in Remenham meads!

The lull of the lasher is soothing, moreover,

The wind whistles low in the stream-stricken reeds!

With sail closely furled, and a weed incandescent —

Made fast to a post is the swift Shuttlecock—

I think you will own 'tis uncommonly pleasant

To dream and do nothing by Hambleden Lock!

See a barge blunder through, overbearing and shabby,

With its captain asleep, and his wife in command;

Then a boatful of beauties for Medmenham Abbey,

And a cargo of campers all tired and tanned.

Two duffers collide, they don't know what they're doing —

They're both in the ways of the water unskilled —

But here is the Infant, so great at canoeing,

Sweet, saucy, short-skirted, and snowily frilled.

I notice the tint of a ribbon or feather,

The ripple of ruffle, the fashion of frock;

I languidly laze in the sweet Summer weather,

And muse o'er the maidens by Hambleden Lock!

What value they give to the bright panorama —

O, had I the pencil of Millais or Sandys! —

The lasses with sunshades from far Yokohama,

The pretty girl-scullers with pretty brown hands!

Next the Syren steams in; see the kind-eyed old colley,

On the deck, in the sun, how he loves to recline!

Note the well-ordered craft and its Skipper so jolly,

With friends, down to Marlow, he's taking to dine.

In the snug-curtained cabin, I can't help espying

A dew-clouded tankard of seltzer-and-hock,

And a plateful of peaches big babies are trying,

I note, as they glide out of Hambleden Lock!

A punt passes in, with Waltonians laden,

And boatman rugose of mahogany hue;

And then comes a youth and a sunny-haired maiden

Who sit vis-à-vis in their bass-wood canoe.

Now look at the Admiral steering the Fairy,

O, where could he find a much better crew than

His dutiful daughters, Flo, Nina, and Mary,

Who row with such grace in his trim-built randan?

I muse while the water is ebbing and flowing,

I silently smoke and serenely take stock

Of countless Thames toilers, now coming, now going,

Who take a pink ticket at Hambleden Lock!