A TREE SONG

Of all the trees that grow so fair,
Old England to adorn,

Greater are none beneath the Sun,
Than Oak, and Ash, and Thorn.
Sing Oak, and Ash, and Thorn, good Sirs
(All of a Midsummer morn)!

Surely we sing no little thing,
In Oak, and Ash, and Thorn!

Oak of the Clay lived many a day,
Or ever Æneas began;

Ash of the Loam was a lady at home,
When Brut was an outlaw man;

Thorn of the Down saw New Troy Town
(From which was London born);
Witness hereby the ancientry

Of Oak, and Ash, and Thorn!

Yew that is old in churchyard mould,
He breedeth a mighty bow;

Alder for shoes do wise men choose,

And beech for cups also.

But when ye have killed, and your bowl is spilled,

And your shoes are clean outworn,

Back ye must speed for all that ye need,

To Oak, and Ash, and Thorn!

Ellum she hateth mankind, and waiteth
Till every gust be laid,

To drop a limb on the head of him,
That anyway trusts her shade:
But whether a lad be sober or sad,
Or mellow with ale from the horn,
He will take no wrong when he lieth along
'Neath Oak, and Ash, and Thorn!

Oh, do not tell the Priest our plight,
Or he would call it a sin;

But we have been out in the woods all night,
A-conjuring Summer in!

And we bring you news by word of mouth-
Good news for cattle and corn-

Now is the Sun come up from the South,
With Oak, and Ash, and Thorn!

Sing Oak, and Ash, and Thorn, good Sirs
(All of a Midsummer morn)!

England shall bide till Judgment Tide,
By Oak, and Ash, and Thorn!

YOUNG MEN AT THE MANOR

T

YOUNG MEN AT THE MANOR

HEY were fishing, a few days later, in the bed of the brook that for centuries had cut deep into the soft valley soil. The trees closing overhead made long tunnels through which the sunshine worked in blobs and patches. Down in the tunnels were bars of sand and gravel, old roots and trunks covered with moss or painted red by the irony water; foxgloves growing lean and pale towards the light; clumps of fern and thirsty shy flowers who could not live away from moisture and shade. In the pools you could see the wave thrown up by the trouts as they charged hither and yon, and the pools were joined to each otherexcept in flood time, when all was one brown rushby sheets of thin broken water that poured themselves chuckling round the darkness of the next bend.

This was one of the children's most secret huntinggrounds, and their particular friend, old Hobden the hedger, had shown them how to use it. Except for the click of a rod hitting a low willow, or a switch and tussle among the young ash-leaves as a line hung up for the minute, nobody in the hot pasture could have guessed what game was going on among the trouts below the banks.

'We's got half-a-dozen,' said Dan, after a warm, wet hour. I vote we go up to Stone Bay and try Long Pool.'