An Oxford Idyll

A poem by Thomas Edward Brown

Ah little mill, you're rumbling still,
Ah sunset flecked with gold!
Ah deepening tinge, ah purple fringe
Of lilac as of old!
Ah hawthorn hedge, ah light-won pledge
Of kisses warm and plenty,
When she was true, and twenty-two,
And I was two-and-twenty.
I don't know how she broke her vow,
She said that I was "horty"
And there's the mill a goin' still,
And I am five-and-forty.
And sooth to tell, 'twas just as well,
Her aitches were uncertain;
Her ways though nice, not point-device;
Her father liked his" Burton."
But there's a place you cannot trace,
So spare the fond endeavour,
A cloudless sky, where Kate and I
Are twenty-two for ever.