I walk the old frequented ways That wind around the tangled braes, I live again the sunny days Ere I the city knew. And scenes of old again are born, The woodbine lassoing the thorn, And drooping Ruth-like in the corn The poppies weep the dew. Above me in their hundred schools The magpies bend their young to rules, And like an apron full of jewels The dewy cobweb swings. And frisking in the stream below The troutlets make the circles flow, And the hungry crane doth watch them grow As a smoker does his rings. Above me smokes the little town, With its whitewashed walls and roofs of brown And its octagon spire toned smoothly down As the holy minds within. And wondrous impudently sweet, Half of him passion, half conceit, The blackbird calls adown the street Like the piper of Hamelin. I hear him, and I feel the lure Drawing me back to the homely moor, I'll go and close the mountain's door On the city's strife and din.