Explore "The Childless Father" by Alice Meynell on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
‘UP, Timothy, up with your staff and away!
Not a soul in the village this morning will stay;
The hare has just started from Hamilton's grounds,
And Skiddaw is glad with the cry of the hounds.'
-Of coats and of jackets grey, scarlet, and green,
On the slopes of the pastures all colours were seen;
With their comely blue aprons, and caps white as snow,
The girls on the hills made a holiday show.
The basin of boxwood, {244} just six months before, / Had stood on the table at Timothy's door; / A coffin through Timothy's threshold had passed; / One child did it bear, and that child was his last.
Now fast up the dell came the noise and the fray, / The horse and the horn, and the ‘hark! hark away!' / Old Timothy took up his staff, and he shut, / With a leisurely motion, the door of his hut.
Perhaps to himself at that moment he said, / ‘The key I must take, for my Helen is dead.' / But of this in my ears not a word did he speak, / And he went to the chase with a tear on his cheek.