Explore "The Delectable Day" by Charles Kingsley on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
The boy on the famous gray pony, / Just bidding good-bye at the door, / Plucking up maiden heart for the fences / Where his brother won honour of yore.
The walk to 'the Meet' with fair children, / And women as gentle as gay, -- / Ah! how do we male hogs in armour / Deserve such companions as they?
The afternoon's wander to windward, / To meet the dear boy coming back; / And to catch, down the turns of the valley, / The last weary chime of the pack.
The climb homeward by park and by moorland, / And through the fir forests again, / While the south-west wind roars in the gloaming, / Like an ocean of seething champagne.
And at night the septette of Beethoven, / And the grandmother by in her chair, / And the foot of all feet on the sofa / Beating delicate time to the air.
Ah, God! a poor soul can but thank Thee / For such a delectable day! / Though the fury, the fool, and the swindler, / To-morrow again have their way!
Eversley, 6th November 1872.