he while,
Never getting forrarder, and not the least aware on't,
Though I stood beside her with a sort of silly smile
Stock-still! _Tick, tack_! This blooming world's a bubble:
There I stood and stared at it, mile on flowery mile,
Chasing o' the sunset,--"Gals are sure to meet wi' trouble
Staying out o' nights," I says, once more, and tries to smile,
"Come, that ain't your style,
Here's a shilling, mother, for to-day I've made my pile!"

X

Yus, a dozen coppers, all my capital, it fled, sir,
Representin' twelve bokays that cost me nothink each,
Twelve bokays o' corn-flowers blue that grew beside my bed, sir,
That same day, at sunrise, when the sky was like a peach:
Easy as a poet's dreams they blossomed round my head, sir,
All I had to do was just to lift my hand and reach:
So, upon the roaring waves I cast my blooming bread, sir,
Bread I'd earned with nose-gays on the bare-foot Brighton beach,
Nose-gays _and_ a speech,
All about the bright blue eyes they matched on Brighton beach.

XI

Still, you've only got to hear the bankers on the budget,
Then you'll know the giving game is hardly "high finance";
Which no more it wasn't for that poor old dame to trudge it,
_Tick, tack, tick, tack_, on such a devil's dance:
Crumbs, it took me quite aback to see her stop so humble,
Casting up into my face a sort of shiny glance,
_Bless you, bless you_, that was what I thought I heard her mumble;
Lord, a prayer for poor old Bill, a rummy sort of chance!
Crumbs, that shiny glance
Kinder made me king of all the sky from here to France.

XII

_Tick, tack, tick, tack_, but now she toddled faster:
Soon she'd reach the little twisted by-way through the wheat.
"Look 'ee here," I says, "young woman, don't you court disaster!
Peepin' through yon poppies there's a cottage trim and neat
White as chalk and sweet as turf: wot price a bed for sorrow,
Sprigs of lavender between the pillow and the sheet?"
"No," she says, "I've got to get to Piddinghoe to-morrow!
P'raps they'd tell the work'us! And I've lashings here to eat:
Don't the gorse smell sweet?"...
Well, I turned and left her plodding on beside the wheat.

XIII

Every cent I'd given her like a he