One and nine-pence he gave me, I paid for the farmer's lift with
half o' the money!
Here's the ten-pence halfpenny, sonny, 'twill pay for our little
'ouse-warming tea._"

* * * *

XXXIV

_Tick, tack, tick, tack_, out into the garden
Toddles that old Fairy with his arm about her--so,
Cuddling of her still, and still a-begging of her pardon,
While she says "I wish the corn-flower king could only know!
Bless him, bless him, once again," she says and softly gazes
Up to heaven, a-smiling in her mutch as white as snow,
All among her gilly-flowers and stocks and double daisies,
Mignonette, forget-me-not,... _Twenty years ago_,
All a rosy glow,
_This is how it was_, she said, _Twenty years ago_.

* * * *

XXXV

Once again I seemed to wake, the vision it had fled, sir,
There I lay upon the downs: the sky was like a peach;
Yus, with twelve bokays of corn-flowers blue beside my bed, sir,
More than usual 'andsome, so they'd bring me two-pence each.
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,
Tie 'em with a bit of string, and earn my blooming bread, sir,
Selling little nose-gays on the bare-foot Brighton beach,
Nose-gays _and_ a speech,
All about the bright blue eyes they matched on Brighton beach.

XXXVI

Overhead the singing lark and underfoot the heather,
Far and blue in front of us the unplumbed sky,
Me and stick and bundle, O, we jogs along together,
(Changeable the weather? Well, it ain't all pie!)
Weather's like a woman, sir, and if she wants to quarrel,
If her eyes begin to flash and hair begins to fly,
You've to wait a little, then--the story has a moral--
Ain't the sunny kisses all the sweeter by and bye?--
(Crumbs, it's 'ot and dry!
Thank you, sir! Thank you, sir!) the sweeter by and bye.

XXXVII

So the world's my sweetheart and I sort of want to squeeze 'er.
Toffs 'ull get no chance of heaven, take 'em in the lump!
Never laid in hay-fields when the dawn came over-sea, sir?
Guess it's true that story 'bout the needle and the hump!
Never crept into a stack because the wind was blowing,
Hollered out a nest and closed the door-way with a clu