THE ENGLISHMAN


I met a sailor in the woods,
A silver ring wore he,
His hair hung black, his eyes shone blue,
And thus he said to me:--

"What country, say, of this round earth,
What shore of what salt sea,
Be this, my son, I wander in,
And looks so strange to me?"

Says I, "O foreign sailorman,
In England now you be,
This is her wood, and there her sky,
And that her roaring sea."

He lifts his voice yet louder,
"What smell be this," says he,
"My nose on the sharp morning air
Snuffs up so greedily?"

Says I, "It is wild roses
Do smell so winsomely,
And winy briar, too," says I,
"That in these thickets be."

"And oh!" says he, "what leetle bird
Is singing in yon high tree,