Soli Cantare Periti Arcades

Oh, I would live in a dairy,
And its Colin I would be,
And many a rustic fairy
Should churn the milk with me.

Or the fields should be my pleasure,
And my flocks should follow me,
Piping a frolic measure
For Joan or Marjorie.

For the town is black and weary,
And I hate the London street;
But the country ways are cheery,
And country lanes are sweet.

Good luck to you, Paris ladies!
Ye are over fine and nice
I know where the country maid is,
Who needs not asking twice.

Ye are brave in your silks and satins,
As ye mince about the Town;
But her feet go free in pattens,
If she wear a russet gown.

If she be not queen nor goddess
She shall milk my brown-eyed herds,
And the breasts beneath her bodice
Are whiter than her curds.

So I will live in a dairy,
And its Colin I will be,
And its Joan that I will marry,
Or, haply, Marjorie.

Ernest Christopher Dowson

Ernest Christopher Dowson, a notable English poet of the late 19th century, was associated with the Decadent movement. Renowned for his melancholic and evocative verse, he significantly influenced 20th-century literature. Despite struggling with poverty and alcoholism, Dowson's work, including the famous phrase "days of wine and roses," endures. He faced immense personal tragedies, losing both parents within a year, which plunged him into deeper despair. Dowson's legacy persists through his deeply moving poetry that captures the fragility of life and love.

Ernest Christopher Dowson

Libera Me

Ernest Christopher Dowson, Simple Poetry

Breton Afternoon

Ernest Christopher Dowson, Simple Poetry

The Dead Child

Ernest Christopher Dowson, Simple Poetry

Growth

Ernest Christopher Dowson, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

Lines Read At A Dairymaids' Social, 1887.

Where the young lady waiters were dressed as dairymaids.

        Throughout the world they do extol
        The fame of our town Ingersoll,
        The capital of dairyland,
        To-night it seems like fairy land,
        The youth and beauty here arrayed,
        So sweet and neat each dairymaid.

        And worthy of a poet's theme,
        Sweet and smooth flows milk and cream,
        For song or glee what is fitter
        In this land of cheese and butter,
        But no young man should be afraid
        To court a pretty dairymaid.

        And far abroad he should not roam
        But find a charmer here at home,
        Find some one now your heart to cheer,
        Thus celebrate the jubilee year,
        Remember long this ...

James McIntyre

Bringing Home The Cows

Shadows of the twilight falling
    On the mountains brow,
To each other birds are calling,
    In the leafy bough.
Where the daisies are a-springing,
And the cattle bells are ringing,
Comes my Mary, gaily singing,
    Bringing home the cows.

By a bush the pathway skirted,
    Room for two allows.
All the cornfields are deserted,
    Idle are the ploughs.
Striving for wealths spoil and booty,
Farmer boys have finished duty,
When I meet my little beauty,
    Bringing home the cows.

Tender words and kind addresses,
    Most polite of bows,
Rosy cheeks and wavy tresses
    Do my passions rouse

Dress so natty and so cleanly,
Air so modest and so queenly.
Oh! so haughty, yet serenely,
    Bringing home the cows...

Andrew Barton Paterson

The Milkmaid

Under a daisied bank
There stands a rich red ruminating cow,
And hard against her flank
A cotton-hooded milkmaid bends her brow.

The flowery river-ooze
Upheaves and falls; the milk purrs in the pail;
Few pilgrims but would choose
The peace of such a life in such a vale.

The maid breathes words - to vent,
It seems, her sense of Nature's scenery,
Of whose life, sentiment,
And essence, very part itself is she.

She bends a glance of pain,
And, at a moment, lets escape a tear;
Is it that passing train,
Whose alien whirr offends her country ear? -

Nay! Phyllis does not dwell
On visual and familiar things like these;
What moves her is the spell
Of inner themes and inner poetries:

Could but by Sunday morn
Her gay ...

Thomas Hardy

Rural Bliss

The poet is, or ought to be, a hater of the city,
    And so, when happiness is mine, and Maud becomes my wife,
We'll look on town inhabitants with sympathetic pity,
    For we shall lead a peaceful and serene Arcadian life.

Then shall I sing in eloquent and most effective phrases,
    The grandeur of geraniums and the beauty of the rose;
Immortalise in deathless strains the buttercups and daisies,
    For even I can hardly be mistaken as to those.

The music of the nightingale will ring from leafy hollow,
    And fill us with a rapture indescribable in words;
And we shall also listen to the robin and the swallow
    (I wonder if a swallow sings?) and ... well, the other birds.

Too long I dwelt in ignorance of all the countless treasures
    Which dwellers i...

Anthony Charles Deane

Ballad.

The auld wife sat at her ivied door,
(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese)
A thing she had frequently done before;
And her spectacles lay on her apron'd knees.

The piper he piped on the hill-top high,
(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese)
Till the cow said "I die," and the goose ask'd "Why?"
And the dog said nothing, but search'd for fleas.

The farmer he strode through the square farmyard;
(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese)
His last brew of ale was a trifle hard -
The connexion of which with the plot one sees.

The farmer's daughter hath frank blue eyes;
(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese)
She hears the rooks caw in the windy skies,
As she sits at her lattice and shells her peas.

The farmer's daughter hath ripe red lips;

Charles Stuart Calverley

A Farm Walk

The year stood at its equinox
    And bluff the North was blowing,
A bleat of lambs came from the flocks,
    Green hardy things were growing;
I met a maid with shining locks
    Where milky kine were lowing.

She wore a kerchief on her neck,
    Her bare arm showed its dimple,
Her apron spread without a speck,
    Her air was frank and simple.

She milked into a wooden pail
    And sang a country ditty,
An innocent fond lovers' tale,
    That was not wise nor witty,
Pathetically rustical,
    Too pointless for the city.

She kept in time without a beat
    As true as church-bell ringers,
Unless she tapped time with her feet,
    Or squeezed it with her fingers;
Her clear unstudied notes were sweet
    As many a practise...

Christina Georgina Rossetti