Page:Poems by William Wordsworth (1815) Volume 1.djvu/261

201 Away she posts up hill and down,

And to the wood at length is come,

She spies her Friends, she shouts a greeting;

Oh me! it is a merry meeting

As ever was in Christendom.

The Owls have hardly sung their last,

While our four Travellers homeward wend;

The Owls have hooted all night long,

And with the Owls began my song,

And with the Owls must end.

For, while they all were travelling home,

Cried Betty, "Tell us, Johnny, do,

Where all this long night you have been,

What you have heard, what you have seen,

And, Johnny, mind you tell us true."

Now Johnny all night long had heard

The Owls in tuneful concert strive;

No doubt too he the Moon had seen;

For in the moonlight he had been

From eight o'clock till five.