The Mores

Far spread the moorey ground a level scene Bespread with rush and one eternal green That never felt the rage of blundering plough Though centurys wreathed spring's blossoms on its brow Still meeting plains that stretched them far away In uncheckt shadows of green brown, and grey Unbounded freedom ruled the wandering scene Nor fence of ownership crept in between To hide the prospect of the following eye Its only bondage was the circling sky One mighty flat undwarfed by bush and tree Spread its faint shadow of immensity And lost itself, which seemed to eke its bounds In the blue mist the horizon's edge surrounds Now this sweet vision of my boyish hours Free as spring clouds and wild as summer flowers Is faded all - a hope that blossomed free, And hath been once, no more shall ever be Inclosure came and trampled on the grave Of labour's rights and left the poor a slave And memory's pride ere want to wealth did bow Is both the shadow and the substance now The sheep and cows were free to range as then Where change might prompt nor felt the bonds of men Cows went and came, with evening morn and night, To the wild pasture as their common right And sheep, unfolded with the rising sun Heard the swains shout and felt their freedom won Tracked the red fallow field and heath and plain Then met the brook and drank and roamed again The brook that dribbled on as clear as glass Beneath the roots they hid among the grass While the glad shepherd traced their tracks along Free as the lark and happy as her song But now all's fled and flats of many a dye That seemed to lengthen with the following eye Moors, loosing from the sight, far, smooth, and blea Where swopt the plover in its pleasure free Are vanished now with commons wild and gay As poet's visions of life's early day Mulberry-bushes where the boy would run To fill his hands with fruit are grubbed and done And hedgrow-briars - flower-lovers overjoyed Came and got flower-pots - these are all destroyed And sky-bound mores in mangled garbs are left Like mighty giants of their limbs bereft Fence now meets fence in owners' little bounds Of field and meadow large as garden grounds In little parcels little minds to please With men and flocks imprisoned ill at ease Each little path that led its pleasant way As sweet as morning leading night astray Where little flowers bloomed round a varied host That travel felt delighted to be lost Nor grudged the steps that he had ta-en as vain When right roads traced his journeys and again - Nay, on a broken tree he'd sit awhile To see the mores and fields and meadows smile Sometimes with cowslaps smothered - then all white With daiseys - then the summer's splendid sight Of cornfields crimson o'er the headache bloomd Like splendid armys for the battle plumed He gazed upon them with wild fancy's eye As fallen landscapes from an evening sky These paths are stopt - the rude philistine's thrall Is laid upon them and destroyed them all Each little tyrant with his little sign Shows where man claims earth glows no more divine But paths to freedom and to childhood dear A board sticks up to notice 'no road here' And on the tree with ivy overhung The hated sign by vulgar taste is hung As tho' the very birds should learn to know When they go there they must no further go Thus, with the poor, scared freedom bade goodbye And much they feel it in the smothered sigh And birds and trees and flowers without a name All sighed when lawless law's enclosure came And dreams of plunder in such rebel schemes Have found too truly that they were but dreams.