A Selection from the Lyrical Poems of Robert Herrick

33. HIS GRANGE, OR PRIVATE WEALTH

     Though clock,
     To tell how night draws hence, I've none,
     A cock
     I have to sing how day draws on:
     I have
     A maid, my Prue, by good luck sent,
     To save
     That little, Fates me gave or lent.
     A hen
     I keep, which, creeking day by day,
     Tells when
     She goes her long white egg to lay:
     A goose
     I have, which, with a jealous ear,
     Lets loose
     Her tongue, to tell what danger's near.
     A lamb
     I keep, tame, with my morsels fed,
     Whose dam
     An orphan left him, lately dead:
     A cat
     I keep, that plays about my house,
     Grown fat
     With eating many a miching mouse:
     To these
     A Trasy I do keep, whereby
     I please
     The more my rural privacy:
     Which are
     But toys, to give my heart some ease:—
     Where care
     None is, slight things do lightly please.