| Arthur Quiller-Couch, comp. The Oxford Book of Victorian Verse. 1922. | | | | The City Clerk | | By Thomas Ashe (1836–1889) |
| | | ’TIS strange how my head runs on! ’tis a puzzle to understand | |
| Such fancies stirring in me, for a whiff of hay in the Strand! | |
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| I see the old farmhouse, and garden wall, and the bees; | |
| I see the mowers stretch’d, with their bottles, under the trees; | |
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| I hear the little brook a-ripple down in the dell; | 5 |
| I hear the old-folk croon—‘Our son, he is doing well!’ | |
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| O yes, I am doing well; but I’d be again, for a day, | |
| A simple farmer’s lad, among the girls in the hay. | | | | |
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