Edmund William Gosse

Dedication to Austin Dobson

NEIGHBOUR of the near domain,
Stay awhile your passing wain!
Though to give is more your way,
Take a gift from me to-day!
From my homely store I bring
Signs of my poor husbanding;--
Here a spike of purple phlox,
Here a spicy bunch of stocks,
Mushrooms from my moister fields,
Apples that my orchard yields,--
Nothing,--for the show they make,
Something,--for the donor's sake;
Since for ten years we have been
Best of neighbours ever seen,
We have fronted evil weather,
Nip of critic's frost, together;
Brother not more kind to brother,
We have cheered and helped each other;
Till so far the fields of each
Into the other's stretch and reach,
That perchance when both are gone
Neither may be named alone.