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FALSTAFF'S PAGE
To Reginald Sheffield
IN blaze of curls and cowslip-colored coat
He pranks a way before the wheezing Knight,
Tall Windsor shows no blossom like this wight
By park or sedgy pool or bearded moat;
A skylark burbles in that milk-white throat,
And I have heard him down a singing stream,
Ere the brute morn shattered my happy dream
Upon the sill, and weeping I awoke.
We had a music once; a poesie
Sweet as a maiden, lissome as this lad,
Full of rich merriment and gentle joy;
That other England lives and laughs in thee,
A peal of morris-music, blithe and glad,
Thou spray of bloom! Thou flower of a boy!
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