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