Old Times at Otterbourne

longer old times. The water works for the supply of Southampton are our last novelty, by which such of us benefit, as either themselves or their landlords pay a small contribution. They have given us some red buildings at one end and on the Hill a queer little round tower containing the staircase leading to the underground reservoir, a wonderful construction of circles of brick pillars and arches, as those remember who visited it before the water was let in. And, verily, we may be thankful that our record has so few events in it, no terrible disasters, but that there has been peace and health and comfort, more than falls to the lot of many a parish. Truly we may thankfully say, 'The lot is fallen unto me in a fair ground, yea, I have a goodly heritage.'

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Old Remembrances.

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I remember, I remember,

Old times at Otterbourne,

Before the building of the Church,

And when smock frocks were worn!

I remember, I remember,

When railroads there were none,

When by stage coach at early dawn

The journey was begun.

And through the turnpike roads till eve

Trotted the horses four,

With inside passengers and out

They carried near a score.

'Red Rover' and the 'Telegraph,'

We knew them all by name,

And Mason's and the Oxford coach,

Full thirty of them came.

The coachman wore his many capes,

The guard his bugle blew;

The horses were a gallant sight,

Dashing upon our view.

I remember, I remember,

The posting days of old;

The yellow chariot lined with blue

And lace of colour gold.

The post-boys' jackets blue or buff,

The inns upon the road;

The hills up which we used to walk

To lighten thus the load.

The rattling up before the inn,

The horses led away,

The post-boy as he touched his hat

And came to ask his pay.

The perch aloft upon the box,

Delightful for the view;

The turnpike gates whose keepers stood

Demanding each his due.

I remember, I remember,

When ships were beauteous things,

The floating castles of the deep

Borne upon snow-white wings;

Ere iron-clads and turret ships,

Ugly as evil dream,

Became the hideous progeny

Of iron and of steam.

You crossed the Itchen ferry

All in an open boat,

Now, on a panting hissing bridge

You scarcely seem afloat.

Southampton docks were sheets of mud,

Grim colliers at the quay.

No tramway, and no slender pier

To stretch into the sea.

I remember, I remember,

Long years ere Rowland Hill,

When letters covered quarto sheets

Writ with a grey goose quill;

Both hard to fold and hard to read,

Crossed to the scarlet seal;

Hardest of all to pay for ere

Their news they might reveal.

No stamp with royal head was there,

But eightpence was the sum

For every letter, all alike,

That did from London come!

I remember, I remember,

The mowing of the hay;

Scythes sweeping through the heavy grass

At breaking of the day.

The haymakers in merry ranks

Tossing the swaths so sweet,

The haycocks tanning olive-brown

In glowing summer heat.

The reapers 'mid the ruddy wheat,

The thumping of the flail,

The winnowing within the barn

By whirling round a sail.

Long ere the whirr, and buz, and rush

Became a harvest sound,

Or monsters trailed their tails of spikes,

Or ploughed the fallow ground.

Our sparks flew from the flint and steel,

No lucifers were known,

Snuffers with tallow candles came

To prune the wick o'ergrown.

Hands did the work of engines then,

But now some new machine

Must hatch the eggs, and sew the seams,