Distant Hills

What is there in those distant hills     My fancy longs to see,     That many a mood of joy instils?     Say what can fancy be?     Do old oaks thicken all the woods,     With weeds and brakes as here?     Does common water make the floods,     That's common everywhere?     Is grass the green that clothes the ground?     Are springs the common springs?     Daisies and cowslips dropping round,     Are such the flowers she brings?     *    *    *    *    *     Are cottages of mud and stone,     By valley wood and glen,     And their calm dwellers little known     Men, and but common men,     That drive afield with carts and ploughs?     Such men are common here,     And pastoral maidens milking cows     Are dwelling everywhere.     If so my fancy idly clings     To notions far away,     And longs to roam for common things     All round her every day,     Right idle would the journey be     To leave one's home so far,     And see the moon I now can see     And every little star.     And have they there a night and day,     And common counted hours?     And do they see so far away     This very moon of ours?     *    *    *    *    *     I mark him climb above the trees     With one small [comrade] star,     And think me in my reveries--     He cannot shine so far.     *    *    *    *    *     The poets in the tales they tell     And with their happy powers     Have made lands where their fancies dwell     Seem better lands than ours.     Why need I sigh far hills to see     If grass is their array,     While here the little paths go through     The greenest every day?     Such fancies fill the restless mind,     At once to cheat and cheer     With thought and semblance undefined,     Nowhere and everywhere.