Bright Dutch Painting

Storybook canvas,
There's a blue sky,
And a bird flies hard, as she flies down.
There's a farm in the background
With a red roof,
And a house to the side,
And the trees creep out from behind.
There's a hay bail, with a spade placed in.
And a windmill, with red sails,
And the year '1802' carved in.
Canals criss-cross the plain,
And washing dries on a line -
towels, socks and things.
A boat's moored by a bank,
And the pipe lets the water out
And lets the water in.
There's a hutch in a field in the foreground,
And nets where the fish might swim.
There's a family - two grown-ups, three kids
And they wave as the cow sails by on a crate,
With the ducks circling.
Lilipads give life to the canal,
And a single hen stands opposite,
On a lone bank, looking.