THE WATER-MEADS OF MOTTISFONT
On the painted bridge at Mottisfont above the Test I’ve stoodWhere the dab-chick from a rushy raft directs her little brood,Where fringed with sedge and willow-weed the waters spread aboutAnd linger in pellucid glooms the sleepy spotted trout.I’ve seen the tawny tumult of the headlong Highland spate,And the ebb round Hair-brush Island (which the map calls Chiswick Ait)Where the withy bristles shimmer and the purple mud-banks gleamAnd the lights come out by Thornycroft’s and glisten in the stream.’Twere good to be at Abergeirch: the little brook againGreets the brine among the shingle on the beetling coast of Lleyn,—O the shallows on the sand-banks where the dozing flat-fish lieAnd the heather surging inland till it breaks against the sky!But the chalky scaurs of Compton hold the shadows; and betweenLie the water-meads of Mottisfont enamelled with such greenAs discolours all I’ve looked upon in valleys far apart—For the water-meads of Mottisfont lie nearest to my heart.
On the painted bridge at Mottisfont above the Test I’ve stoodWhere the dab-chick from a rushy raft directs her little brood,Where fringed with sedge and willow-weed the waters spread aboutAnd linger in pellucid glooms the sleepy spotted trout.I’ve seen the tawny tumult of the headlong Highland spate,And the ebb round Hair-brush Island (which the map calls Chiswick Ait)Where the withy bristles shimmer and the purple mud-banks gleamAnd the lights come out by Thornycroft’s and glisten in the stream.’Twere good to be at Abergeirch: the little brook againGreets the brine among the shingle on the beetling coast of Lleyn,—O the shallows on the sand-banks where the dozing flat-fish lieAnd the heather surging inland till it breaks against the sky!But the chalky scaurs of Compton hold the shadows; and betweenLie the water-meads of Mottisfont enamelled with such greenAs discolours all I’ve looked upon in valleys far apart—For the water-meads of Mottisfont lie nearest to my heart.
On the painted bridge at Mottisfont above the Test I’ve stoodWhere the dab-chick from a rushy raft directs her little brood,Where fringed with sedge and willow-weed the waters spread aboutAnd linger in pellucid glooms the sleepy spotted trout.
I’ve seen the tawny tumult of the headlong Highland spate,And the ebb round Hair-brush Island (which the map calls Chiswick Ait)Where the withy bristles shimmer and the purple mud-banks gleamAnd the lights come out by Thornycroft’s and glisten in the stream.
’Twere good to be at Abergeirch: the little brook againGreets the brine among the shingle on the beetling coast of Lleyn,—O the shallows on the sand-banks where the dozing flat-fish lieAnd the heather surging inland till it breaks against the sky!
But the chalky scaurs of Compton hold the shadows; and betweenLie the water-meads of Mottisfont enamelled with such greenAs discolours all I’ve looked upon in valleys far apart—For the water-meads of Mottisfont lie nearest to my heart.