Oh shall I never never be home again!Meadows of England shining in the rainSpread wide your daisied lawns: your ramparts greenWith briar fortify, with blossom screenTill my far morning—and O streams that slowAnd pure and deep through plains and playlands go,For me your love and all your kingcups store,And—dark militia of the southern shore,Old fragrant friends—preserve me the last linesOf that long saga which you sang me, pines,When, lonely boy, beneath the chosen treeI listened, with my eyes upon the sea.
O traitor pines, you sang what life has foundThe falsest of fair tales.Earth blew a far-horn prelude all around,That native music of her forest home,While from the sea's blue fields and syren dalesShadows and light noon spectres of the foamRiding the summer galesOn aery viols plucked an idle sound.
Hearing you sing, O trees,Hearing you murmur, "There are older seas,That beat on vaster sands,
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Where the wise snailfish move their pearly towersTo carven rocks and sculptured promont'ries,"Hearing you whisper, "LandsWhere blaze the unimaginable flowers."
Beneath me in the valley waves the palm,Beneath, beyond the valley, breaks the sea;Beneath me sleep in mist and light and calmCities of Lebanon, dream-shadow-dim,Where Kings of Tyre and Kings of Tyre did ruleIn ancient days in endless dynasty,And all around the snowy mountains swimLike mighty swans, afloat in heaven's pool.
But I will walk upon the wooded hillWhere stands a grove, O pines, of sister pines,And when the downy twilight droops her wingAnd no sea glimmers and no mountain shinesMy heart shall listen still.For pines are gossip pines the wide world throughAnd full of runic tales to sigh or sing.'Tis ever sweet through pines to see the skyBlushing a deeper gold or darker blue.'Tis ever sweet to lieOn the dry carpet of the needles brown,And though the fanciful green lizard stirAnd windy odours light as thistledownBreathe from the lavdanon and lavender,Half to forget the wandering and pain,Half to remember days that have gone by,And dream and dream that I am home again!
James Elroy Flecker.
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Grow old and die, rich Day,Over some English field—Chartered to come awayWhat time to Death you yield!Pass, frost-white ghost, and thenCome forth to banish'd men!
I see the stubble's sheen,The mist and ruddled leaves,Here where the new Spring's greenFor her first rain-drops grieves.Here beechen leaves drift redLast week in England dead.
For English eyes' delightThose Autumn ghosts go free—Ghost of the field hoar-white,Ghost of the crimson tree.Grudge them not, England dear,To us thy banished here!
Arthur Shearly Cripps.
Tell the tune his feet beatOn the ground all day—Black-burnt ground and green grassSeamed with rocks of grey—"England," "England," "England,"That one word they say.
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Now they tread the beech-mast,Now the ploughland's clay,Now the faery ball-floor of her fields in May.Now her red June sorrel, now her new-turned hay,Now they keep the great road, now by sheep-path stray,Still it's "England," "England,""England" all the way!
Arthur Shearly Cripps.
On alien ground, breathing an alien air,A Roman stood, far from his ancient home,And gazing, murmured, "Ah, the hills are fair,But not the hills of Rome!"
Descendant of a race to Romans-kin,Where the old son of Empire stood, I stand.The self-same rocks fold the same valley in,Untouched of human hand.
Over another shines the self-same star,Another heart with nameless longing fills,Crying aloud, "How beautiful they are,But not our English hills!"
Mary E. Coleridge.
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He walked in glory on the hills;We dalesmen envied from afarThe heights and rose-lit pinnaclesWhich placed him nigh the evening star.
Upon the peaks they found him dead;And now we wonder if he sighedFor our low grass beneath his head,For our rude huts, before he died.
William Canton.
In the highlands, in the country places,Where the old plain men have rosy faces,And the young fair maidensQuiet eyes;Where essential silence cheers and blesses,And for ever in the hill-recessesHermore lovely musicBroods and dies.
O to mount again where erst I haunted;Where the old red hills are bird-enchanted,And the low green meadowsBright with sward;And when even dies, the million-tinted,And the night has come, and planets glinted,Lo, the valley hollowLamp-bestarred!
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O to dream, O to awake and wanderThere, and with delight to take and render,Through the trance of silence,Quiet breath;Lo! for there, among the flowers and grasses,Only the mightier movement sounds and passes;Only winds and rivers,Life and death.
Robert Louis Stevenson.
Yonder in the heather there's a bed for sleeping,Drink for one athirst, ripe blackberries to eat;Yonder in the sun the merry hares go leaping,And the pool is clear for travel-wearied feet.
Sorely throb my feet, a-tramping London highways,(Ah! the springy moss upon a northern moor!)Through the endless streets, the gloomy squares and byways,Homeless in the City, poor among the poor!
London streets are gold—ah, give me leaves a-glinting'Midst grey dykes and hedges in the autumn sun!London water's wine, poured out for all unstinting—God! For the little brooks that tumble as they run!
Oh, my heart is fain to hear the soft wind blowing,Soughing through the fir-tops up on northern fells!Oh, my eye's an ache to see the brown burns flowingThrough the peaty soil and tinkling heather-bells.
Ada Smith.
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Too soothe and mild your lowland airsFor one whose hope is gone:I'm thinking of a little tarn,Brown, very lone.
Would now the tall swift mists could layTheir wet grasp on my hair,And the great natures of the hillsRound me friendly were.
In vain!—For taking hills your plainsHave spoilt my soul, I think,But would my feet were going downTowards the brown tarn's brink.
Lascelles Abercrombie.
Blows the wind to-day, and the sun and the rain are flying,Blows the wind on the moors to-day and now,Where about the graves of the martyrs the whaups are crying,My heart remembers how!
Grey recumbent tombs of the dead in desert places,Standing stones on the vacant wine-red moor,Hills of sheep, and the homes of the silent vanished races,And winds, austere and pure:
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Be it granted me to behold you again in dying,Hills of home! and to hear again the call;Hear about the graves of the martyrs the peewees crying,And hear no more at all.
Robert Louis Stevenson.
Through the sunny gardenThe humming bees are still;The fir climbs the heather,The heather climbs the hill.
The low clouds have rivenA little rift through.The hill climbs to heaven,Far away and blue.
O the high valley, the little low hill,And the cornfield over the sea,The wind that rages and then lies still,And the clouds that rest and flee!
O the gray island in the rainbow haze,And the long thin spits of land,The roughening pastures and the stony ways,And the golden flash of the sand!
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O the red heather on the moss-wrought rock,And the fir-tree stiff and straight,The shaggy old sheep-dog barking at the flock,And the rotten old five-barred gate!
O the brown bracken, the blackberry bough,The scent of the gorse in the air!I shall love them ever as I love them now,I shall weary in Heaven to be there!
Strike, Life, a happy hour, and let me liveBut in that grace!I shall have gathered all the world can give,Unending Time and Space!
Bring light and air—the thin and shining airOf the North land,The light that falls on tower and garden there,Close to the gold sea-sand.
Bring flowers, the latest colours of the earth,Ere nun-like frostLay her hard hand upon this rainbow mirth,With twinkling emerald crossed.
The white star of the traveller's joy, the deepEmpurpled rays that hide the smoky stone,The dahlia rooted in Egyptian sleep,The last frail rose alone.
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Let music whisper from a casement setBy them of old,Where the light smell of lavender may yetRise from the soft loose mould.
Then shall I know, with eyes and ears awake,Not in bright gleams,The joy my Heavenly Father joys to makeFor men who grieve, in dreams!
Mary E. Coleridge.
God gave all men all earth to love,But since our hearts are small,Ordained for each one spot should proveBeloved over all;That as He watched Creation's birthSo we, in godlike mood,May of our love create our earthAnd see that it is good.
So one shall Baltic pines content,As one some Surrey glade,Or one the palm-grove's droned lamentBefore Levuka's trade.Each to his choice, and I rejoiceThe lot has fallen to meIn a fair ground—in a fair ground—Yea, Sussex by the sea!
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No tender-hearted garden crowns,No bosomed woods adornOur blunt, bow-headed, whale-backed Downs,But gnarled and writhen thorn—Bare slopes where chasing shadows skim,And through the gaps revealedBelt upon belt, the wooded, dimBlue goodness of the Weald.
Clean of officious fence or hedge,Half-wild and wholly tame,The wise turf cloaks the white cliff edgeAs when the Romans came.What sign of those that fought and diedAt shift of sword and sword?The barrow and the camp abide,The sunlight and the sward.
Here leaps ashore the full Sou'westAll heavy-winged with brine,Here lies above the folded crestThe Channel's leaden line;And here the sea-fogs lap and cling,And here, each warning each,The sheep-bells and the ship-bells ringAlong the hidden beach.
We have no waters to delightOur broad and brookless vales—Only the dewpond on the heightUnfed, that never fails,
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Whereby no tattered herbage tellsWhich way the season flies—Only our close-bit thyme that smellsLike dawn in Paradise.
Here through the strong unhampered daysThe tinkling silence thrills;Or little, lost. Down churches praiseThe Lord who made the hills;But here the Old Gods guard their round,And, in her secret heart,The heathen kingdom Wilfrid foundDreams, as she dwells, apart.
Though all the rest were all my share,With equal soul I'd seeHer nine-and-thirty sisters fair,Yet none more fair than she.Choose ye your need from Thames to Tweed,And I will choose insteadSuch lands as lie 'twixt Rake and Rye,Black Down and Beachy Head.
I will go out against the sunWhere the rolled scarp retires,And the Long Man of WilmingtonLooks naked toward the shires;And east till doubling Rother crawlsTo find the fickle tide,By dry and sea-forgotten walls,Our ports of stranded pride.
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I will go north about the shawsAnd the deep ghylls that breedHuge oaks and old, the which we holdNo more than "Sussex weed";Or south where windy Piddinghoe'sBegilded dolphin veers,And black beside wide-banked OuseLie down our Sussex steers.
So to the land our hearts we giveTill the sure magic strike,And Memory, Use, and Love make liveUs and our fields alike—That deeper than our speech and thought,Beyond our reason's sway,Clay of the pit whence we were wroughtYearns to its fellow-clay.
God gives all men all earth to love,But since man's heart is smallOrdains for each one spot shall proveBeloved over all.Each to his choice, and I rejoiceThe lot has fallen to meIn a fair ground—in a fair ground—Yea, Sussex by the sea!
Rudyard Kipling.
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When I am living in the Midlands,That are sodden and unkind,I light my lamp in the evening:My work is left behind;And the great hills of the South CountryCome back into my mind.
The great hills of the South CountryThey stand along the sea,And it's there, walking in the high woods,That I could wish to be,And the men that were boys when I was a boyWalking along with me.
The men that live in North EnglandI saw them for a day:Their hearts are set upon the waste fells,Their skies are fast and grey;From their castle-walls a man may seeThe mountains far away.
The men that live in West EnglandThey see the Severn strong,A-rolling on rough water brownLight aspen leaves along.They have the secret of the Rocks,And the oldest kind of song.
But the men that live in the South CountryAre the kindest and most wise,They get their laughter from the loud surf,And the faith in their happy eyes
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Comes surely from our Sister the SpringWhen over the sea she flies;The violets suddenly bloom at her feet,She blesses us with surprise.
I never get between the pinesBut I smell the Sussex air;Nor I never come on a belt of sandBut my home is there.And along the sky the line of the DownsSo noble and so bare.
A lost thing could I never find,Nor a broken thing mend:And I fear I shall be all aloneWhen I get towards the end.Who will there be to comfort meOr who will be my friend?
I will gather and carefully make my friendsOf the men of the Sussex Weald,They watch the stars from silent folds,They stiffly plough the field.By them and the God of the South CountryMy poor soul shall be healed.
If I ever become a rich man,Or if ever I grow to be old,I will build a house with deep thatchTo shelter me from the cold,And there shall the Sussex songs be sungAnd the story of Sussex told.
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I will hold my house in the high wood,Within a walk of the sea,And the men that were boys when I was a boyShall sit and drink with me.
Hilaire Belloc.
Say what you will, there is not in the worldA nobler sight than from this upper down.No rugged landscape here, no beauty hurledFrom its Creator's hand as with a frown;But a green plain on which green hills look downTrim as a garden plot. No other hueCan hence be seen, save here and there the brownOf a square fallow, and the horizon's blue.Dear checker-work of woods, the Sussex weald.If a name thrills me yet of things of earth,That name is thine! How often I have fledTo thy deep hedgerows and embraced each field,Each lag, each pasture,—fields which gave me birthAnd saw my youth, and which must hold me dead.
Wilfrid Blunt.
As I went down to Dymchurch Wall,I heard the South sing o'er the land;I saw the yellow sunlight fallOn knolls where Norman churches stand.
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And ringing shrilly, taut and lithe,Within the wind a core of sound,The wire from Romney town to HytheAlone its airy journey wound.
A veil of purple vapour flowedAnd trailed its fringe along the Straits;The upper air like sapphire glowed;And roses filled Heaven's central gates.
Masts in the offing wagged their tops;The swinging waves pealed on the shore;The saffron beach, all diamond dropsAnd beads of surge, prolonged the roar.
As I came up from Dymchurch Wall,I saw above the Down's low crestThe crimson brands of sunset fall,Flicker and fade from out the west.
Night sank: like flakes of silver fireThe stars in one great shower came down;Shrill blew the wind; and shrill the wireRang out from Hythe to Romney town.
The darkly shining salt sea dropsStreamed as the waves clashed on the shore;The beach, with all its organ stopsPealing again, prolonged the roar.
John Davidson.
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Below the down the stranded townWhat may betide forlornly waits,With memories of smoky skies,When Gallic navies crossed the straits;When waves with fire and blood grew bright,And cannon thundered through the night.
With swinging stride the rhythmic tideBore to the harbour barque and sloop;Across the bar the ship of war,In castled stern and lanterned poop,Came up with conquests on her lee,The stately mistress of the sea.
Where argosies have wooed the breeze,The simple sheep are feeding now;And near and far across the barThe ploughman whistles at the plough;Where once the long waves washed the shore,Larks from their lowly lodgings soar.
Below the down the stranded townHears far away the rollers beat;About the wall the seabirds call;The salt wind murmurs through the street;Forlorn the sea's forsaken brideAwaits the end that shall betide.
John Davidson.
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I go through the fields of blue waterOn the South road of the sea.High to North the East-CountryHolds her green fields to me—For she that I gave over,Gives not over me.
Last night I lay at Good EasterUnder a hedge I knew,Last night beyond High EasterI trod the May-floors blue—Tilt from the sea the sun cameBidding me wake and rue.
Roding (that names eight churches)—Banks with the paigles dight—Chelmer whose mill and willowsKeep one red tower in sight—Under the Southern Cross runBeside the ship to-night.
Ah! I may not seek back now,Neither be turned nor stayed.Yet should I live, I'd seek her,Once that my vows are paid!And should I die I'd haunt her—I being what God made!
England has greater counties—Their peace to hers is small.
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Low hills, rich fields, calm rivers,In Essex seek them all,—Essex, where I that found themFound to lose them all!
Arthur Shearly Cripps.
Beyond my window in the nightIs but a drab inglorious street,Yet there the frost and clean starlightAs over Warwick woods are sweet.
Under the grey drift of the townThe crocus works among the mouldAs eagerly as those that crownThe Warwick spring in flame and gold.
And when the tramway down the hillAcross the cobbles moans and rings,There is about my window-sillThe tumult of a thousand wings.
John Drinkwater.
I never went to MambleThat lies above the Teme,So I wonder who's in Mamble,And whether people seemWho breed and brew along thereAs lazy as the name,And whether any song thereSets alehouse wits aflame.
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The finger-post says Mamble,And that is all I knowOf the narrow road to Mamble,And should I turn and goTo that place of lazy token,That lies above the Teme,There might be a Mamble brokenThat was lissom in a dream.
So leave the road to MambleAnd take another roadTo as good a place as MambleBe it lazy as a toad;Who travels Worcester countyTakes any place that comesWhen April tosses bountyTo the cherries and the plums.
John Drinkwater.
Oh, what know they of harboursWho toss not on the sea!They tell of fairer havens,But none so fair there be
As Plymouth town outstretchingHer quiet arms to me;Her breast's broad welcome spreadingFrom Mewstone to Penlee.
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Ah, with this home-thought, darling,Come crowding thoughts of thee.Oh, what know they of harboursWho toss not on the sea!
Ernest Radford.
I came to Oxford in the lightOf a spring-coloured afternoon;Some clouds were grey and some were white,And all were blown to such a tuneOf quiet rapture in the sky,I laughed to see them laughing by.
I had been dreaming in the trainWith thoughts at random from my book;I looked, and read, and looked again,And suddenly to greet my lookOxford shone up with every towerAspiring sweetly like a flower.
Home turn the feet of men that seek,And home the hearts of children turn,And none can teach the hour to speakWhat every hour is free to learn;And all discover, late or soon,Their golden Oxford afternoon.
Gerald Gould.
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Know you her secret none can utter?Hers of the Book, the tripled Crown?Still on the spire the pigeons flutter,Still by the gateway flits the gown;Still on the street, from corbel and gutter,Faces of stone look down.
Faces of stone, and stonier faces—Some from library windows wanForth on her gardens, her green spaces,Peer and turn to their books anon.Hence, my Muse, from the green oasesGather the tent, begone!
Nay, should she by the pavement lingerUnder the rooms where once she played,Who from the feast would rise to fling herOne poorsoufor her serenade?One short laugh for the antic fingerThrumming a lute-string frayed?
Once, my dear—but the world was young then—Magdalen elms and Trinity limes—Lissom the blades and the backs that swung then,Eight good men in the good old times—Careless we, and the chorus flung thenUnder St. Mary's chimes!
Reins lay loose and the ways led random—Christ Church meadow and Iffley track,
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"Idleness horrid and dog-cart" (tandem),Aylesbury grind and Bicester pack—Pleasant our lines, and faith! we scanned 'em;Having that artless knack.
Come, old limmer, the times grow colder;Leaves of the creeper redden and fall.Was it a hand then clapped my shoulder?—Only the wind by the chapel wall!Dead leaves drift on the lute . . . So fold herUnder the faded shawl.
Never we wince, though none deplore us,We who go reaping that we sowed;Cities at cockcrow wake before us—Hey, for the lilt of the London road!One look back, and a rousing chorus!Never a palinode!
Still on her spire the pigeons hover;Still by her gateway haunts the gown.Ah, but her secret? You, young lover,Drumming her old ones forth from town,Know you the secret none discover?Tell it—whenyougo down.
Yet if at length you seek her, prove her,Lean to her whispers never so nigh;Yet if at last not less her loverYou in your hansom leave the High;Down from her towers a ray shall hover—Touch you, a passer-by.
Arthur Quiller-Couch.
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I will not try the reach again,I will not set my sail alone,To moor a boat bereft of menAt Yarnton's tiny docks of stone.
But I will sit beside the fire,And put my hand before my eyes,And trace, to fill my heart's desire,The last of all our Odysseys.
The quiet evening kept her tryst:Beneath an open sky we rode,And passed into a wandering mistAlong the perfect Evenlode.
The tender Evenlode that makesHer meadows hush to hear the soundOf waters mingling in the brakes,And binds my heart to English ground.
A lovely river, all alone,She lingers in the hills and holdsA hundred little towns of stone,Forgotten in the western wolds.
Hilaire Belloc.
Cambridge town is a beleaguered city;For south and north, like a sea,There beat on its gates, without haste or pity,The downs and the fen country.
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Cambridge towers, so old, so wise,They were builded but yesterday,Watched by sleepy gray secret eyesThat smiled as at children's play.
Roads south of Cambridge run into the waste,Where learning and lamps are not,And the pale downs tumble, blind, chalk-faced,And the brooding churches squat.
Roads north of Cambridge march through a plainLevel like the traitor sea.It will swallow its ships, and turn and smile again—The insatiable fen country.
Lest the downs and the fens should eat Cambridge up,And its towers be tossed and thrown,And its rich wine drunk from its broken cup,And its beauty no more known—
Let us come, you and I, where the roads run blind,Out beyond the transient city,That our love, mingling with earth, may findHer imperishable heart of pity.
Rose Macaulay.
Café des Westens, Berlin
Just now the lilac is in bloom,All before my little room;And in my flower-beds, I think,
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Smile the carnation and the pink;And down the borders, well I know,The poppy and the pansy blow . . .Oh! there the chestnuts, summer through,Beside the river make for youA tunnel of green gloom, and sleepDeeply above; and green and deepThe stream mysterious glides beneath,Green as a dream and deep as death.—Oh, damn! I know it! and I knowHow the May fields all golden show,And when the day is young and sweet,Gild gloriously the bare feetThat run to bathe . . .Du lieber Gott!
Here am I, sweating, sick, and hot,And there the shadowed waters freshLean up to embrace the naked flesh.TemperamentvollGerman JewsDrink beer around; andtherethe dewsAre soft beneath a morn of gold.Here tulips bloom as they are told;Unkempt about those hedges blowsAn English unofficial rose;And there the unregulated sunSlopes down to rest when day is done,And wakes a vague unpunctual star,A slippered Hesper; and there areMeads towards Haslingfield and CotonWheredas Betreten'snotverboten. . .
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Eithe genoimên. . . would I wereIn Grantchester, in Grantchester!—Some, it may be, can get in touchWith Nature there, or Earth, or such.And clever modern men have seenA Faun a-peeping through the green,And felt the Classics were not dead,To glimpse a Naiad's reedy head,Or hear the Goat-foot piping low . . .But these are things I do not know.I only know that you may lieDay long and watch the Cambridge sky,And, flower-lulled in sleepy grass,Hear the cool lapse of hours pass,Until the centuries blend and blurIn Grantchester, in Grantchester . . .Still in the dawnlit waters coolHis ghostly Lordship swims his pool,And tries the strokes, essays the tricks,Long learnt on Hellespont, or Styx;Dan Chaucer hears his river stillChatter beneath a phantom mill;Tennyson notes, with studious eye,How Cambridge waters hurry by . . .And in that garden, black and whiteCreep whispers through the grass all night;And spectral dance, before the dawn,A hundred Vicars down the lawn;Curates, long dust, will come and goOn lissom, clerical, printless toe;And oft between the boughs is seen
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The sly shade of a Rural Dean . . .Till, at a shiver in the skies,Vanishing with Satanic cries,The prim ecclesiastic routLeaves but a startled sleeper-out,Grey heavens, the first bird's drowsy calls,The falling house that never falls.
God! I will pack, and take a train,And get me to England once again!For England's the one land, I know,Where men with Splendid Hearts may go;And Cambridgeshire, of all England,The shire for Men who Understand;And ofthatdistrict I preferThe lovely hamlet Grantchester.For Cambridge people rarely smile,Being urban, squat, and packed with guile;And Royston men in the far SouthAre black and fierce and strange of mouth;At Over they fling oaths at one,And worse than oaths at Trumpington,And Ditton girls are mean and dirty,And there's none in Harston under thirty,And folks in Shelford and those parts,Have twisted lips and twisted hearts,And Barton men make cockney rhymes,And Coton's full of nameless crimes,And things are done you'd not believeAt Madingley on Christmas Eve.Strong men have run for miles and miles
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When one from Cherry Hinton smiles;Strong men have blanched and shot their wivesRather than send them to St. Ives;Strong men have cried like babes, bydam,To hear what happened at Babraham.But Grantchester! ah, Grantchester!There's peace and holy quiet there,Great clouds along pacific skies,And men and women with straight eyes,Lithe children lovelier than a dream,A bosky wood, a slumbrous stream,And little kindly winds that creepRound twilight corners, half asleep.In Grantchester their skins are white,They bathe by day, they bathe by night;The women there do all they ought;The men observe the Rules of Thought.They love the Good; they worship Truth;They laugh uproariously in youth;(And when they get to feeling old,They up and shoot themselves, I'm told) . . .
Ah God! to see the branches stirAcross the moon at Grantchester!To smell the thrilling-sweet and rotten,Unforgettable, unforgottenRiver smell, and hear the breezeSobbing in the little trees.Say, do the elm-clumps greatly stand,Still guardians of that holy land?The chestnuts shade, in reverend dream,
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The yet unacademic stream?Is dawn a secret shy and coldAnadyomene, silver-gold?And sunset still a golden seaFrom Haslingfield to Madingley?And after, ere the night is born,Do hares come out about the corn?Oh, is the water sweet and coolGentle and brown, above the pool?And laughs the immortal river stillUnder the mill, under the mill?Say, is there Beauty yet to find?And Certainty? and Quiet kind?Deep meadows yet, for to forgetThe lies, and truths, and pain? . . . oh! yetStands the Church clock at ten to three?And is there honey still for tea?
Rupert Brooke.
Can I forget the sweet days that have been,When poetry first began to warm my blood;When from the hills of Gwent I saw the earthBurned into two by Severn's silver flood:
When I would go alone at night to seeThe moonlight, like a big white butterfly,Dreaming on that old castle near Caerleon,While at its side the Usk went softly by:
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When I would stare at lovely clouds in Heaven,Or watch them when reported by deep streams;When feeling pressed like thunder, but would notBreak into that grand music of my dreams?
Can I forget the sweet days that have been,The villages so green I have been in;Llantarnam, Magor, Malpas, and Llanwern,Liswery, old Caerleon, and Alteryn?
Can I forget the banks of Malpas Brook,Or Ebbw's voice in such a wild delight,As on he dashed with pebbles in his throat,Gurgling towards the sea with all his might?
Ah, when I see a leafy village nowI sigh and ask it for Llantarnam's green;I ask each river where is Ebbw's voice—In memory of the sweet days that have been.
William H. Davies.
I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee,And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
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And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,And evening full of the linnet's wings.
I will arise and go now, for always night and dayI hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray,I hear it in the deep heart's core.
W. B. Yeats.
Buy English posies!Kent and Surrey may—Violets of the UndercliffWet with Channel spray;Cowslips from a Devon combe—Midland furze afire—Buy my English posies,And I'll sell your heart's desire!
Buy my English posies!You that scorn the may,Won't you greet a friend from homeHalf the world away?
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Green against the draggled drift,Faint and frail and first—Buy my Northern blood-rootAnd I'll know where you were nursed;
Robin down the logging-road whistles, "Come to me!"Spring has found the maple-grove, the sap is running free;All the winds of Canada call the ploughing-rain.Take the flower and turn the hour, and kiss your love again!
Buy my English posies!Here's to match your need—Buy a tuft of royal heath,Buy a bunch of weedWhite as sand of MuysenbergSpun before the gale—Buy my heath and liliesAnd I'll tell you whence you hail!
Under hot Constantia broad the vineyards lie—Throned and thorned the aching berg props the speckless sky—Slow below the Wynberg firs trails the tilted wain—Take the flower and turn the hour, and kiss your love again.
Buy my English posies!You that will not turn—Buy my hot-wood clematisBuy a frond o' fern
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Gather'd where the Erskine leapsDown the road to Lorne—Buy my Christmas creeperAnd I'll say where you were born!
West away from Melbourne dust holidays begin—They that mock at Paradise woo at Cora Lynn—Through the great South Otway gums sings the great South Main—Take the flower and turn the hour, and kiss your love again.
Buy my English posies!Here's your choice unsold!Buy a blood-red myrtle-bloom,Buy the kowhai's goldFlung for gift on Taupo's face,Sign that spring is come—Buy my clinging myrtleAnd I'll give you back your home!
Broom behind the windy town; pollen o' the pine—Bell-bird in the leafy deep where theratastwine—Fern above the saddle-bow, flax upon the plain—Take the flower and turn the hour, and kiss your love again.
Buy my English posies!Ye that have your ownBuy them for a brother's sakeOverseas, alone.
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Weed ye trample underfootFloods his heart abrim—Bird ye never heeded,O, she calls his dead to him.
Far and far our homes are set round the Seven Seas;Woe for us if we forget, we that hold by these!Unto each his mother-beach, bloom and bird and land—Masters of the Seven Seas, oh, love and understand.
Rudyard Kipling.
A naked house, a naked moor,A shivering pool before the door,A garden bare of flowers and fruitAnd poplars at the garden foot.Such is the place that I live in,Bleak without and bare within.
Yet shall your ragged moor receiveThe incomparable pomp of eve,And the cold glories of the dawnBehind your shivering trees be drawn;And when the wind from place to placeDoth the unmoored cloud-galleons chase,Your garden gloom and gleam again,With leaping sun, with glancing rain.Here shall the wizard moon ascendThe heavens, in the crimson end
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Of day's declining splendour; hereThe army of the stars appear.The neighbour hollows dry or wet,Spring shall with tender flowers beset;And oft the morning muser seeLarks rising from the broomy lea,And every fairy wheel and threadOf cobweb dew-bediamonded.When daisies go, shall winter timeSilver the simple grass with rime;Autumnal frosts enchant the poolAnd make the cart-ruts beautiful;And when snow-bright the moor expands,How shall your children clap their hands!To make this earth our hermitage,A cheerful and a changeful page,God's bright and intricate deviceOf days and seasons doth suffice.
Robert Louis Stevenson.
Out of my door I step intoThe country, all her scent and dew,Nor travel there by a hard road,Dusty and far from my abode.
The country washes to my doorGreen miles on miles in soft uproar,The thunder of the woods, and thenThe backwash of green surf again.
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Beyond the feverfew and stocks,The guelder-rose and hollyhocks;Outside my trellised porch a treeOf lilac frames a sky for me.
A stretch of primrose and pale greenTo hold the tender Hesper in;Hesper that by the moon makes paleHer silver keel and silver sail.
The country silence wraps me quite,Silence and song and pure delight;The country beckons all the daySmiling, and but a step away.
This is that country seen acrossHow many a league of love and loss,Prayed for and longed for, and as farAs fountains in the desert are.
This is that country at my door,Whose fragrant airs run on before,And call me when the first birds stirIn the green wood to walk with her.
Katharine Tynan.
When I did wake this morn from sleep,It seemed I heard birds in a dream;Then I arose to take the air—The lovely air that made birds scream;Just as a green hill launched the shipOf gold, to take its first clear dip.
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And it began its journey then,As I came forth to take the air;The timid Stars had vanished quite,The Moon was dying with a stare;Horses, and kine, and sheep were seen,As still as pictures, in fields green.
It seemed as though I had surprisedAnd trespassed in a golden worldThat should have passed while men still slept!The joyful birds, the ship of gold,The horses, kine, and sheep did seemAs they would vanish for a dream.
William H. Davies.
The hill pines were sighing,O'ercast and chill was the day:A mist in the valley lyingBlotted the pleasant May.
But deep in the glen's bosomSummer slept in the fireOf the odorous gorse-blossomAnd the hot scent of the brier.
A ribald cuckoo clamoured,And out of the copse the strokeOf the iron axe that hammeredThe iron heart of the oak.
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Anon a sound appalling,As a hundred years of prideCrashed, in the silence falling;And the shadowy pine-trees sighed.
Robert Bridges.
When skies are blue and days are brightA kitchen-garden's my delight,Set round with rows of decent boxAnd blowsy girls of hollyhocks.
Before the lark his Lauds hath doneAnd ere the corncrake's southward gone;Before the thrush good-night hath saidAnd the young Summer's put to bed.
The currant-bushes' spicy smell,Homely and honest, likes me well,The while on strawberries I feast,And raspberries the sun hath kissed.
Beans all a-blowing by a row.Of hives that great with honey go,With mignonette and heaths to yieldThe plundering bee his honey-field.
Sweet herbs in plenty, blue borageAnd the delicious mint and sage,Rosemary, marjoram, and rue,And thyme to scent the winter through.
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Here are small apples growing round,And apricots all golden-gowned,And plums that presently will flushAnd show their bush a Burning Bush.
Cherries in nets against the wall,Where Master Thrush his madrigalSings, and makes oath a churl is heWho grudges cherries for a fee.
Lavender, sweet-briar, orris. HereShall Beauty make her pomander,Her sweet-balls for to lay in clothesThat wrap her as the leaves the rose.
Take roses red and lilies white,A kitchen garden's my delight;Its gillyflowers and phlox and cloves,And its tall cote of irised doves.
Katharine Tynan.
There is a hill beside the silver Thames,Shady with birch and beech and odorous pineAnd brilliant underfoot with thousand gemsSteeply the thickets to his floods decline.Straight trees in every placeTheir thick tops interlace,And pendent branches trail their foliage fineUpon his watery face.
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Swift from the sweltering pasturage he flows:His stream, alert to seek the pleasant shade,Pictures his gentle purpose, as he goesStraight to the caverned pool his toil has made.His winter floods lay bareThe stout roots in the air:His summer streams are cool, when they have playedAmong their fibrous hair.
A rushy island guards the sacred bower,And hides it from the meadow, where in peaceThe lazy cows wrench many a scented flower,Robbing the golden market of the bees:And laden barges floatBy banks of myosote;And scented flag and golden flower-de-lysDelay the loitering boat.
And on this side the island, where the poolEddies away, are tangled mass on massThe water-weeds, that net the fishes cool,And scarce allow a narrow stream to pass;Where spreading crowfoot marsThe drowning nenuphars,Waving the tassels of her silken grassBelow her silver stars.
But in the purple pool there nothing grows,Not the white water-lily spoked with gold;
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Though best she loves the hollows, and well knowsOn quiet streams her broad shields to unfold:Yet should her roots but tryWithin these deeps to lie,Not her long-reaching stalk could ever holdHer waxen head so high.
Sometimes an angler comes, and drops his hookWithin its hidden depths, and 'gainst a treeLeaning his rod, reads in some pleasant book,Forgetting soon his pride of fishery;And dreams, or falls asleep,While curious fishes peepAbout his nibbled bait, or scornfullyDart off and rise and leap.
And sometimes a slow figure 'neath the trees,In ancient-fashioned smock, with tottering careUpon a staff propping his weary knees.May by the pathway of the forest fare:As from a buried dayAcross the mind will straySome perishing mute shadow,—and unawareHe passeth on his way.
Else, he that wishes solitude is safe,Whether he bathe at morning in the stream:Or lead his love there when the hot hours chafeThe meadows, busy with a blurring steam;Or watch, as fades the light,The gibbous moon grow bright,Until her magic rays dance in a dream,And glorify the night.
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Where is this bower beside the silver Thames?O pool and flowery thickets, hear my vow!O trees of freshest foliage and straight stems,No sharer of my secret I allow:Lest ere I come the whileStrange feet your shades defile;Or lest the burly oarsman turn his prowWithin your guardian isle.
Robert Bridges.
In the time of wild rosesAs up Thames we travelledWhere 'mid water-weeds ravelledThe lily uncloses,
To his old shores the riverA new song was singing,And young shoots were springingOn old roots for ever.
Dog-daisies were dancing,And flags flamed in cluster,On the dark stream a lustreNow blurred and now glancing.
A tall reed down-weighingThe sedge-warbler fluttered;One sweet note he uttered,Then left it soft-swaying.
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By the bank's sandy hollowMy dipt oars went beating,And past our bows fleetingBlue-backed shone the swallow.
High woods, heron-haunted,Rose, changed, as we roundedOld hills greenly mounded,To meadows enchanted.
A dream ever mouldedAfresh for our wonder,Still opening asunderFor the stream many-folded;
Till sunset was rimmingThe West with pale flushes;Behind the black rushesThe last light was dimming;
And the lonely stream, hidingShy birds, grew more lonely,And with us was onlyThe noise of our gliding.
In cloud of gray weatherThe evening o'erdarkened,In the stillness we hearkened;Our hearts sang together.
Laurence Binyon.
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Row till the land dip 'neathThe sea from view.Row till a land peep up,A home for you.
Row till the mast sing songsWelcome and sweet.Row till the waves, out-stripped,Give up dead beat.
Row till the sea-nymphs riseTo ask you whyRowing you tarry notTo hear them sigh.
Row till the stars grow brightLike certain eyes.Row till the noon be highAs hopes you prize.
Row till you harbour inAll longing's port.Row till you find all thingsFor which you sought.
T. Sturge Moore.