Poems of To-Day: an Anthology

And windy odours light as thistledown
Breathe 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.

25. A LYKE-WAKE CAROL

Grow old and die, rich Day,
Over some English field—
Chartered to come away
What time to Death you yield!
Pass, frost-white ghost, and then
Come forth to banish'd men!

I see the stubble's sheen,
The mist and ruddled leaves,
Here where the new Spring's green
For her first rain-drops grieves.
Here beechen leaves drift red
Last week in England dead.

For English eyes' delight
Those 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.

26. A REFRAIN

Tell the tune his feet beat
On the ground all day—
Black-burnt ground and green grass
Seamed with rocks of grey—
"England," "England," "England,"
That one word they say.
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.

27. WHERE A ROMAN VILLA STOOD, ABOVE FREIBURG

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.

28. HEIGHTS AND DEPTHS

He walked in glory on the hills;
We dalesmen envied from afar
The heights and rose-lit pinnacles
Which placed him nigh the evening star.

Upon the peaks they found him dead;
And now we wonder if he sighed
For our low grass beneath his head,
For our rude huts, before he died.

    William Canton.

29. IN THE HIGHLANDS

In the highlands, in the country places,
Where the old plain men have rosy faces,
And the young fair maidens
Quiet eyes;
Where essential silence cheers and blesses,
And for ever in the hill-recesses
Her more lovely music
Broods and dies.

O to mount again where erst I haunted;
Where the old red hills are bird-enchanted,
And the low green meadows
Bright with sward;
And when even dies, the million-tinted,