Here, in the hills of ages O mother Earth, O lover Earth, Julian Grenfell [18 -1915] HEMLOCK MOUNTAIN By orange grove and palm-tree, we walked the southern shore, Each day more still and golden than was the day before. That calm and languid sunshine! How faint it made us grow To look on Hemlock Mountain when the storm hangs low! To see its rocky pastures, its sparse but hardy corn, Tell not of lost Atlantis, or fabled Avalon; SUNRISE ON RYDAL WATER COME down at dawn from windless hills Into the valley of the lake, Where yet a larger quiet fills The hour, and mist and water make It went By Galilean prows. Sunrise on Rydal Water Moveless the water and the mist, Moveless the secret air above, Hushed, as upon some happy tryst The poised expectancy of love; What spirit is it that adores What mighty presence yet unseen? What consummation works apace Between These rapt enchanted shores? Never did virgin beauty wake Here is the bride a god may know, The god shall leap-and, lo, Over the lake's end strikes the sun- Out of the world's heart. Let there be Immortal dews and fires. So the old mating goes apace, 1437 Wind with the sea, and blood with thought, Lover with lover; and the grace Of understanding comes unsought When stars into the twilight steer, Or thrushes build among the may, Or wonder moves between the hills, And day Comes up on Rydal mere. John Drinkwater (1882 THE DESERTED PASTURE I LOVE the stony pasture That no one else will have. The old gray rocks so friendly seem, So durable and brave. In tranquil contemplation Its music is the rain-wind, Its choristers the birds, And there are secrets in its heart Too wonderful for words. It keeps the bright-eyed creatures Only the children come there, Or nuts in autumn, where it lies Long since its strength was given To making good increase, And now its soul is turned again To beauty and to peace. There in the early springtime The violets are blue, And adder-tongues in coats of gola Are garmented anew. There bayberry and aster To Meadows When marching summer halts to praise The Lord of Out-of-doors. And there October passes In gorgeous livery, In purple ash, and crimson oak, And golden tulip tree. And when the winds of winter Their bugle blasts begin, The snowy hosts of heaven arrive To pitch their tents therein. Bliss Carman [1861 1439 TO MEADOWS YE have been fresh and green; And ye the walks have been Where maids have spent their hours. Ye have beheld how they With wicker arks did come To kiss and bear away The richer cowslips home. Ye've heard them sweetly sing, But now we see none here Whose silvery feet did tread, And with dishevelled hair Adorned this smoother mead. Like unthrifts, having spent Your stock, and needy grown, Ye're left here to lament Your poor estates, alone. Robert Herrick [1591-1674] THE CLOUD I BRING fresh showers for the thirsting flowers I bear light shade for the leaves when laid From my wings are shaken the dews that waken When rocked to rest on their mother's breast, I wield the flail of the lashing hail, And whiten the green plains under; And then again I dissolve it in rain, I sift the snow on the mountains below, While I sleep in the arms of the blast. In a cavern under is fettered the thunder, Over earth and ocean, with gentle motion, Lured by the love of the Genii that move Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream, And I all the while bask in heaven's blue smile, Whilst he is dissolving in rains. The sanguine Sunrise, with his meteor eyes, Leaps on the back of my sailing rack, When the morning star shines dead, |