Poems of To-Day: an Anthology. Various

        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!

        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!

        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!"

        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.

        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,

        And the night has come, and planets glinted,

          Lo, the valley hollow

            Lamp-bestarred!

        O to dream, O to awake and wander

        There, 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.

        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