Our forty shilling; For it's sartin sure, Turvey, Safe and sound, You danced us square, Turvey, Off the ground!' * * * * * JOHN DRINKWATER A TOWN WINDOW Beyond my window in the night Is but a drab inglorious street, Yet there the frost and clean starlight As over Warwick woods are sweet. Under the grey drift of the town The crocus works among the mould As eagerly as those that crown The Warwick spring in flame and gold. And when the tramway down the hill Across the cobbles moans and rings, There is about my window-sill The tumult of a thousand wings. OF GREATHAM (To those who live there) For peace, than knowledge more desirable, Into your Sussex quietness I came, When summer's green and gold and azure fell Over the world in flame. And peace upon your pasture-lands I found, Where grazing flocks drift on continually, As little clouds that travel with no sound Across a windless sky. Out of your oaks the birds call to their mates That brood among the pines, where hidden deep From curious eyes a world's adventure waits In columned choirs of sleep. Under the calm ascension of the night We heard the mellow lapsing and return Of night-owls purring in their groundling flight Through lanes of darkling fern. Unbroken peace when all the stars were drawn Back to their lairs of light, and ranked along From shire to shire the downs out of the dawn Were risen in golden song. * * * * * I sing of peace who have known the large unrest Of men bewildered in their travelling, And I have known the bridal earth unblest By the brigades of spring. I have known that loss. And now the broken thought Of nations marketing in death I know, The very winds to threnodies are wrought That on your downlands blow. I sing of peace. Was it but yesterday I came among your roses and your corn? Then momently amid this wrath I pray For yesterday reborn. THE CARVER IN STONE