I see the barns and comely manors planned By men who somehow moved in comely thought, Who, with a simple shippon to their hand, As men upon some godlike business wrought; I see the little cottages that keep Their beauty still where since Plantagenet Have come the shepherds happily to sleep, Finding the loaves and cups of cider set; I see the twisted shepherds, brown and old, Driving at dusk their glimmering sheep to fold. And now the valleys that upon the sun Broke from their opal veils, are veiled again, And the last light upon the wolds is done, And silence falls on flock and fields and men; And black upon the night I watch my hill, And the stars shine, and there an owly wing Brushes the night, and all again is still, And, from this land of worship that I sing, I turn to sleep, content that from my sires I draw the blood of England's midmost shires. THE COTSWOLD FARMERS Sometimes the ghosts forgotten go Along the hill-top way, And with long scythes of silver mow Meadows of moonlit hay, Until the cocks of Cotswold crow The coming of the day. There's Tony Turkletob who died When he could drink no more, And Uncle Heritage, the pride Of eighteen-twenty-four, And Ebenezer Barleytide, And others half a score. They fold in phantom pens, and plough Furrows without a share, And one will milk a faery cow, And one will stare and stare, And whistle ghostly tunes that now Are not sung anywhere. The moon goes down on Oakridge lea, The other world's astir, The Cotswold Farmers silently Go back to sepulchre, The sleeping watchdogs wake, and see No ghostly harvester. RECIPROCITY I do not think that skies and meadows are Moral, or that the fixture of a star Comes of a quiet spirit, or that trees Have wisdom in their windless silences. Yet these are things invested in my mood With constancy, and peace, and fortitude, That in my troubled season I can cry Upon the wide composure of the sky, And envy fields, and wish that I might be As little daunted as a star or tree. BIRTHRIGHT Lord Rameses of Egypt sighed Because a summer evening passed; And little Ariadne cried That summer fancy fell at last To dust; and young Verona died When beauty's hour was overcast. Theirs was the bitterness we know Because the clouds of hawthorn keep So short a state, and kisses go To tombs unfathomably deep, While Rameses and Romeo And little Ariadne sleep. OLTON POOLS Now June walks on the waters, And the cuckoo's last enchantment Passes from Olton pools. Now dawn comes to my window Breathing midsummer roses, And scythes are wet with dew. Is it not strange for ever That, bowered in this wonder, Man keeps a jealous heart?... That June and the June waters, And birds and dawn-lit roses, Are gospels in the wind, Fading upon the deserts, Poor pilgrim revelations?... Hist ... over Olton pools! * * * * * WALTER DE LA MARE THE SCRIBE