The Channel is up, the little seas are leaping, The tide is making over Arun Bar; And there’s my boat, where all the rest are sleeping And my companions are. I’ll board her, and apparel her, and I’ll mount her, My boat, that was the strongest friend to me-- That brought my boyhood to its first encounter And taught me the wide sea. Now shall I drive her, roaring hard a’ weather, Right for the salt and leave them all behind. We’ll quite forget the treacherous streets together And find--or shall we find? There is no Pilotry my soul relies on Whereby to catch beneath my bended hand, Faint and beloved along the extreme horizon That unforgotten land. We shall not round the granite piers and paven To lie to wharves we know with canvas furled. My little Boat, we shall not make the haven-- It is not of the world. Somewhere of English forelands grandly guarded It stands, but not for exiles, marked and clean; Oh! not for us. A mist has risen and marred it:-- My youth lies in between. So in this snare that holds me and appals me, Where honour hardly lives nor loves remain, The Sea compels me and my Country calls me, But stronger things restrain. * * * * * England, to me that never have malingered, Nor spoken falsely, nor your flattery used, Nor even in my rightful garden lingered:-- What have you not refused? THE SOUTH COUNTRY When I am living in the Midlands That are sodden and unkind, I light my lamp in the evening: My work is left behind; And the great hills of the South Country Come back into my mind. The great hills of the South Country They stand along the sea; And it’s there walking in the high woods That I could wish to be, And the men that were boys when I was a boy Walking along with me. The men that live in North England I saw them for a day: Their hearts are set upon the waste fells, Their skies are fast and grey; From their castle-walls a man may see The mountains far away. The men that live in West England They see the Severn strong, A-rolling on rough water brown Light aspen leaves along. They have the secret of the Rocks, And the oldest kind of song. But the men that live in the South Country Are the kindest and most wise, They get their laughter from the loud surf, And the faith in their happy eyes Comes surely from our Sister the Spring When over the sea she flies; The violets suddenly bloom at her feet, She blesses us with surprise. I never get between the pines But I smell the Sussex air; Nor I never come on a belt of sand But my home is there. And along the sky the line of the Downs So noble and so bare.