TO WALTER SICKERT.
(In return for a sight of his picture "Red Clover".)
There is a country far away from here—
A world of dreams—a fair enchanted land—
Where woods bewitched and fairy forests stand,
And all the seasons rhyme through all the year.
The greenest meadows, deepest skies, are there;
There grows the rose of dreams, that never dies;
And there men's heads and hands and hearts and eyes
Are never, as here, too tired to find them fair.
Thither, when life becomes too hard to bear,
The poet and the painter steal away
To watch those glories of the night and day
Which here the days and nights so seldom wear.
In that brave land I, too, have part and lot.
Dim woods, lush meadows, little red-roofed towns,
Walled flowery gardens, wide gray moors and downs;
Sedge, meadow-sweet, and wet forget-me-not;
The Norman church, with whispering elm trees round;
A certain wood where earliest violets grow;
One wide still marsh where hidden waters flow;
The cottage porch with honey-buds enwound—
These are my portion of enchanted ground,
To these the years add somewhat in their flight;
Some wood or field, deep-dyed in heart's delight,
Becomes my own—treasure to her who found.
To my dream fields your art adds one field more,
A field of red, red clover, blossoming,
Where the sun shines, and where more skylarks sing
Than ever in any field of mine before.