ON THE SOUTH COAST

COME away into the sun and see All the heavens that used to be, Daily, hourly, brought to birth Out of the deep remembering earth. This is England, this is the land That holds my heart in her sweet hand. This is she whose turf, I pray, Will hide me, on her breast, one day. Cast you down on the close-cropped turf, See how the white cliff spreads the surf, On green-eyed seas that glitter and trail Into the south like a peacock’s tail. Then, come away over the hills of thyme, Where folds like elfin belfries chime Till Eve, in a cloud of her dusky hair, Makes it Elf-land everywhere. You shall pity the king on his throne. You shall know what never was known. All the glory of all the skies Utterly yours in your true love’s eyes; All the bloom to the world’s end And all the heavens that over it bend, Compacted in one garden white, The garden of your love’s delight. This is England, this is the land That holds my soul in her sweet hand. This is she whose turf, I pray, Will hide me on her heart one day.

OLDER THAN THE HILLS

OLDER than the hills, older than the sea, Older than the heart of the Spring, O, what is this that breaks From the blind shell, wakes, Wakes, and is gone like a wing? Older than the sea, older than the moon, Older than the heart of the May, What is this blind refrain Of a song that shall remain When the singer is long gone away? Older than the moon, older than the stars, Older than the wind in the night,— Though the young dews are sweet On the heather at our feet And the blue hills laughing back the light,— Till the stars grow young, till the hills grow young, O, Love, we shall walk through Time, Till we round the world at last, And the future be the past, And the winds of Eden greet us from the prime.

THE TORCH

(Sussex Landscape)

IS it your watch-fire, elves, where the down with its darkening shoulder Lifts on the death of the sun, out of the valley of thyme? Dropt on the broad chalk path and, cresting the ridge of it, smoulder Crimson as blood on the white, halting my feet as they climb, Clusters of clover-bloom, spilled from what negligent arms in the tender Dusk of the great grey world, last of the tints of the day; Beautiful, sorrowful, strange last stain of that perishing splendour. Elves, from what torn white feet trickled that red on the way? No—from the sun-burnt hands of what lovers that fade in the distance? Here, was it here that they paused, here that the legend was told? Even a kiss would be heard in this hush; but, with mocking insistence, Now thro’ the valley resound—only the bells of the fold. Dropt—from the hands of what beautiful throng? Did they cry “follow after”? Dancing into the west, leaving this token for me, Memory dead on the path, and the sunset to bury their laughter? Youth—is it youth that has flown? Darkness covers the sea. Darkness covers the earth; but the path is here! I assay it. Let the bloom fall like a flake—dropt from the torch of a friend! Beautiful revellers, happy companions, I see and obey it; Follow your torch in the night, follow your path to the end.