Our preaching-man pronounced a ban upon him, cried good riddance: he
Was like to lead young men astray because he knew geography,
(And sciences, as medicine, reduce the value of a shrine).
My tutor passed for riding gnomes through space upon a pack of tomes.
But at the water-parting I waved to the castle green and dun,
A tapestry where liquid sun—or tears—had made the colours run.
I looked my last on every stone and tree to whom my face was known.
The warriors smiled and called me child. They had not understood the Rhone,
Nor that I loved the birchwood's skin, the pansy's face, the sheep-dog's grin,
That sleep with Nature in a field was sweet to me as mortal sin.