The Exile
Now I return to my own land and people,
Old familiar things so to recover,
Hedgerows and little lanes and meadows,
The friendliness of my own land and people.
I have seen a world-frieze of glowing orange,
Palms painted black on the satin horizon,
Palm-trees in the dusk and the silence standing
Straight and still against a background of orange;
A gorgeous magical pomp of light and colour,
A dream-world, a sparkling gem in the sunlight,
The minarets and domes of an Eastern city;
And in the midst of all the pomp of colour
My heart cried out for my own land and people;
My heart cried out for the lush meadows of England,
The hedgerows and little lanes of England,
And for the faces of my own people.
Sonnet for Helen
When you're very old, when in the candlelight your hair
Silver shews—when by the fire you spinning sit and weaving,
You will croon my verses, but in wonder, scarce believing
'Ronsard hymned my beauty in the days when I was fair.'
Never servant could you have, tho' half-asleep she were,
But would rouse herself to listen to your lyric grieving,
Wake to hear my name and your glory, my achieving,
My immortal praise of your beauty past compare.
I shall be beneath the earth, an unsubstantial shade;
Where the myrtles throw their shadow will my bones be laid.
You will be a squatting crony sighing by the fire,