Until a flutter of blackbird wings
Shakes and makes the boughs alive,
And the gems are now no frozen things,
But apple-green buds to thrive
On sap of my May garden, how well
The green September globes will tell.
Also my pear-tree has its buds,
But they are silver yellow,
Like autumn meadows when the floods
Are silver under willow,
And here shall long and shapely pears
Be gathered while the autumn wears.
And there are sixty daffodils
Beneath my wall....
And jealousy it is that kills
This world when all
The spring’s behaviour here is spent
To make the world magnificent.
AT AN INN
We are talkative proud, and assured, and self-sufficient,
The quick of the earth this day;
This inn is ours, and its courtyard, and English history,
And the Post Office up the way.
The stars in their changes, and heavenly speculation,
The habits of birds and flowers,
And character bred of poverty and riches,
All these are ours.
The world is ours, and these its themes and its substance,
And of these we are free men and wise;
Among them all we move in possession and judgment,
For a day, till it dies.
But in eighteen-hundred-and-fifty, who were the tenants,
Sure and deliberate as we?
They knew us not in the time of their ascension,
Their self-sufficiency.
And in nineteen-hundred-and-fifty this inn shall flourish,
And history still be told,
And the heat of blood shall thrive, and speculation,
When we are cold.