[IV. Parks Road]
Viewed yesterday, in sad elusive light,
These everlasting heptarchs, tree by tree,
Seemed filing off to exile, lingeringly,
Each with his giant falchion, kinless quite.
All the wild winter day and flooded night
They feigned to march far as the eye could see,
Through transient oceans plunging to the knee
Their centuried greaves, ebon and malachite.
To-day, accustomed bole and branch all bare
Stand with old gems inlaid. Like coloured snow
Or vista'd flame along the drowsy air,
Their gold-green lichens stir and cling and glow.
What secret craftsmen painted them so fair?
Angels of Moisture and the Long Ago.
[V. Tom]
Hark! the king bell, loud in his vesper choir.
As in between each golden roar doth come
That solemn, plangent, unregarded hum
Chiding the truant with archaic ire,
On Worcester mere far off, in elfin gyre
The wavelets laugh, and laughter showereth from
May's chestnut like a lampadarium
By Brasenose, with every point afire.
Yet over all roofs to the uttermost,
Call, Shepherd dear, from thy dream-haunted ground:
For some there be, on whatsoever coast,
In midst of any morrow's ordered round,
Hear as of old (in earth and heaven an host!)
And like young lambs, leap homeward at the sound.