Telling you of land and sea,
Of Heaven blithe and free,
How I know there to be
Such and such Castles built in Spain,
Telling also of Cockaigne,
Of that glorious kingdom, Cand,
Of the Delectable Land, 120
The land of Crooked Stiles,
The Fortunate Isles,
Of the more than three score miles
That to Babylon lead,
A pretty city indeed
Built on a four-square plan,
Of the land of the Gold Man
Whose eager horses whinny
In their cribs of gold,
Of the lands of Whipperginny, 130
Of the land where none grow old.
Especially I could tell
Of the Town of Hell,
A huddle of dirty woes
And houses in endless rows
Straggling across all space;
Hell has no market-place,
Nor point where four ways meet,
Nor principal street,
Nor barracks, nor Town Hall, 140
Nor shops at all,
Nor rest for weary feet,
Nor theatre, square, or park,
Nor lights after dark,
Nor churches nor inns,
Nor convenience for sins,
Hell nowhere begins,
Hell nowhere ends,
But over the world extends
Rambling, dreary, limitless, hated well: 150
The suburbs of itself, I say, is Hell.
But back to the sweets
Of Spenser and Keats
And the calm joy that greets
The chosen of Apollo!
Here let me mope, quirk, holloa
With a gesture that meets
The needs that I follow
In my own fierce way.
Let me be grave-gay 160
Or merry-sad,
Who rhyming here have had
Marvellous hope of achievement
And deeds of ample scope,
Then deceiving and bereavement
Of this same hope.
HENRY AND MARY
Henry was a worthy king,
Mary was his queen,
He gave to her a snowdrop,
Upon a stalk of green.
Then all for his kindness
And all for his care
She gave him a new-laid egg
In the garden there.
Love, can you sing?
I cannot sing.
Or story-tell?
Not one I know.
Then let us play at king and queen,
As down the garden lawns we go.
AN ENGLISH WOOD
This valley wood is hedged
With the set shape of things.
Here sorrows come not edged,
Here are no harpies fledged,
No roc has clapped his wings,
No gryphons wave their stings;
Here, poised in quietude
Calm elementals brood
On the set shape of things,
They fend away alarms
From this green wood.
Here nothing is that harms,
No bull with lungs of brass,
No toothed or spiny grass,
No tree whose clutching arms
Drink blood when travellers pass,
No mount of Glass.
No bardic tongues unfold
Satires or charms.
Only the lawns are soft,
The tree-stems, grave and old.
Slow branches sway aloft,
The evening air comes cold,
The sunset scatters gold.
Small grasses toss and bend,
Small pathways idly tend
Towards no certain end.