A FAR PLACE
(To K. Wigram.)
Sheltered, when the rain blew over the hills it was,
Sunny all day when the days of summer were long,
Beyond all rumour of labouring towns it was,
But at dawn and evening its trees were noisy with song.
There were four elms on the southward lawn standing,
Their great trunks evenly set in a square
Of shadowed grass in spring pierced with crocuses,
And their tops met high in the empty air.
Where the morning rose the grey church was below us,
If we stood by the porch we saw on either hand
The ground falling, the trees falling, and meadows,
A river, hamlets and spires: a chequered land,
A wide country where cloud shadows went chasing
Mile after mile, diminishing fast, until
They met the far blue downs; but round the corner
The western garden lay lonely under the hill.
*****
And closed in the western garden, under the hillside,
Where silence was and the rest of the world was gone,
We saw and took the curving year's munificence:
Changing from flower to flower the garden shone.
Early its walks were fringed with little rock-plants,
Sprays and tufts of blossom, white, yellow, and blue,
And all about were sprinkled stars of narcissus,
And swathes of tulips all over the garden grew.
White groups and pink, red, crimson and lemon-yellow,
And the yellow-and-red-streaked tulips once loved by a boy;
Red and yellow their stiff and varnished petals,
And the scent of them stings me still with a youthful joy.