ADAM
I SAW a red sky boding woe,
The gleam of an eternal sword,
And heard the voice that bid me go
From the green garden of the Lord.
I knew the prick of Destiny,
The scorn of the relentless stars;
The very grass looked down on me—
The first of all the Avatars!
Each flower seemed to see my shame;
Each bird as though insulted flew
Before my hateful face—my name
Was blown about the whole world through!
Even my house with its red roof,
Dear as it is, looks strange and odd;
My garden beds are more aloof
From me than is my angry God!
THE ENGLISH SPRING
I LOVE each inch of English earth;
I love each stone upon the way—
Whether in Winter’s sullen dearth,
When the soil is trodden into clay—
In Autumn ripeness, or the mirth
Of a Summer’s day.
Something peculiar to our land
Is hid in even the greyest sky,
When stiff and stark the tall trees stand
And the wind is high.
But this one season of our year
Is so peculiarly an English thing,
When the woolly catkins first appear,
And yellow burgeoning
Upon the little coppice here—
This native Spring