SILENCE
THOUGH I should deck you with my jewelled rhyme,
And spread my songs a carpet at your feet,
Where men may see unchanged through changing time
Your face a pattern in sad songs and sweet;
Though I should blow your honour through the earth
Or touch your gentleness on gentle strings,
Or sing abroad your beauty and your worth—
Dearest, yet these were all imperfect things.
Rather in lovely silence will I keep
The heart’s shut song no words of mine may mar,
No words of mine enrich. The ways of sleep
And prayer and pain, all things that lonely are,
All humble things that worship and rejoice
Shall weave a spell of silence for my voice.
AT YELVERTON
WHEN into Yelverton I came
I found the bracken all aflame,
The tors in their unyielding line,
The air as comforting as wine,
The swinging wind, the singing sun
At Yelverton.
At Yelverton the moor is kind
And blows its healing through my mind,
The hunchback skyline lies a mist
Of purple and of amethyst,
And up and down the smooth roads run
At Yelverton.
At Yelverton a man may stand,
The whole of Devon within his hand,
The tors in their austerity,
And far away the basking sea,
A cloth of shining silver spun
At Yelverton.
At Yelverton a man may keep
Deep silence and a deeper sleep,
Yet know the brave recurring dream
Of kingly cider, queenly cream
To bless him when his days are done
At Yelverton.