 | The Poems of A. C. Benson |  |
162
REDITURUS
Green vales of Kent, across the blue
My heart unbidden turns to you;
Your woodlands deep, your misty skies
To me are more than paradise.
My heart unbidden turns to you;
Your woodlands deep, your misty skies
To me are more than paradise.
Here sprawls the earth, in chaos hurled,—
Brute fastness of a ruder world,—
Couched dragonlike with spine and horn,
And flushed with fury eve and morn.
Brute fastness of a ruder world,—
Couched dragonlike with spine and horn,
And flushed with fury eve and morn.
Beyond, aloft, the snow-capped dome
Hangs like a bell of fairy foam;
And frowns across the nearer wood,
In envious, aching solitude.
Hangs like a bell of fairy foam;
And frowns across the nearer wood,
In envious, aching solitude.
How free to range 'neath larger skies!
We murmur—yet the eager eyes
But change th' horizon, when we roam;
The brooding heart still sits at home.
We murmur—yet the eager eyes
But change th' horizon, when we roam;
The brooding heart still sits at home.
Ye cheer me not, O hills austere!
I may not, dare not linger here:
Yet happier, that I carry hence
Some touch of your indifference.
I may not, dare not linger here:
Yet happier, that I carry hence
Some touch of your indifference.
163
Farewell, farewell! I see you fade
Far off, a tract of rugged shade;
The sun that quits these darkening skies,
Green vales of Kent, on you shall rise.
Far off, a tract of rugged shade;
The sun that quits these darkening skies,
Green vales of Kent, on you shall rise.
| The Poems of A. C. Benson | |