 | Poems at Home and Abroad |  |
46
June Twilight at Eversley
Here all day long I sit and gaze
Where lupins grow and poppies blaze,
The Rhododendrons wall me round
With colour; rooks make lazy sound,
Scented with May the soft airs pass
To stir the shadows on the grass,
While from her golden yew-tree's dome
A thrush sings loud of love and home.
How sweet from this embowered lawn
To see the distant tide withdrawn,
To watch beyond the meadow lands
Shimmer of sun on lilac sands;
But sweeter is the scene to me
When back at sunset comes the sea,
When dark in western light the Scar
Stands up to wait the first white star,
And all dawn's mystery is made
To mix with evening long-delayed.
Where lupins grow and poppies blaze,
The Rhododendrons wall me round
With colour; rooks make lazy sound,
Scented with May the soft airs pass
To stir the shadows on the grass,
While from her golden yew-tree's dome
A thrush sings loud of love and home.
How sweet from this embowered lawn
To see the distant tide withdrawn,
To watch beyond the meadow lands
Shimmer of sun on lilac sands;
But sweeter is the scene to me
When back at sunset comes the sea,
When dark in western light the Scar
Stands up to wait the first white star,
And all dawn's mystery is made
To mix with evening long-delayed.
47
For then while cuckoo still awake
Calls, I can hear the incessant crake
—A conjuror, a ventriloquist—
Answer his own voice in the mist,
And watch the ranks of hedge and tree
Go marching to the twilit sea
Beneath their banners plumy-bright
Wove from the vapoury dews of night,
While Whitbarrow in purple stands
Above the Kent's grey level lands,
And still out north the Langdales lie
Clear against lucent silver sky,
For here in June when stars are seen
Not ever wholly fades the green,
Still do the lupins whitely show
And still the scarlet poppies glow,
Till Eversley's high lifted lawn
Is glad again with song and dawn.
Calls, I can hear the incessant crake
—A conjuror, a ventriloquist—
Answer his own voice in the mist,
And watch the ranks of hedge and tree
Go marching to the twilit sea
Beneath their banners plumy-bright
Wove from the vapoury dews of night,
While Whitbarrow in purple stands
Above the Kent's grey level lands,
And still out north the Langdales lie
Clear against lucent silver sky,
For here in June when stars are seen
Not ever wholly fades the green,
Still do the lupins whitely show
And still the scarlet poppies glow,
Till Eversley's high lifted lawn
Is glad again with song and dawn.
| Poems at Home and Abroad | |