O Heart of Hampshire, primrose-paved woods, I have revisited your solitudes And know them not less lovely than before. But fears I had, for roads have learnt to roar With wildest traffickers since I saw you last, And I had half believed you by their blast Tamed to a suburb; for the town hath spread Sprinkling its cheap-built villas of bright red Wide over fields of old, and in the street A vile electric theatre stares to greet Sight that had searched for candles or the sky. Yet faring onwards, Heart of Hampshire, I Found thee unsullied, though the upland road, Where flint and chalk gleamed white and snails abode, Be now made dull with concrete: O bleak hill, Steep once to me, be steep to others still! Where through sonorous copses not yet green, Beyond thy brow, the April wind blows keen, Defend what thou concealest, hold afar Whate'er of man's deformity might mar Those plunging woods whose floor is primrose-pied, But lacks the warmer growth, else unespied But here and there for ancient clustered yew; And keep unharmed the beechen avenue, Which through these twenty winters standing bare Time hath, unthanked of me, had grace to spare. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...I LOOK IN MY HEART by SARA TEASDALE FOR G. by WILFRID WILSON GIBSON WAPENTAKE; TO ALFRED TENNYSON by HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW FIREFLY; A SONG by ELIZABETH MADOX ROBERTS IN MEMORIAM A.H.H.: 2 by ALFRED TENNYSON FAREWELL, UNKIST by THOMAS WYATT THE BALLAD OF THE FOXHUNTER by WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS VERSES ON SEEING IN AN ALBUM A SKETCH OF AN OLD GATEWAY by BERNARD BARTON |