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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
ENGLISH COUNTRY (WHERE THREE SHIRES MEET), by WILLIAM BLISS First Line: No change is here. If chaucer came Last Line: Of wood-smoke, as 'twere matins bell. Subject(s): England; Landscape; English | |||
NO change is here. If Chaucer came He'd know each village for the same Nor find the Earth had greatly aged Since, singing Her, he pilgrimaged. He'd note, no doubt, each Church "restored," And wonder where they housed Our Lord; Or, frowning, mark a clumsy patch In yonder barn roof's mossy thatch; Might marvel at the empty inn And, certes, find the ale too thin. But if he straitly kept aloof From motored road and slated roof, He'd know each way he trod again By bridle-path or greensward lane. Which way his English feet might go The English grass his feet would know: Which way his friendly smile should light An answering smile should him requite From every twig in every hedge As is the Poet's privilege. Old oak and ash and twisted thorn, Sons of trees born when he was born, Would vie, with beckoning arms, to show Just where their fathers used to grow. There, where an oak he helped to fell, A great-grandson stands sentinel And, scarce an acorn's-cast away, A likely youngster's making play. (For, though we men immortal be, We are more mortal than a tree, Since trees this happy God's grace have To livetheir fathers' epitaph.) And he beneath their shade would sit And see the twilight ghost owl flit And, with the sunset wind and them, Breathe low their fathers' Requiem. Yon mounted crest of beechen wood Stands 'thwart the hill where then it stood, And, though the trees stretch not so far, Beech were they thenand beech they are. Young Cherwell runs where Cherwell did And fish lie still where fish lay hid, And neither, if he stopped to figure, One single foot or inch the bigger. The fat, ploughed fields still, glistening, lie For corn to sprout, be reaped and die. The uplands still their short grass keep Still loved of the close-grazing sheep. The tangled hedges, winter bare, Still crimson-berried chaplets wear Or, pleached and trimmed, would touch his heart, Pictures of England's oldest art. The lichened barns are not more gray, Hayricks have still the scent of hay, The yards are littered still with straw, The noisy rooks still, clamouring, caw, The thrush, the ouzel, and the wren Still flute the notes they fluted then, 'Neath the same eaves the martins build, With the same smells the farms are filled, Ivy still hugs the reluctant trees, Straw skeps still shelter sleeping bees, Still in the cart-ruts water gleams, The same stones step the same small streams, And over the same water-splash Leans the same fond narcissus ash. Nay, blindfold if he walked, his feet The conscious earth would, answering, meet. By sense of sound and smell alone He'd know this country for his own; For each swinkt hedger's Doric speech His homing ears would, homely, reach. Though Angelus no more may call He'd crunch the crisp grass at duskfall, And frosty dawns by scent could tell Of wood-smoke, as 'twere Matins bell. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...NINETEEN FORTY by NORMAN DUBIE GHOSTS IN ENGLAND by ROBINSON JEFFERS STAYING UP FOR ENGLAND by LIAM RECTOR STONE AND FLOWER by KENNETH REXROTH THE HANGED MAN by KENNETH REXROTH ENGLISH TRAIN COMPARTMENT by JOHN UPDIKE COSMOPOLITE by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON |
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