Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE GLORY OF ALL ENGLAND, by EDWARD WILLIAM BOK


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE GLORY OF ALL ENGLAND, by                    
First Line: There are some who think of england with its ways of
Last Line: The lordly trees of arthur's time!
Subject(s): England; Patriotism; English


I.
There are some who think of England with its ways of shell-pink may,
(And those who ne'er have seen them have ne'er seen Heaven's Spring)
When God is whispering in a world of softly falling rains;
They think of foxgloved highways which the Queen shares with her laces and the
hedge-rose nestles close:
Of its "'igh 'olly 'edges" and its woods of rhododendron in their growth of two
men high:
Of its crags and banks "where the wild thyme grows" and its glens of Hart's-
tongue fern:
Of its moors of purple heather, and it heaths of peaceful sheep
"Where storms are lovers" ever, and the winds are welcome friends.

II.

There are those who think of England with its gardens drenched with dew;
Where the rose takes on a beauty and a glory unsurpassed:
Where the poppies shed their fools-caps and close with evening's dusk,
And the primrose opes its petals and greets the new white moon;
Where the wallflower's gold and the larkspur's blue
Hold court with the chaliced lily so full of the night's sweet dew;
With all enclosed by a southern wall where the peaches sun their cheeks
And the berried fruits grow luscious for Devon's farfamed cream
With a lavender walk for an aisle of myrrh
That leads to a white farm-gate.

III.

But "the glory of the garden" is not the greatest glory of the four-leafed
British Crown:
The glory of all England, supreme and time-defied,
Are the trees that spread their branches o'er Britain's hard-fought lands:
The trees that bring the nightingale to Oxted and the lark to Windsor's park:
The tall dark pines that stand like sentinels before the citadels of night;
The limpid linden and the leafy lime: the song-trees of the roads:
The spired spruce: the cathedral tree of legend of which a Saviou's Cross was
hewn;
The hemlock that has seen the rule and fall of England's kings and the tragedies
of her queens:
The larch of lacy green: as soft and gentle as an infant's breath yet counts
its age in centuries of time;
The feathery fir: the white-clad minister of wintry days:
The cool green yew: "that yew-tree's shade" in which an Elegy was writ;
The oak, that Majesty of Strength defying storm and time and space:
Symbols of Britain's strength are these: from Roman days and Saxon rule.

IV.

Let others sing of England's roses rare: of her heather and her may;
But to me:
The glory of all England is in her trees sublime:
The lordly trees of Arthur's time!





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