Where Avon's slow and silver stream Through lovely Warwick flows, There blooms the golden English gorse, The gallant Tudor rose! And Stratford town is garlanded With wreaths of poetry, Entwined of sweet forget-me-nots And fragrant rosemary. An old bridge spans the gentle shore Where sways the columbine, And foxgloves grow, and violets, And graceful eglantine; The pansy lifts its thoughtful face, Tall lilies scent the air, All clustered fadeless through the years For pilgrims ling'ring there. O'er gardens gay the rainbow bends, Like arching arbors where The flowering lime and lilac fling Their petaled perfume rare. Broad fields are bright with daffodils, And daisies shining white Repeat the far celestial stars That glorify the night! In every copse and hawthorn hedge The thrush divinely sings, In azure flight the lark ascends On music's soaring wings; Though shower and shadow briefly dim The smiling summer day, The blackbird and the mavis pipe A lyric roundelay. A fig tree flaunts its purple fruit Against a trellised wall; From ruddy eaves the noisy rooks Continuously call; Quaint houses, timbered and demure, The sylvan lanes define, And cherished through time-mellowed years, @3The Birthplace@1 is a shrine! The hills are periwinkle-blue When dusk its incense spills, And silence, muted as a dream, The twilight hour distills. A vesper bell from ivied tower Intones its cadenced chime, A sundial, lichened-gray, records The measured tread of time. The deathless quill of Stratford's son A great Queen paused to praise Ere riding on to Kenilworth In royal Tudor days! When candles glow at eventide Through mullioned bottle glass, Mysteriously through dark streets Remembered footsteps pass! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...O DREAMS, O DESTINATIONS by CECIL DAY LEWIS SOMEBODY LOVED ME by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON THE FEAST OF LIGHTS by EMMA LAZARUS MANHATTAN, 1609 by EDWIN MARKHAM DOMESDAY BOOK: AT FAIRBANKS by EDGAR LEE MASTERS SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY: DOW BRITT by EDGAR LEE MASTERS SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY: WILLIAM AND EMILY by EDGAR LEE MASTERS |