ENGLAND, JULY 1913

O England, England... that July

How placidly the days went by!

Two years ago ( how long it seems )

In that dear England of my dreams

I loved and smoked and laughed amain

And rode to Cambridge in the rain.

A careless godlike life was there!

To spin the roads with Shotover,

To dream while punting on the Cam,

To lie, and never give a damn

For anything but comradeship

And books to read and ale to sip,

And shandygaff at every inn

When The Gorilla rode to Lynn!

O world of wheel and pipe and oar

In those old days before the War.

O poignant echoes of that time!

I hear the Oxford towers chime,

The throbbing of those mellow bells

And all the sweet old English smells —

The Deben water, quick with salt,

The Woodbridge brew-house and the malt;

The Suffolk villages, serene

With lads at cricket on the green,

And Wytham strawberries, so ripe,

And Murray's Mixture in my pipe!

In those dear days, in those dear days,

All pleasant lay the country ways;

The echoes of our stalwart mirth

Went echoing wide around the earth

And in an endless bliss of sun

We lay and watched the river run.

And you by Cam and I by Isis

Were happy with our own devices.

Ah, can we ever know again

Such friends as were those chosen men,

Such men to drink, to bike, to smoke with,

To worship with, or lie and joke with?

Never again, my lads, we'll see

The life we led at twenty-three.

Never again, perhaps, shall I

Go flashing bravely down the High

To see, in that transcendent hour,

The sunset glow on Magdalen Tower.

Dear Rupert Brooke, your words recall

Those endless afternoons, and all

Your Cambridge — which I loved as one

Who was her grandson, not her son.

O ripples where the river slacks

In greening eddies round the “backs”;

Where men have dreamed such gallant things

Under the old stone bridge at King's,

Or leaned to feed the silver swans

By the tennis meads at John's.

O Granta's water, cold and fresh,

Kissing the warm and eager flesh

Under the willow's breathing stir —

The bathing pool at Grantchester....

What words can tell, what words can praise

The burly savour of those days!

Dear singing lad, those days are dead

And gone for aye your golden head;

And many other well-loved men

Will never dine in Hall again.

I too have lived remembered hours

In Cambridge; heard the summer showers

Make music on old Heffer's pane

While I was reading Pepys or Taine.

Through Trumpington and Grantchester

I used to roll on Shotover;

At Hauxton Bridge my lamp would light

And sleep in Royston, for the night.

Or to Five Miles from Anywhere

I used to scull; and sit and swear

While wasps attacked my bread and jam

Those summer evenings on the Cam.

( O crispy English cottage-loaves

Baked in ovens, not in stoves!

O white unsalted English butter

O satisfaction none can utter! )...

To think that while those joys I knew

In Cambridge, I did not know you.