HOME

MOONLIGHT through lattice throws a chequered square;

Night! and I wake in my low-ceilinged room

To lovely silence deep with harmony;

Sweet are the flutes of night-time, sweet the spell

Lies between day and day. This wise old night,

That, unreproachful, gives the pause to strife!

The murmurous diapason of the dark

Within the house made quick and intimate

By tiny noise — a bat? a mouse? a moth

Bruising against the ceiling? or a bird

Nested beneath the eaves? night, grave and huge

Outside with swell of sighing through the boughs,

Whispering far over unscythèd meadows,

Dying in dim cool cloisters of the woods.

I have been absent. I have found unchanged

The oaks, the slope and order of the fields;

I knew the wealden fragrance, and that old

Dear stubborn enemy of mine, the clay.

Nothing to mark the difference of year

But young wheat springing where I left the roots,

And last year’ s pasture browned to this year’ s plough;

Last year the crop was niggard on the orchard,

But blossom now foretells the weighted branches,

And the great stack, that like a galleon

Rode beneath furled tarpaulins last July,

Showed its bare brushwood as I passed to-day.

Where the sun rises, that I know of old;

Knowledge precedes me round the turn of the lane,

And I could take you where the orchids grow

Friendly with cowslips; where the bluebell pulls

Smooth from its bulb, bleached where it grew concealed,

Hidden from light; the tiny brook is eager,

Quick with spring rains, bright April rains, and fills

The pool where drowsy cattle slouch to drink.

Familiar! oh, familiar! native speech

Comes not more readily than that dear sense

Of bend and depth of country. This is Kent,

Unflaunting England, where the steaming mould,

Not plaintive, not regretful, lies content

That leaves should spring from sacrifice of leaves.

My Saxon weald! my cool and candid weald!

Dear God! the heart, the very heart of me

That plays and strays, a truant in strange lands,

Always returns and finds its inward peace,

Its swing of truth, its measure of restraint,

Here among meadows, orchards, lanes, and shaws.

Take me then close, O branches, take me close;

Whisper me all the secrets of the sap,

You branches fragile, tentative, that stretch

Your moonlit blossom to my open window,

Messengers of the gentle weald, encroaching

So shyly on the shelter of the house;

Cradle me, hammock me amongst you; let

Night’ s quietude so drench my sleepy spirit

That morning shall not rob me of that calm.

Your buds against my pulses; so I lie

Wakeful as though in tree-tops, and the sap

Creeps through my blood, up from the scented earth.

... The birds are restless underneath the eaves,

Down in the byre the uneasy cattle stir,

And through the fret of branches grows the dawn.