The Cottage

Here in turn succeed and rule  

Carter, smith, and village fool,  

Then again the place is known  

As tavern, shop, and Sunday-school;  

Now somehow it’s come to me

To light the fire and hold the key,  

Here in Heaven to reign alone.  

All the walls are white with lime,  

Big blue periwinkles climb  

And kiss the crumbling window-sill;

Snug inside I sit and rhyme,  

Planning, poem, book, or fable,  

At my darling beech-wood table  

Fresh with bluebells from the hill.  

Through the window I can see

Rooks above the cherry-tree,  

Sparrows in the violet bed,  

Bramble-bush and bumble-bee,  

And old red bracken smoulders still  

Among boulders on the hill,

Far too bright to seem quite dead.  

But old Death, who can’t forget,  

Waits his time and watches yet,  

Waits and watches by the door.  

Look, he’s got a great new net,

And when my fighting starts afresh  

Stouter cord and smaller mesh  

Won’t be cheated as before.  

Nor can kindliness of Spring,  

Flowers that smile nor birds that sing,

Bumble-bee nor butterfly,  

Nor grassy hill nor anything  

Of magic keep me safe to rhyme  

In this Heaven beyond my time.  

No! for Death is waiting by.