THE PATRIOT

Scarce is my life more dear to me,

Brief tutor of oblivion,

Than fields below the rookery

That comfortably looks upon

The little street of Piddington.

I never think of Avon’ s meadows,

Ryton woods or Rydal mere,

Or moon-tide moulding Cotswold shadows,

But I know that half the fear

Of death’ s indifference is here.

I love my land. No heart can know

The patriot’ s mystery, until

It aches as mine for woods ablow

In Gloucestershire with daffodil,

Or Bicester brakes that violets fill.

No man can tell what passion surges

For the house of his nativity

In the patriot’ s blood, until he purges

His grosser mood of jealousy,

And comes to meditate with me

Of gifts of earth that stamp his brain

As mine the pools of Ludlow mill,

The hazels fencing Trilly’ s Lane,

And Forty Acres under Brill,

The ferry under Elsfield hill.

These are what England is to me,

Not empire, nor the name of her

Ranging from pole to tropic sea.

These are the soil in which I bear

All that I have of character.

That men my fellows near and far

May live in like communion,

Is all I pray; all pastures are

The best beloved beneath the sun;

I have my own; I envy none.