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.