Ryton Firs

The trees have always scrupulously obeyed.

The grass, that elsewhere grows as best it may

Under the larches, countable long nesh blades,

Here in clear sky pads the ground thick and close

As wool upon a Southdown wether's back;

And as in Southdown wool, your hand must sink

Up to the wrist before it find the roots.

A bed for summer afternoons, this grass;

But in the Spring, not too softly entangling

For lively feet to dance on, when the green

Flashes with daffodils. From Marcle way,

From Dymock, Kempley, Newent, Bromesberrow,

Redmarley, all the meadowland daffodils seem

Running in golden tides to Ryton Firs,

To make the knot of steep little wooded hills

Their brightest show: O bella età de l'oro!

Now I breathe you again, my woods of Ryton:

Not only golden with your daffodil-fires

Lying in pools on the loose dusky ground

Beneath the larches, tumbling in broad rivers

Down sloping grass under the cherry trees

And birches: but among your branches clinging

A mist of that Ferrara-gold I first

Loved in the easy hours then green with you;

And as I stroll about you now, I have

Accompanying me — like troops of lads and lasses

Chattering and dancing in a shining fortune —

Those mornings when your alleys of long light

And your brown rosin-scented shadows were

Enchanted with the laughter of my boys.