Poem by Edith Nesbit

England

Shoulders of upland brown laid dark to the sunset's bosom,
    Living amber of wheat, and copper of new-ploughed loam,
Downs where the white sheep wander, little gardens in blossom,
    Roads that wind through the twilight up to the lights of home.

Lanes that are white with hawthorn, dykes where the sedges shiver,
    Hollows where caged winds slumber, moorlands where winds wake free,
Sowing and reaping and gleaning, spring and torrent and river,
    Are they not more, by worlds, than the whole of the world can be?

Is there a corner of land, a furze-fringed rag of a by-way,
    Coign of your foam-white cliffs or swirl of your grass-green waves,
Leaf of your peaceful copse, or dust of your strenuous highway,
    But in our hearts is sacred, dear as our cradles, our graves?

Is not each bough in your orchards, each cloud in the skies above you,
    Is not each byre or homestead, furrow or farm or fold,
Dear as the last dear drops of the blood in the hearts that love you,
    Filling those hearts till the love is more than the heart can hold?

1. The Mother’s Prayer
2. St. Valentine's Day
3. In Hospital
4. “Inasmuch As Ye Did It Not ... ”
5. A Tragedy

Walter De la Mare England ("No lovelier hills than thine have laid")

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