Clinton Scollard

An Exile

I can remember the plaint of the wind on the moor,
   Crying at dawning, and crying at shut of the day,
And the call of the gulls that is eerie and dreary and dour,
   And the sound of the surge as it breaks on the beach of the bay.

I can remember the thatch of the cot and the byre,
   And the green of the garth just under the dip of the fells,
And the low of the kine, and the settle that stood by the fire,
   And the reek of the peat, and the redolent heathery smells.

And I long for it all though the roses around me are red,
   And the arch of the sky overhead has bright blue for a lure,
And glad were the heart of me, glad, if my feet could but tread
   The path, as of old, that led upward and over the moor!