Dorothy Una Ratcliffe

Bargaining

There are many, many forests lying north, south, east, and west,
    There are many, many rivers moving slowly to the sea,
    But there's a wood of budding beech that claims the heart of me,
And there's a little singing beck that falls from heathered crest.

O! I would give the universe to own that singing stream,
    And watch the stars a-hiding from the rosy-fingered morn,
    While cuckoos wake the fellside, and daffodils are born—
O! any one can have the world, so I may keep my stream—

Yet would I barter beechen wood and little singing beck
If I could fold my arms once more around my sweetheart's neck.