So to the land our hearts we give
Till the sure magic strike,

And Memory, Use, and Love make live
Us and our fields alike—

That deeper than our speech and thought,
Beyond our reason's sway,

Clay of the pit whence we were wrought
Yearns to its fellow-clay.

God gives all men all earth to love,
But since man's heart is small,
Ordains for each one spot shall prove
Beloved over all.

Each to his choice, and I rejoice

The lot has fallen to me

In a fair ground-in a fair ground

Yea, Sussex by the sea!

Rudyard Kipling.

A Song out of Oxfordshire

OULD we might see the crocus blow
Where Evenlode and Windrush flow,
The purple flame by autumn set

W

For jewel in her carcanet,

Where Evenlode and Windrush flow.

Would we might see the wistful morn
Win courage as she gilds the corn,

And watch the evening's valour die
Like an enchanted memory

As darkness comes and hides the corn.

Would we might see the valley kist
Once more by tender wreaths of mist,

U

Until it seems that there must lie
The secret land of faëry

Behind the rising wreaths of mist.

I would the time were come again
When we might watch the falling rain,
Close hidden in our forest house
That is so roofed with woven boughs
There is no entrance for the rain.

Would we might tread again the road
Where Windrush flows and Evenlode,
And see the skies we see in dreams
Lie mirrored in the singing streams,
In Windrush and in Evenlode.

Ethel Clifford.

The Great View

P here, where the air's very clear,

And the hills slope away nigh down to the bay,

It is very like Heaven. . .

For the sea's wine-purple and lies half asleep In the sickle of the shore, and serene in the west, Lion-like, purple and brooding in the even, Low hills lure the sun to rest.

Very like Heaven. .. For the vast marsh dozes,
And waving plough-lands and willowy closes

Creep and creep up the soft south steep.

In the pallid North the grey and ghostly downs do fold

away.

And spinning spider-threadlets down the sea, the sealights dance

And shake out their wavering radiance.

Very like Heaven. . . . For, a shimmering of pink,
East, far east, past the sea-lights' distant blink,
Like a cloud shell pink, like the ear of a girl,
Like Venice-glass mirroring mother-o'-pearl,

Like the small pink nails of my lovely lady's fingers,

Where the skies drink the sea and the last light lies and

lingers

There is France.

Ford Madox Hueffer.

My Will

WOULD live, if I had my will,

In an old stone grange on a Yorkshire hill;
Ivy-encircled, lichen-streaked,

Low and mullioned, gable-peaked,

With a velvet lawn, and a hedge of yew,

An apple orchard to saunter through,
Hyacinth-scented in spring's clear prime,
And rich with roses in summer-time,
And a waft of heather over the hill,
Had I my will.

Over my tree-tops, grave and brown,
Slants the back of a breezy down;
Through my fields, by the covert edge,
A swift stream splashes from ledge to ledge
On to the hamlet, scattered, gray,
Where folk live leisurely day by day;
The same old faces about my walks;
Smiling welcomes and simple talks;
Innocent stories of Jack and Jill;
Had I my will.

How my thrushes should pipe ere noon,
Young birds learning the old birds' tune;

Casements wide, when the eve is fair,

To drink the scents of the moonlit air.
Over the valley I'd see the lights
Of the lone hill-farms, on the upland heights;
And hear when the night is alert with rain,
The steady pulse of the labouring train,
With the measured gush of the merry rill,
Had I my will.

Then in the winter, when gusts pipe thin,
By a clear fire would I sit within,
Warm and dry in the ingle nook,
Reading at ease in a good grave book;
Under the lamp, as I sideways bend,
I'd scan the face of my well-loved friend;
Writing my verses with careless speed,
One at least would be pleased to read;
Thus sweet leisure my days should fill,
Had I my will.

Then when my last guest steps to my side;
-May it be summer, the windows wide,-
I would smile as the parson prayed,
Smile to think I was once afraid;
Death should beckon me, take my hand,
Smile at the door of the silent land,

Then the slumber, how good to sleep

Under the grass where the shadows creep,

Where the headstones slant on the wind-swept hill!

I shall have my will.

A. C. Benson.

A Lincolnshire Landscape

ALM is the morn without a sound,
Calm as to suit a calmer grief,

And only thro' the faded leaf

The chestnut pattering to the ground:

Calm and deep peace on this high wold,
And on these dews that drench the furze,
And all the silvery gossamers
That twinkle into green and gold:

Calm and still light on yon great plain
That sweeps with all its autumn bowers,
And crowded farms and lessening towers,

To mingle with the bounding main:

Calm and deep peace in this wide air,
These leaves that redden to the fall;
And in my heart, if calm at all,
If any calm, a calm despair:

Calm on the seas, and silver sleep,

And waves that sway themselves in rest, And dead calm in that noble breast Which heaves but with the heaving deep.

I climb the hill: from end to end
Of all the landscape underneath,
I find no place that does not breathe
Some gracious memory of my friend;

No gray old grange, or lonely fold,
Or low morass and whispering reed,
Or simple stile from mead to mead,
Or sheepwalk up the windy wold;