How shall I tell you what the sunset wrote Upon the outspread waters--gold and rose: Or how the white sail of our little boat Looks on a summer sky? The hills enclose With blue solemnity: each white scar shows Clear on the quarried Cotteswolds high and cool. And high and cool a fevered spirit grows Up-stream from Framilode to Bollopool.
Prince, you have horses: motors, I suppose, As well! At finding pleasure you’re no fool. But have you got a little boat that blows Up-stream from Framilode to Bollopool?
In olden, olden centuries On Gloucester’s holy ground, sir, The monks did pray and chant all day, And grow exceeding round, sir; And here’s the reason that they throve To praise their pleasant fortune, “We keep our beasts”--thus quoth the priests, “In Minsterworth--that’s Mortune!”[1]
_So this is the chorus we will sing, And this is the spot we’ll drink to, While blossom blows and Severn flows, And Earth has mugs to clink to._
Oh! there in sleepy Summer sounds The drowsy drone of bees, sir, And there in Winter paints the sun His patterns ’neath the trees, sir; And there with merry song doth run A river full of fish, sir, That Thursday sees upon the flood And Friday on the dish, sir.
_So this is the chorus we will sing And this is the spot we’ll drink to, While blossom blows and Severn flows, And Earth has mugs to clink to._
The jovial priests to dust are gone, We cannot hear their singing; But still their merry chorus-song From newer lips runs ringing. And we who drink the sunny air And see the blossoms drifting, Will sit and sing the self-same thing Until the roof we’re lifting.
_So this is the chorus we will sing, And this is the spot we’ll drink to, While blossom blows and Severn flows, And Earth has mugs to clink to._
[1] The ancient name of the parish was Mortune--that is, the village in the mere; and the name was changed to Minsterworth early in the fourteenth century because it belonged to the Minster or Abbey of Gloucester, and was the Minster’s “Worth” or farm where the cattle were kept.--F. W. H.
Whizzing, fierce, it came Down the summer air, Burning like a flame On my fingers bare, And it brought to me As swift--a memory.
Happy days long dead Clear I saw once more. Childhood that is fled:-- Rossall on the shore, Where the sea sobs wild Like a homesick child.