from THE OLD VICARAGE, GRANDCHESTER
                                                 - Rupert Brooke

Ah, God! to see the branches stir
Across the moon at Grandchester!
To smell the thrilling-sweet and rotten
Unforgettable, unforgotten
River-smell and hear the breeze
Sobbing in the little trees.
Say, do the elm-clumps greatly stand
Still guardians of that holy land?
The chestnut shade, in reverend dream,
The yet unacademic stream?
Is dawn a secret shy and cold
Anadyomene, silver and gold?
And sunset still a golden sea
From Haslingfield to Madingly?
And after, ere the night is born,
Do hares come out about the corn?
Oh, is the water sweet and cool,
Gentle and brown above the pool?
And laughs the immortal river still
Under the mill, under the mill?
Say, is there Beauty yet to find?
And Certainty? and Quiet kind?
Deep meadows yet, for to forget
The lies, and truths, and pain....Oh! yet
Stands the Church clock at ten to three?
And is there honey still for tea?