Ryton Firs

'The Dream'

    All round the knoll, on days of quietest air,
    Secrets are being told; and if the trees
    Speak out - let them make uproar loud as drums -
    'Tis secrets still, shouted instead of whisper'd.

        There must have been a warning given once:
    No tree, on pain of withering and sawfly,
    To reach the slimmest of his snaky toes
    Into this mounded sward and rumple it;
    All trees stand back: taboo is on this soil. -

        The trees have always scrupulously obeyed.
    The grass, that elsewhere grows as best it may
    Under the larches, countable long nesh blades,
    Here in clear sky pads the ground thick and close
    As wool upon a Southdown wether's back;
    And as in Southdown wool, your hand must sink
    Up to the wrist before it find the roots.
    A bed for summer afternoons, this grass;
    But in the Spring, not too softly entangling
    For lively feet to dance on, when the green
    Flashes with daffodils. From Marcle way,
    From Dymock, Kempley, Newent, Bromesberrow,
    Redmarley, all the meadowland daffodils seem
    Running in golden tides to Ryton Firs,
    To make the knot of steep little wooded hills
    Their brightest show: O bella età de l'oro!
    Now I breathe you again, my woods of Ryton:
    Not only golden with your daffodil-fires
    Lying in pools on the loose dusky ground
    Beneath the larches, tumbling in broad rivers
    Down sloping grass under the cherry trees
    And birches: but among your branches clinging
    A mist of that Ferrara-gold I first
    Loved in the easy hours then green with you;
    And as I stroll about you now, I have
    Accompanying me - like troops of lads and lasses
    Chattering and dancing in a shining fortune -
    Those mornings when your alleys of long light
    And your brown rosin-scented shadows were
    Enchanted with the laughter of my boys.


'The Voices in the Dream'

    Follow my heart, my dancing feet,
    Dance as blithe as my heart can beat.
    Only can dancing understand
    What a heavenly way we pass
    Treading the green and golden land,
    Daffodillies and grass.

    I had a song, too, on my road,
    But mine was in my eyes;
    For Malvern Hills were with me all the way,
    Singing loveliest visible melodies
    Blue as a south-sea bay;
    And ruddy as wine of France
    Breadths of new-turn'd ploughland under them glowed.
    'Twas my heart then must dance
    To dwell in my delight;
    No need to sing when all in song my sight
    Moved over hills so musically made
    And with such colour played. -
    And only yesterday it was I saw
    Veil'd in streamers of grey wavering smoke
    My shapely Malvern Hills.
    That was the last hail-storm to trouble spring:
    He came in gloomy haste,
    Pusht in front of the white clouds quietly basking,
    In such a hurry he tript against the hills
    And stumbling forward spilt over his shoulders
    All his black baggage held,
    Streaking downpour of hail.
    Then fled dismayed, and the sun in golden glee
    And the high white clouds laught down his dusky ghost.

    For all that's left of winter
    Is moisture in the ground.
    When I came down the valley last, the sun
    Just thawed the grass and made me gentle turf,
    But still the frost was bony underneath.
    Now moles take burrowing jaunts abroad, and ply
    Their shovelling hands in earth
    As nimbly as the strokes
    Of a swimmer in a long dive under water.
    The meadows in the sun are twice as green
    For all the scatter of fresh red mounded earth,
    The mischief of the moles:
    No dullish red, Glostershire earth new-delved
    In April! And I think shows fairest where
    These rummaging small rogues have been at work.
    If you will look the way the sunlight slants
    Making the grass one great green gem of light,
    Bright earth, crimson and even
    Scarlet, everywhere tracks
    The rambling underground affairs of moles:
    Though 'tis but kestrel-bay
    Looking against the sun.

    But here's the happiest light can lie on ground,
    Grass sloping under trees
    Alive with yellow shine of daffodils!
    If quicksilver were gold,
    And troubled pools of it shaking in the sun
    It were not such a fancy of bickering gleam
    As Ryton daffodils when the air but stirs.
    And all the miles and miles of meadowland
    The spring makes golden ways,
    Lead here, for here the gold
    Grows brightest for our eyes,
    And for our hearts lovelier even than love.
    So here, each spring, our daffodil festival.

    How smooth and quick the year
    Spins me the seasons round!
    How many days have slid across my mind
    Since we had snow pitying the frozen ground!
    Then winter sunshine cheered
    The bitter skies; the snow,
    Reluctantly obeying lofty winds,
    Drew off in shining clouds,
    Wishing it still might love
    With its white mercy the cold earth beneath.
    But when the beautiful ground
    Lights upward all the air,
    Noon thaws the frozen eaves,
    And makes the rime on post and paling steam
    Silvery blue smoke in the golden day.
    And soon from loaded trees in noiseless woods
    The snows slip thudding down,
    Scattering in their trail
    Bright icy sparkles through the glittering air;
    And the fir-branches, patiently bent so long,
    Sigh as they lift themselves to rights again.
    Then warm moist hours steal in,
    Such as can draw the year's
    First fragrance from the sap of cherry wood
    Or from the leaves of budless violets;
    And travellers in lanes
    Catch the hot tawny smell
    Reynard's damp fur left as he sneakt marauding

    Across from gap to gap:
    And in the larch woods on the highest boughs
    The long-eared owls like grey cats sitting still
    Peer down to quiz the passengers below.

    Light has killed the winter and all dark dreams.
    Now winds live all in light,
    Light has come down to earth and blossoms here,
    And we have golden minds.
    From out the long shade of a road high-bankt,
    I came on shelving fields;
    And from my feet cascading,
    Streaming down the land,
    Flickering lavish of daffodils flowed and fell;
    Like sunlight on a water thrill'd with haste,
    Such clear pale quivering flame,
    But a flame even more marvellously yellow.
    And all the way to Ryton here I walkt
    Ankle-deep in light.
    It was as if the world had just begun;
    And in a mind new-made
    Of shadowless delight
    My spirit drank my flashing senses in,
    And gloried to be made
    Of young mortality.
    No darker joy than this
    Golden amazement now
    Shall dare intrude into our dazzling lives:
    Stain were it now to know
    Mists of sweet warmth and deep delicious colour,
    Those lovable accomplices that come
    Befriending languid hours.