There they stand, on their ends, the fifty faggots That once were underwood of hazel and ash In Jenny Pink’s Copse. Now, by the hedge Close packed, they make a thicket fancy alone Can creep through with the mouse and wren. Next Spring A blackbird or a robin will nest there, Accustomed to them, thinking they will remain Whatever is for ever to a bird: This Spring it is too late; the swift has come. ‘Twas a hot day for carrying them up: Better they will never warm me, though they must Light...

Often had I gone this way before: But now it seemed I never could be And never had been anywhere else; ‘Twas home; one nationality We had, I and the birds that sang, One memory. They welcomed me. I had come back That eve somehow from somewhere far: The April mist, the chill, the calm, Meant the same thing familiar And pleasant to us, and strange too, Yet with no bar. The thrush on the oaktop in the lane Sang his last song, or last but one; And as he ended, on the elm Another had but just...

Men heard this roar of parleying starlings, saw, A thousand years ago even as now, Black rooks with white gulls following the plough So that the first are last until the caw Commands that last are first again, - a law Which was of old when one, like me, dreamed how A thousand years might dust lie on his brow Yet thus would birds do between hedge and shaw. Time swims before me, making as a day A thousand years, while the broad ploughland oak Roars mill-like and men strike and bear the...