Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, SOUTH WARWICKSHIRE, by NORMAN ROWLAND GALE


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

SOUTH WARWICKSHIRE, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Not thirty miles away from here
Last Line: Delightedly, south warwickshire!
Subject(s): Happiness; Nature; Warwickshire, England; Joy; Delight


NOT thirty miles away from here
In beauty dwells South Warwickshire,
Her paradise of blossom lit
By unseen angels, watching it.
How well I know the feast is spread,
Though I must be unbanqueted,
By spirits of the workshop held
To miss what never was excelled!
The country has a thousand brides
To give to Phoebus, where he rides
Along his billowy moors of blue
For all his destined girls to view.
The orchards are the maids, so drest
As for an unclasped maid is best,
And in their girlishness they stand
To feel the Sungod's stroking hand.
By hillside and by stream, I swear
No other maids are grouped so fair
As those that in my memory look
Across the pages of the book
That keeps me slave when I should shout
For joy in freedom, till flew out
The blackbird from his nook of rest
Within the apple's fragrant breast.
By hillside and by stream, I swear
This book shall yield, and I be there,
When twice again the moon has poured
On trees the treasure of her lord;
To kiss the darkling lips of night,
To pluck, as 'twere a flower, delight,
And keep it on my pillow spread,
That happy dreams may bless my bed;
For often, if too long I live
Where ferny fountains never give
The tinkle that in music slips
From water's heart to water's lips;
Or if too long the troubled air
Be laden with a load of care
Not lightened by the song of nymphs
That in the wood are mine to glimpse,
My bed is crowded night and night
With shapes of thirst and shapes of fright,
Till from its pillows I arise
With ghosts of torture in my eyes,
And slowly cleanse my darkened breast
The farther I withdraw from rest.
By dawn and daffodil, I swear
To sleep no more till I am there
Among thine intimate controls,
Thy clovery acres, bosoming knolls,
They cowslip families in the vale
That most allures the nightingale,
(Who calls to Joy and Grief to hear
Alternately) South Warwickshire!
Long, long ago there was a maid
Of Love, the Hunter, sore afraid,
Who quicklier ran the fiercer burned
His passion, till at last she turned
From girl to fountain, since she felt
Within her heart no wish to melt
And, clasped in sinewy arms, to lie
And kiss the moon adown the sky.
Along the glade she sudden poured
The beauty by the god adored.
In sparkles went her heavenly eyes,
In rounded waves the bird-soft thighs;
A lift of water proved her breast
Was flowing with the lovely rest,
That made the very mosses sure
'Twas freshness other than the pure
Salute of rainclouds from the hill
Conveyed in whispers by a rill.
Methinks the stream that most of all
Can soothe me by its waterfall,
In days that saw a multitude
Of gods and girls at lovely feud
When England's Arcady shone clear
Among thy lanes, South Warwickshire,
Was born of some divine escape
From human to the streamlet's shape.
So winningly it moves along
Its little to a larger song
I needs must think a maid as fair
As Arethusa passes there;
For neither cloud nor spring could give
The quality is there to live
As wonder bidding fancy view
The curve of shoulder breaking through
The water, or the foamy fleck
Where peeps the girl's unconquered neck.

My refuge this, when I can throw
The world away, and happy go
To share with bloom and nightingale
This shadow of a heavenly vale,
Where flesh to spirit seems to turn
While senses holier move, and burn
To pierce the zenith, that at last
The face of Him who rules the Vast
Shall smile a comrade's smile, and be
A beckoning to Eternity.
My refuge this, when heart and brain
Too fiercely hold the city's pain,
And need to taste the natural good
In streamlets stored and in the wood,
As honey in the comb, for man
To gather, if he will, or can.
Beholding, as I peaceful lie,
The bluebells weave their lowly sky,
As if to signal to the land
Where radiant kinsfolk seem to stand,
I feel prepared again to lean
Above my task, though I have been
But briefly happy for an hour
'Twixt easeful and laborious flower;
So quickly can thy sweet and strange
The downward-looking spirit change
From sloth of heart, or thrills of fear,
Or tottering faith, South Warwickshire!

If as a ghost I may return
To what I lovingly discern,
I will not seek a narrow range
Within a lone and memoried grange,
But widely will I ever go
Beneath the orchard's lifted snow,
That, by the branches dimly felt,
Meseems too fairy-frail to melt.
Under the apple will I lie
And watch again the threads of sky
To patterns unfamiliar twined
By spirits weaving in the wind.
However softly they may weave,
The steadfast shape they cannot give,
For though the air be still as death
The apple trembles, taking breath;
Or else she gently laughs to hear
A frolic whispered by the pear;
Or shrinks a little to let by
Some evil, chilling to the sky.
Howe'er it be, the pattern breaks,
Come larger pools and smaller lakes,
Then larger lakes and smaller pools
To him who face and spirit cools
Beneath the apple, hardly sure
If he her beauty can endure.
Be it mine to have good share of this
Delicious painfulness of bliss
(Unsure of ancestry) that gleams
With magic stolen from extremes;
Read wonders as I could not read
When I was flesh and blood indeed;
List flower-folk chant along the lane
To clouds the prayer that brings the rain;
See in the oak a spirit shine
With radiance little less than mine;
And many a voice of Godship hear
Delightedly, South Warwickshire!





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