The grade surmounted we were speeding highThrough level mountains nothing to the eyeBut scrub oak, scrub oak and the lack of earth
The road at the top of the riseSeems to come to an endAnd take off into the skies.
Let the downpour roil and toil!The worst it can do to meIs carry some garden soil
Lord, I have loved your sky,Be it said against or for me,Have loved it clear and high
It took that pause to make him realizeThe mountain he was climbing had the slantAs of a book held up before his eyes
There’s first a gloveless hand warm from my pocket,A perch and resting place ‘twixt wood and wood,Bright-black-eyed silvery creature, brushed with brown
The land was ours before we were the land’s.She was our land more than a hundred yearsBefore we were her people. She was ours
She is as in a field a silken tentAt midday when a sunny summer breezeHas dried the dew and all its ropes relent
One misty evening, one another’s guide,We two were groping down a Malvern sideThe last wet fields and dripping hedges home.
Writers find a way to challenge and chronicle the consciences of their nations.
