Classic Poem

The little Heddon roars over its stones towards its mouth
Between two cliffs mounting up, one with the greybrown haze
Of the budding oak-woods and the line of the path athwart them,
As though cut with a knife;
And the other grey with loose shale, and here and there
The gorse in bloom over the dead, brown bracken,
That springs again, green once more, from its death.
The little Heddon roars over its stones between
Its violets, primroses and celandines to the sea.

And, friends, what am I doing here beside you and the Heddon?
Why did I come to you with my heart-ache and my cares,
Falsely to brighten your life with the foil of my darkness?
Why did I come to your pine-woods?

The little Heddon roars over its stones to the sea.

My life grated on in its groove, and that groove
Brought me to you, but see! the little Heddon roared over my brain,
And for a day washed the mist from it, cleared the clog of it,
And the groove is no longer there.

Yet I shall leave you; I shall take back my groove,
With a keener edge to my heart-ache and a different tune:
The little Heddon roaring over my brain to the sea!