Classic Poem

The green Spring tide has risen, until its crest
Fragrant with cowslips, flecked with tiny spray
Of small white daisies, laps the warm Earth's breast
And ripples on the hedge-reefs of the may.

Across the wood the mournful cuckoo cries;
Across the downs, the sheep slow-moving pass;
The skylark flutters, singing, from the skies
To drop in sudden silence in the grass.

I hear the robin piping in the hedge—
The murmur of the drowsy wakening bee—
The song of winds, low-fluting in the sedge,
That blends with organ pedals of the sea.

Oh, land enriched with life-blood and with tears
Of people after people, churl and king!
The haunting stories of a thousand years
Waken to fragrance in the English Spring!