I will go out against the sun And east till doubling Rother crawls By dry and sea-forgotten walls, I will go north about the shaws And black beside wide-bankèd Ouse Lie down our Sussex steers. So to the land our hearts we give And Memory, Use, and Love make live Us and our fields alike That deeper than our speech and thought, Beyond our reason's sway, Clay of the pit whence we were wrought Yearns to its fellow-clay. God gives all men all earth to love, Ordains for each one spot shall prove Each to his choice, and I rejoice The lot has fallen to me In a fair ground—in a fair ground— Yea, Sussex by the sea! SONG OF THE WISE CHILDREN WHEN the darkened Fifties dip to the North, Far to Southward they wheel and glance, The spears of our deliverance That shine on the house where we were born. Flying-fish about our bows, Flying sea-fires in our wake: This is the road to our Father's House, Whither we go for our soul's sake! SONG OF THE WISE CHILDREN We have forfeited our birthright, We have forsaken all things meet; We have forgotten the look of light, We have forgotten the scent of heat. They that walk with shaded brows, We shall go back by boltless doors, To the life unaltered our childhood knew To the naked feet on the cool, dark floors, And the high-ceiled rooms that the Trade blows through: To the trumpet-flowers and the moon beyond, And the lisp of the split banana-frond That talked us to sleep when we were small. The wayside magic, the threshold spells, Shall soon undo what the North has done Because of the sights and the sounds and the smells That ran with our youth in the eye of the sun! |