AFTER LONG WANDERING

I will go back to Gloucestershire, To the spot where I was born, To the talk at eve with men and women And song on the roads at morn. And I’ll sing as I tramp by dusty hedges Or drink my ale in the shade How Gloucestershire is the finest home That the Lord God ever made. First I will go to the ancient house Where Doomsday book was planned, And cool my body and soul in shade Of pillars huge which stand Where the organ echoes thunder-like Its paean of triumph and praise In a temple lovely as ever the love Of Beauty’s God did raise. Gargoyles will thrust out heads to hearken, A frozen forest of stone Echo behind me as I pass Out of the shadow alone To buzz and bustle of Barton Fair And its drifting droves of sheep, To find three miles away the village Where I will sleep. Minsterworth, queen of riverside places (Save Framilode, who can vie?), To her I’ll go when day has dwindled And the light low in the sky; And my troubles shall fall from me, a bundle, And youth come back again, Seeing the smoke of her houses and hearing The talk of Minsterworth men. I’ll drink my perry and sing my song Of home and home again, Pierced with the old miraculous pleasure Keen as sharpest pain; And if I rise to sing on the morrow Or if I die in my bed, ’Tis all the same: I’ll be home again, And happy alive or dead.