A Footpath Morality

Along the Hills, height unto height Tosses the dappled light, Rills in a torrent flow, And cuckoo calls beyond the third hedgerow. Young winds nothing can quell Scale the wild-chestnut citadel, Again to make Its thousand faëry white pagodas shake. Up many a lane The blue vervain A coverlid hath featly spread For the bees' bed, That those tired sylvan thieves May lie most soft on the sweet and scalloped leaves. And by to-morrow morn Bright agrimony, in the thickets born, Will high uphold Each cinquefoil of plain gold; Dogwood in white will hood herself apace, And betony flaunt a varied gypsy mace, And copper pimpernel, true as a clock, On some waste common, by a rock Her small dark-centred wheel draw in Long, long ere dusk begin. This day Of infinite May Is far more fitly yours than ours, O spirit-bodied flowers! What heart disordered sore Comes through the greenwood door, Shall for your sake Find sap and soil and dew, and shall not break; And hearts beneath no ban Will in your sight some penance do for man, Poor lagging man, content to be Sick with the impact of eternity, Who might keep step with you in the low grass, Best part of one strange pageant made in joy to pass! Not ye, not ye, the privilege disown To flourish fair and fall fair, and be strewn Deep in that Will of God, where blend The origin of beauty and the end.