A FOOTPATH MORALITY BY LOUISE IMOGEN GUINE

Along the Hills, height after height Tosses the dappled light; Waters unhindered flow; The cuckoo calls beyond the third hedgerow; And young winds nothing can quell Scale the wild-chestnut citadel, Again to make Its thousand faery 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. To-morrow morn, Will high uphold Each cinquefoil of plain gold; Hogwood in white will hood herself apace, And betony flaunt a varied gypsy mace, On the waste common by some rock Her lone 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.