83. ANNUS MIRABILIS (1902)
Reading edition
Daylight was down, and up the cool Bare heaven the moon, o'er roof and elm, Daughter of dusk most wonderful, Went mounting to her realm: And night was only half begun Round Edwardes Square in Kensington.
A Sabbath-calm possessed her face, An even glow her bosom filled; High in her solitary place The huntress-heart was stilled: With bow and arrows all laid down She stood and looked on London town.
Nay, how can sight of us give rest To that far-travelled heart, or draw The musings of that tranquil breast? I thought—and gazing, saw Far up above me, high, oh, high, From south to north a heron fly!
Oh, swiftly answered! yonder flew The wings of freedom and of hope! Little of London town he knew, The far horizon was his scope.
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High up he sails, and sees beneath The glimmering ponds of Hampstead Heath,
Hendon, and farther out afield Low water-meads are in his ken, And lonely pools by Harrow Weald, And solitudes unloved of men, Where he his fisher's spear dips down: Little he knows of London town.
So small, with all its miles of sin, Is London to the grey-winged bird, A cuckoo called at Lincoln's Inn Last April; in Soho was heard The missel-thrush with throat of glee, And nightingales at Battersea!
Laurence Housman.