| |
| HERE in turn succeed and rule | |
| Carter, smith, and village fool, | |
| Then again the place is known | |
| As tavern, shop, and Sunday-school; | |
| Now somehow it’s come to me | 5 |
| To light the fire and hold the key, | |
| Here in Heaven to reign alone. | |
| |
| All the walls are white with lime, | |
| Big blue periwinkles climb | |
| And kiss the crumbling window-sill; | 10 |
| Snug inside I sit and rhyme, | |
| Planning, poem, book, or fable, | |
| At my darling beech-wood table | |
| Fresh with bluebells from the hill. | |
| |
| Through the window I can see | 15 |
| Rooks above the cherry-tree, | |
| Sparrows in the violet bed, | |
| Bramble-bush and bumble-bee, | |
| And old red bracken smoulders still | |
| Among boulders on the hill, | 20 |
| Far too bright to seem quite dead. | |
| |
| But old Death, who can’t forget, | |
| Waits his time and watches yet, | |
| Waits and watches by the door. | |
| Look, he’s got a great new net, | 25 |
| And when my fighting starts afresh | |
| Stouter cord and smaller mesh | |
| Won’t be cheated as before. | |
| |
| Nor can kindliness of Spring, | |
| Flowers that smile nor birds that sing, | 30 |
| Bumble-bee nor butterfly, | |
| Nor grassy hill nor anything | |
| Of magic keep me safe to rhyme | |
| In this Heaven beyond my time. | |
| No! for Death is waiting by. | 35 |
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