Somewhere from the hill-top down Nestling under hills and woods And the meadow's solitudes.
And your paper knight of old Secrets of the landscape told. And the hedge-rows where the pond Took the blue of heavens beyond The hastening clouds of gusty March. There you saw their wrinkled arch Where the East wind cracks his whips Round the little pond and clips Main-sails from your toppled ships. ... Landscape that in youth you knew Past and present, earth and you! All the legends and the tales Of the uplands, of the vales; Sounds of cattle and the cries Of ploughmen and of travelers Were its soul's interpreters. And here the lame were always lame. Always gray the gray of head. And the dead were always dead Ere the landscape had become Your cradle, as it was their tomb.
And when the thunder storms would waken Of the dream your soul was not forsaken: In the room where the dormer windows look— There were your knight and the tattered book. With colors of the forest green Gabled roofs and the demesne Of faery kingdoms and faery time Storied in pre-natal rhyme. ... Past the orchards, in the plain The cattle fed on in the rain. And the storm-beaten horseman sped Rain blinded and with bended head. And John the ploughman comes and goes In labor wet, with steaming clothes. This is your landscape, but you see Not terror and not destiny Behind its loved, maternal face, Its power to change, or fade, replace Its wonder with a deeper dream, Unfolding to a vaster theme. From time eternal was this earth? No less this landscape with your birth Arose, nor leaves you, nor decay Finds till the twilight of your day. It bore you, moulds you to its plan. It ends with you as it began, But bears the seed of future years Of higher raptures, dumber tears.
For soon you lose the landscape through Absence, sorrow, eyes grown true To the naked limbs which show Buds that never more may blow. Now you know the lame were straight Ere you knew them, and the fate Of the old is yet to die. Now you know the dead who lie In the graves you saw
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