I 've tramped South England up and down,
Down Dorset way, down Devon way,
Through every little ancient town
Down Dorset way, down Devon way:
I mind the old stone churches there,
The taverns round the market square,
The cobbled streets, the garden flowers,
The sundials telling peaceful hours
Down Dorset way, down Devon way...
and the joyance and quaintnesses of English country life laugh pleasantly, too, through 'In Abbas Now.' But 'From the Somme,' found on him among his papers after he had fallen in the forefront of a charge against the German position near Lesbœufs, on 7th October 1917, recalls the past delight he had in tramping English highways, loitering through English forest paths, or by the sea, and resting in homely roadside taverns, and realises with a painful intensity that these things are left behind him for ever:
...I played with all the toys the gods provide,
I sang my songs and made glad holiday.
Now I have cast my broken toys aside
And flung my lute away.
