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Retrospect
So they've cut the lilac bush; a thousand thousand pities!
'Twas the blue old-fashioned sort that never grows in cities.
There we little children played and chaunted aimless ditties,
While oft the old grandsire looked at us and smiled his Nunc Dimittis!
Green, O green with ancient peace, and full of sap and sunny,
Lusty fields of Warwickshire, O land of milk and honey.
Might I live to pluck again a spike of agrimony,
A silver tormentilla leaf or ladysmock upon ye!
Patience, for I keep at heart your pure and perfect seeming,
I can see you wide awake as clearly as in dreaming.
Softer, with an inner light, and dearer, to my deeming.
Than when beside your brooks at noon I watched the sallows gleaming!
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