POETRY.
" ANNUS MIRABILIS." 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, O'er Edwardes Square in Kensington.
A Sabbath peace 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 could sight of us bring rest To that far-travelled heart, and draw The mirror of her dreaming breast ?— Thought I, 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 round horizon was his scope !
High up he sails and sees beneath The glimmering ponds of Hampstead Heath, Hendon; and farther out afield Low water-meads lie in his ken, And lonely pools by Harrow Weald, And solitudes unloied of men, Where he his fisher's spear dips down, Little he cares for London Town!
So small, with all its miles of sin, Is London to the grey-blue bird !
A cuckoo cried at Lincoln's Inn Last April: somewhere else one heard The missel-thrush with throat of glee ;— And nightingales at Battersea!
LAURENCE HOUSMAN.
Previous page
