These hills and waters fostered yo… Abiding in your argument Until all comely wisdom drew About you, and the years were spen… Now over hill and water stays

Sweet in the rushes The reed-singers make A music that hushes The life of the lake; The leaves are dumb,

To Mrs. Thomas Hardy I do not use to listen well At sermon time, I 'Id rather hear the plainest rh… Than tales the parsons tell;

High up in the sky there, now, you… In this May twilight, our cottage… Tenantless, and no creature there… Near it but Mrs. Fry’s fat cows,… Dove-coloured, as is Cotswold. No…

Where wall and sill and broken win… Are bright with flowers unroofed a… skies, And nothing but the nesting jackda… Breaks the hushed even, once imper…

The barriers of sleep are crossed And I alone am yet awake, Keeping another Pentecost For that new visitation’s sake Of life descending on the hills

Austere and clad in sombre robes o… With hands upfolded and with silen… In unimpassioned mystery the day Passes; a lonely thrush its requie… The dust of night is tangled in th…

I went beneath the sunny sky– When all things bowed to June’s d… The pansy with its steadfast eye, The blue shells on the lupin spire… The swelling fruit along the bough…

His wage of rest at nightfall stil… He takes, who sixty years has know… Of ploughing over Cotsall hill And keeping trim the Cotsall ston… He meditates the dusk, and sees

Now June walks on the waters, And the cuckoo’s last enchantment Passes from Olton pools. Now dawn comes to my window Breathing midsummer roses,

LORD, not for light in darkness… Not that the veil be lifted from o… Nor that the slow ascension of our… Be otherwise. Not for a clearer vision of the th…

Morning and night I bring Clear water from the spring. And through the lyric noon I hear the larks in tune, And when the shadows fall

High up in the sky there, now, you… In this May twilight, our cottage… Tenantless, and no creature there… Near it but Mrs. Fry’s fat cows,… Dove-coloured, as is Cotswold. No…

The raining hour is done, And, threaded on the bough, The May-buds in the sun Are shining emeralds now. As transitory these

A shower of green gems on my apple… This first morning of May Has fallen out of the night, to be Herald of holiday — Bright gems of green that, fallen…