I NEVER saw that land before, And now can never see it again Yet, as if by acquaintance hoar Endeared, by gladness and by pain, Great was the affection that I bore To the valley and the river small, The cattle, the grass, the bare ash trees, The chickens from the farmsteads, all Elm-hidden, and the tributaries Descending at equal interval The blackthorns down along the brook With wounds yellow as crocuses Where yesterday the labourers hook Had sliced them cleanly and the breeze That hinted all and nothing spoke. I neither expected anything Nor yet remembered but some goal I touched then and if I could sing What would not even whisper my sul As I went on my journeying, I should use, as the trees and birds did, A language not to be betrayed And what was hid should still be hid Excepting from those like me made Who answer when such whispers bid. DARK is the forest and deep, and overhead Hang stars like seeds of light In vain, though not since they were sown was bred Anything more bright....