Farewell

Chapter 12: OUT OF THE CITY

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About This Book

A varied collection of poems and short prose pieces that celebrate the Cotswold and Gloucestershire countryside while exploring love, longing, and spiritual yearning. The poems range from concise nature lyrics—observing rivers, hedges, birds, and seasonal light—to sonnets and free-verse meditations that ask for vision, joy, and fellowship. Several pieces foreground homesickness and the solace of ritual and local customs, others offer wry or reflective commentary on mortality, vanity, and daily life. Prose poems and songs intersperse formal verse, producing a sequence that alternates celebratory rural description, quiet grief, religious petition, and gentle humour.

OUT OF THE CITY

Here in the ring of the hills,

Under a cloudy sky,

Content at last I lie

Where Peace o’erspills

Like a cool rain which giveth

This brave daisy scent

And wine of sacrament

Whereby he liveth.

The big hooters may howl,

Men quarrel, whistles screech,

I will hear only the speech

Of my forgotten soul,

Which is the speech of trees,

Soft yet of clarity

And brimmed with verity

And all gay peace.