Farewell

Chapter 33: SONG

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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.

SONG

And in the evening when I walked apart

For joy of that I carry in my heart,

The song I made brave thrushes did complete,

Shouting, “O, pretty Joy!” and “Sweet! Sweet! Sweet!”

This is my glory, this the crown of me:

That I hold joy of my love, and she of me;

And though my song be but a breath of air,

Yet is it greater than death and all despair.

For howso poor and of what base estate

I be, this love shall make me proud and great.

And howso deep in care I lie, there are words

Shall build my heart a nest of singing birds.