ABSTRACT
early thirteenth century Like the palm of an open hand These meadows lie. Like fingers slightly raised To the circling sky Five valleys meet, And slide their streams Into this limpid place Timdess as dreams; Mingle their music with the birds’ And then, as one, Find their eternal way To the sea and sun. Invaders, wave on wave, Have crossed this land— Columned ants on the skin Of a stretched hand. Iberian, Cdt, Roman, Teuton and Dane Have poured from the sea northward To the Great Plain; Have ringed their temples there, Balanced them high Against the unrolling god-land Of cloud and sky; Built dyke and rampart, Fought and fled, Dug their long barrows there, Buried their dead; Or, sheeping those chalk downs In upland air, Have shorn them clean of scrub, Curving and bare. But here, where river met Forest and fen, They left the land untouched, Unhoused by men Till Saxons felled the woods, Drained marsh away, And in water-meadows of smooth green Their cattle lay. Now Normans claim this place Of grass and reeds As glebe and manor-lands For their bishop’s needs, Taking butter and brawn For his Plain-bound priests, Fish for their Friday fast, Duck for their feasts. . . . For a while the land rests. Freed from the weight Of woods, it stretches in the sun And breathes the late Warm air of Spring. All that the past creates Is now forgotten; and the land, The land waits.
