Summer recurs.
Green fields of childhood greet us
washed with yellow and white,
daisy and buttercup.
Love the revolving years
knowing they will defeat us
(one revolution’s low
roll on without us up).
Knowing this will be so
love more this year’s delight.
Cows lounge among buttercups and dew
while coolly counterpointed by the cuckoo
lark song strikes out of the sun-paled blue.
Pass from the green brilliance of the meadow
into graver green of the wood’s shadow
sky-chinked above, bluebell-pooled below.
This is my country I do not want to leave.
But brood on that is stupid, self-defeative.
Be content with its being and your love.