An Archaeological Picnic

In this high pasturage, this Blunden time,

    With Lady’s Finger, Smokewort, Lovers’ Loss,

And lin-lan-lone a Tennysonian chime

    Stirring the sorrel and the gold-starred moss,

    Cool is the chancel, bright the altar cross.

Drink, Mary, drink your fizzy lemonade

    And leave the king-cups; take your grey felt hat;

Here, where the low-side window lends a shade,

    There, where the key lies underneath the mat,

    The rude forefathers of the hamlet sat.

Sweet smell of cerements and of cold wet stones,

    Hassock and cassock, paraffin and pew;

Green in a light which that sublime Burne-Jones

    White-hot and wondering from the glass-kiln drew,

    Gleams and re-gleams this Trans arcade anew.

So stand you waiting, freckled innocence!

    For me the squinch and squint and Trans arcade;

For you, where meadow grass is evidence,

    With flattened pattern, of our picnic made,

    One bottle more of fizzy lemonade.