Here where the lark sings overhead
And the grey sheep nibble the short salt herb
And the bugloss lifts a sky-blue head
And only the sea’s long sighs disturb
The silence spread
Like a great arch overhead;
Here where the very air is peace
And our footfalls stir not the smallest sound
On a turf as soft as the ewes’ soft fleece,
Passion has walked, till the very ground
Pulsed like a monstrous heart, and fear
And struggle and hate roared down the breeze
Till even the hill-perched farms could hear.
For see, in a spiny whin-bush bleached,
This seaweed that was flung to parch
A mile inland, when the sea thrice breached
The long sea-wall and the whins were whirled
Breast-high in a tumbling tide, wind-hurled
On a stormy night in March.