Memory of England (October 1940)

I am glad, I think, my happy mother died
Before the German airplanes over the English countryside
Dropped bombs into the peaceful hamlets that we used to know—
Sturminster-Newton, and the road that used to run
Past bridge, past cows in meadow,
Warm in the sun,
Cool in the elm-tree’s shadow,
To the thatched cottage roofs of Shillingstone;
Dropped bombs on Romsey Abbey, where the aging records show
(Or did a little while ago)
In faded ink and elegant fine hand
The name of a boy baby christened there
In 15-(I forget the year)
Later to sail away to this free land
And build in what is now named Massachusetts a new Romsey here.
(My ancestor, I still can see the page,
Our sentimental journey, our quaint pilgrimage!)

Dorset and Hampshire were our home in England: the tall holly trees, the chestnuts that we found
Glossy within their shaggy burrs on the cold autumn ground
In the New Forest, new in the Norman’s day, where we walked alone,
Easing at times our joyful weary backs
By shifting to a stump the weight of our small shoulder-packs,
Meeting no living creature all one lovely day
But trees and ferns and bracken and, directly in our way
Or grazing near at hand,
From time to time a herd of small wild ponies; well aware
Of imminent sunset—and we two alone long miles from anywhere.

All that we moved among, heath, bracken, hollies with round berries red
Bright for an English Christmas, beech and oak,
Chestnut, with its sweet mealy food
On the leaves thick about us in the autumn air
Plentiful, gleaming from its rough burrs everywhere—
All this was good,
And all had speech, and spoke,
And all the magic unfamiliar land
Was ours by distant heritage and ours by deep love close at hand.
How many miles we walked I now forget, dog-tired at night
Spying an inn’s warm light
Through small-paned windows thrown,—
To Romsey, and then back to Shillingstone.

So gravely threatened now
That lovely village under the Barrow’s brow,
Where peering from my window at dawn under the shelving thatch
With cold bare feet and neck scratched by the straw
I saw the hounds go by;
So gravely threatened the kind people there,
She in her neat front flower plot,
He like as not
Up in the ‘lotment hoeing,
Or coming home to his supper of beer and cheese,
Bread and shallots,
These thoughts…
And thoughts like these…
Make me content that she, not I,
Went first, went without knowing.