Is it only Cotswold that holds the glamour
Memory felt of England in the gun-stammer—
Thud, smack, belch of war—and kept virtue by?
I do not know, but only that, most unhappy,
The hills are to me what to happy I
They were in Somme muckage-baths and east of Laventie
When hunger made one worthy to absorb the sky-
Look, or play fancy-tricks with small cloudlets high:
Count them—or dare not count—love and let go by.
Now as ever Cotswold rewards the mere being and seeing
As truly as
Ever in the relief of knowing mere being
In the still space
At a strafe end grateful for silence and body's grace
(Whole body—and after hell's hammering and clamouring).
Then memory purified made rewarding shapes
Of all that spirit runs towards in escapes,
And Cooper's Hill showed plain almost as experience.
Soft winter mornings of kind innocence, high June's
Girl's air of untouched purity, and on Cooper's Hill
Or autumn Cranham with its boom of colour . . .
Not anyway does ever Cotswold's fail—her dear blue long dark slope fail—
Of the imagining promise in full exile.