When colour lifting from the earth
Catches from trees a dying birth
And in the ivy's yellow bloom
Wasps and blue flies make angry hum,

Here, twenty paces from house-door
Where men so strangely rich live poor,
Where few sea-poppies still unfurl
I set my foot in budding pearl.

Strange joy is mine to know I stand
Here in one spot of our England
Where God and the small strapwort strive
To keep one English flower alive.