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Ryton Firs

by Lascelles Abercrombie

'The Dream'

All round the knoll, on days of quietest air,

Secrets are being told; and if the trees

Speak out - let them make uproar loud as drums -

'Tis secrets still, shouted instead of whisper'd.

There must have been a warning given once:

No tree, on pain of withering and sawfly,

To reach the slimmest of his snaky toes

Into this mounded sward and rumple it;

All trees stand back: taboo is on this soil. -

The trees have always scrupulously obeyed.

The grass, that elsewhere grows as best it may

Under the larches, countable long nesh blades,

Here in clear sky pads the ground thick and close

As wool upon a Southdown wether's back;

And as in Southdown wool, your hand must sink

Up to the wrist before it find the roots.

A bed for summer afternoons, this grass;

But in the Spring, not too softly entangling

For lively feet to dance on, when the green

Flashes with daffodils. From Marcle way,

From Dymock, Kempley, Newent, Bromesberrow,

Redmarley, all the meadowland daffodils seem

Running in golden tides to Ryton Firs,

To make the knot of steep little wooded hills

Their brightest show: O bella et' de l'oro!

Now I breathe you again, my woods of Ryton:

Not only golden with your daffodil-fires

Lying in pools on the loose dusky ground

Beneath the larches, tumbling in broad rivers

Down sloping grass under the cherry trees

And birches: but among your branches clinging

A mist of that Ferrara-gold I first

Loved in the easy hours then green with you;

And as I stroll about you now, I have

Accompanying me - like troops of lads and lasses

Chattering and dancing in a shining fortune -

Those mornings when your alleys of long light

And your brown rosin-scented shadows were

Enchanted with the laughter of my boys.

'The Voices in the Dream'

Follow my heart, my dancing feet,

Dance as blithe as my heart can beat.

Only can dancing understand

What a heavenly way we pass

Treading the green and golden land,

Daffodillies and grass.

I had a song, too, on my road,

But mine was in my eyes;

For Malvern Hills were with me all the way,

Singing loveliest visible melodies

Blue as a south-sea bay;

And ruddy as wine of France

Breadths of new-turn'd ploughland under them glowed.

'Twas my heart then must dance

To dwell in my delight;

No need to sing when all in song my sight

Moved over hills so musically made

And with such colour played. -

And only yesterday it was I saw

Veil'd in streamers of grey wavering smoke

My shapely Malvern Hills.

That was the last hail-storm to trouble spring:

He came in gloomy haste,

Pusht in front of the white clouds quietly basking,

In such a hurry he tript against the hills

And stumbling forward spilt over his shoulders

All his black baggage held,

Streaking downpour of hail.

Then fled dismayed, and the sun in golden glee

And the high white clouds laught down his dusky ghost.

For all that's left of winter

Is moisture in the ground.

When I came down the valley last, the sun

Just thawed the grass and made me gentle turf,

But still the frost was bony underneath.

Now moles take burrowing jaunts abroad, and ply

Their shovelling hands in earth

As nimbly as the strokes

Of a swimmer in a long dive under water.

The meadows in the sun are twice as green

For all the scatter of fresh red mounded earth,

The mischief of the moles:

No dullish red, Glostershire earth new-delved

In April! And I think shows fairest where

These rummaging small rogues have been at work.

If you will look the way the sunlight slants

Making the grass one great green gem of light,

Bright earth, crimson and even

Scarlet, everywhere tracks

The rambling underground affairs of moles:

Though 'tis but kestrel-bay

Looking against the sun.

But here's the happiest light can lie on ground,

Grass sloping under trees

Alive with yellow shine of daffodils!

If quicksilver were gold,

And troubled pools of it shaking in the sun

It were not such a fancy of bickering gleam

As Ryton daffodils when the air but stirs.

And all the miles and miles of meadowland

The spring makes golden ways,

Lead here, for here the gold

Grows brightest for our eyes,

And for our hearts lovelier even than love.

So here, each spring, our daffodil festival.

How smooth and quick the year

Spins me the seasons round!

How many days have slid across my mind

Since we had snow pitying the frozen ground!

Then winter sunshine cheered

The bitter skies; the snow,

Reluctantly obeying lofty winds,

Drew off in shining clouds,

Wishing it still might love

With its white mercy the cold earth beneath.

But when the beautiful ground

Lights upward all the air,

Noon thaws the frozen eaves,

And makes the rime on post and paling steam

Silvery blue smoke in the golden day.

And soon from loaded trees in noiseless woods

The snows slip thudding down,

Scattering in their trail

Bright icy sparkles through the glittering air;

And the fir-branches, patiently bent so long,

Sigh as they lift themselves to rights again.

Then warm moist hours steal in,

Such as can draw the year's

First fragrance from the sap of cherry wood

Or from the leaves of budless violets;

And travellers in lanes

Catch the hot tawny smell

Reynard's damp fur left as he sneakt marauding

Across from gap to gap:

And in the larch woods on the highest boughs

The long-eared owls like grey cats sitting still

Peer down to quiz the passengers below.

Light has killed the winter and all dark dreams.

Now winds live all in light,

Light has come down to earth and blossoms here,

And we have golden minds.

From out the long shade of a road high-bankt,

I came on shelving fields;

And from my feet cascading,

Streaming down the land,

Flickering lavish of daffodils flowed and fell;

Like sunlight on a water thrill'd with haste,

Such clear pale quivering flame,

But a flame even more marvellously yellow.

And all the way to Ryton here I walkt

Ankle-deep in light.

It was as if the world had just begun;

And in a mind new-made

Of shadowless delight

My spirit drank my flashing senses in,

And gloried to be made

Of young mortality.

No darker joy than this

Golden amazement now

Shall dare intrude into our dazzling lives:

Stain were it now to know

Mists of sweet warmth and deep delicious colour,

Those lovable accomplices that come

Befriending languid hours.