Words

OUT of us all That make rhymes, Will you choose Sometimes-- As the winds use A crack in a wall Or a drain, Their joy or their pain To whistle through-- Choose me, You English words?

I know you: You are light as dreams, Tough as oak, Precious as gold, As poppies and corn, Or an old cloak: Sweet as our birds To the ear, As the burnet rose In the heat Of Midsummer: Strange as the races Of dead and unborn: Strange and sweet Equally, And familiar, To the eye, As the dearest faces That a man knows, And as lost homes are: But though older far Than oldest yew,-- As our hills are, old.-- Worn new Again and again: Young as our streams After rain: And as dear As the earth which you prove That we love.

Make me content With some sweetness From Wales Whose nightingales Have no wings,-- From Wiltshire and Kent And Herefordshire, And the villages there,-- From the names, and the things No less.

Let me sometimes dance With you, Or climb Or stand perchance In ecstasy, Fixed and free In a rhyme, As poets do.