Near Midsummer

Severn’s most fair to-day! See what a tide of blue She pours, and flecked alway With gold, and what a crew Of seagulls snowy white Float round her to delight Villagers, travellers. A brown thick flood is hers In winter when the rains Wash down from Midland plains, Halting wayfarers, Low meadows flooding deep With torrents from the steep Mountains of Wales and small Hillocks of no degree-- Streams jostling to the sea; (Wrangling yet brotherly). Blue June has altered all-- The river makes its fall With murmurous still sound, Past Pridings faëry ground, And steep-down Newnham cliff.... O Boys in trenches, if You could see what any may (Escaping town for the day), Strong Severn all aglow, But tideless, running slow: Far Cotswolds all a-shimmer, Blue Bredon leagues away-- Huge Malverns, farther, dimmer ... Then you would feel the fire Of the First Days inspire You, when, despising all Save England’s, honour’s call, You dared the worst for her: Faced all things without fear, So she might stand alway A free Mother of men; High Queen as on this day. There would flood through you again The old faith, the old pride Wherein our fathers died, Whereby our land was builded and dignified.