54725: I Never Saw that Land Before

<p dir="ltr"> I never saw that land before,<br> And now can never see it again;<br> Yet, as if by acquaintance hoar<br> Endeared, by gladness and by pain,<br> Great was the affection that I bore<br> To the valley and the river small,<br> The cattle, the grass, the bare ash trees,<br> The chickens from the farmsteads, all<br> Elm-hidden, and the tributaries<br> Descending at equal interval;<br> The blackthorns down along the brook<br> With wounds yellow as crocuses<br> Where yesterday the labourer's hook<br> Had sliced them cleanly; and the breeze<br> That hinted all and nothing spoke.<br> I neither expected anything<br> Nor yet remembered: but some goal<br> I touched then; and if I could sing<br> What would not even whisper my soul<br> As I went on my journeying,<br> I should use, as the trees and birds did,<br> A language not to be betrayed;<br> And what was hid should still be hid<br> Excepting from those like me made<br> Who answer when such whispers bid.<br></p>