Song of the Wulfshaw Larches by Ernest Rhys. Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. 1895. A Victorian Anthology, 1837-1895

Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895. 1895.

Song of the Wulfshaw Larches

Ernest Rhys (b. 1860)


HEART of Earth, let us be gone,
From this rock where we have stayed
While the sun has risen and shone
Ten thousand times, and thrown our shade
Always in the self-same place.	5

Now the night draws on apace:
The day is dying on the height,
The wind brings cold sea-fragrance here,
And cries, and restless murmurings,
Now night is near,—	10
Of wings and feet that take to flight,
Of furry feet and feathery wings
That take their joyous flight at will
Away and over the hiding hill,
And into the land where the sun has fled.	15
O let us go, as they have sped,—
The soft swift shapes that left us here,
The gentle things that came and went
And left us in imprisonment!
Let us be gone, as they have gone,	20
Away, and into the hidden lands;—
From rock and turf our roots uptear,
Break from the clinging keeping bands,
Out of this long imprisoning break;
At last, our sunward journey take,	25
And far, to-night, and farther on,—
Heart or Earth, let us be gone!