May 2, 19 1 8 
Land & Water 
25 
Rotting scrofulous steaming trunks, 
Great horned emerald beetles crawling, 
Ants and huge slow butterflies 
, That have strayed and lost the sun 
Ah, sick I have swooned as the air thickened 
To a pallid brown ecliptic glow. 
And on the forest, 
Thunder has beisfun. 
fallen with languor. 
Thunder in the dun dusk, thunder 
Rolhng and battering and cracking. 
The caverns shudder with a terrible glare 
Again and again and again. 
Till the land bows in the darkness 
Utterly lost and defenceless 
Smitten and bUnded and overwhelmed 
By the crashing rods of rain. 
And then in the forests of the Amazon 
When the rain has ended, and silence come. 
What dark luxuriance unfolds 
From behind the night's drawn bars 
The wreathing odours of a thousand trees 
And the flowers' faint gleaming presences 
And over the clearings and the sighing waters 
Soft indigo and hanging stars. 
O many and many are rivers. 
And beautiful are all rivers, 
And lovely is water everywhere 
That leaps or glides or stays ; 
Yet by starlight, or moonlight, or sunlight. 
Long, long though they look, these wandering eyes 
Even on the fairest waters of dream 
Never untroubled gaze. 
For whatever stream I stand by. 
And whatever river I dream of. 
There is something still in the back of my mind 
From very far away ; 
There is something I saw and see not, 
A country full of rivers 
That stirs in my heart and speaks to me 
More sure, more dear than they. 
And always I ask and wonder 
(Though often I do not know it) 
Why does this water not smell like water ? 
Where is the moss that grew 
Wet and dry on the slabs of granite 
And the round stones in clear brown water ? 
— And a pale film rises before them 
Of the rivers that first I knew. 
Though famous are the rivers of the great world. 
Though my heart from those alien waters drinks 
Delight however pure from their loveliness 
And awe however deep. 
Would I wish for a moment the miracle 
That those waters shoxild come to Chagford, 
Or gather and swell in Tavy Cleave 
Where the stones chng to the steep ? 
No, even were they Ganges and Amazon 
In all their great might and majesty 
League upon league of wonders. 
I would lose them all, and more. 
For a light chiming of small bells. 
A twisting flash in the granite, ' 
The tiny thread of a pixie waterfall 
That lives by Vixen Tor. 
Those rivers in that lost country. 
They were brown as a clear brown bead is 
Or red with the earth that rain washed down. 
Or white with china-clay ; 
And some tossed foaming over boulders, 
And some curved mild and tranquil. 
In wooded vales securely set 
lender the fond warm da}'. 
Okement and Erme and Avon, 
Exe and his ruffled shallows, 
I could cry as I think of those rivers 
That knew my morning dreams ; 
The weir by Tavistock at evening 
When the circling woods were purple. 
And the Lowman in spring with the Icnt-lilies,* 
And the little moorland streams. 
For many a hillside streamlet 
There falls with a broken tinkle. 
Falling and dying, falhng and dying. 
In little cascades and pools, 
Where the world is furze and heather. 
And flashing plovers and fixed larks. 
And an empty sky, whitish blue. 
That small world rules. 
There, there, where the high waste boglands 
And the drooping slopes and the spreading valleys 
The orchards and the cattle-sprinkled pastures. 
Those travelling musics fill. 
There is my lost Abana, 
And there is my nameless Pharpar 
That mixed with my heart when I was a boy. 
And time stood still. 
And I say I will go there and die there : 
But I do not go there, and sometimes 
I think that the train could not carry me there, 
And it's possible, maybe. 
That it's farther than Asia or Africa, 
Than moon or sun or the ends of space. 
Farther, farther, beyond recall. . . . 
O even in memory ! 
I?" 
