Home (written on the train from London)
Straight from the factories, the filth and the fogs,
Into sweet country like this;
From millions all huddled and herded in mass
To luxurious solitude bliss!
Behind me by now just an hour away
Like those houses packed row upon row,
Smart stores, little markets, more houses and shops,
Dark basements in damp depths below,
And high-towering monsters all rearing above
This place which stood long e'er their birth;
Stood so for so long, it has passed memory quite
That this also was once the fair earth.
While we rush through the country, the only one noise
To disturb all the calm of the fields
Is of us; but we're passing, mere travellers now,
And receiving the peace that it yields.
Behind is the memory of traffic galore
As it runs its continual race,
And the murmur of millions is lost in the roar
As its path it continues to trace.
Here green grass and trees to the eyes are a treat,
Such a green as had only remained
In the mind, for back there colour's lost in the smoke,
Beauty vanished and never regained.
And the blue of the sky never words could describe
But suffice it to say it is blue,
For behind are dark chimneys, and rooftops, and walls,
And the scene is the same, old or new.
But better than all that I feel in this hour
Is what is in store, now ahead,
For there's all this and more, and far better I say,
For it's there that my feet soon will tread,
Retracing the steps that I once used to take
When life was all laughter and song,
Over paths so familiar and always so dear,
Retying the bonds once so strong
That held me and kept me with never a thought
For the world now so near, then so far,
For to me that small world was so fully complete
That I lived, as it were, on a star.
