I wanted the bare
field out there to be mine.
Each day, at my typing, I saw the smooth line
Of the sycamores,
breaking the sweep of the grass
To the farm and the river. I saw the sails pass
Far away, white
and simple, where yachts moved at Thurne.
And I looked down, in pride, at my nearest stone urn.
From that urn to
the sycamores, this was my land,
With the wide breadth of Norfolk stretched gold on each
hand.
I had space, in
my dream, and six acres to keep.
I had grass for my garden, and twenty new sheep.
It's all over.
The field has been sold, to my friends,
And the dream of broad acres, all hope of it, ends.
At the auction I
bid high, too high for my good,
And I'm glad that I missed it, at that price, I should
Have been forced
into borrowing, bound to the shape
Of solicitor's ropes. But it still feels like rape
To see horses,
brown horses, that other men own
(In my mind they seem galloping, sculptured like stone)
Out there in my
bare field. I touch them, and weep,
And remember my dream, and the slow-moving sheep,
Their cold,
lovely fleece, and their beautiful eyes,
And their mouths, low and cropping, surrounded by flies. |