I Never Saw that Land Before

I never saw that land before, 

And now can never see it again; 

Yet, as if by acquaintance hoar 

Endeared, by gladness and by pain, 

Great was the affection that I bore 




To the valley and the river small, 

The cattle, the grass, the bare ash trees, 

The chickens from the farmsteads, all 

Elm-hidden, and the tributaries

Descending at equal interval; 




The blackthorns down along the brook 

With wounds yellow as crocuses 

Where yesterday the labourer’s hook 

Had sliced them cleanly; and the breeze 

That hinted all and nothing spoke. 




I neither expected anything

Nor yet remembered: but some goal 

I touched then; and if I could sing 

What would not even whisper my soul 

As I went on my journeying, 




I should use, as the trees and birds did, 

A language not to be betrayed;

And what was hid should still be hid 

Excepting from those like me made 

Who answer when such whispers bid.