On The South Downs

Light falls the rain
On link and laine,
After the burning day;
And the bright scene,
Blue, gold, and green,
Is blotted out in gray.

Not so will part
The glowing heart
With sunny hours gone by;
On cliff and hill
There lingers still
A light that cannot die.

Like a gold crown
Gorse decks the Down,
All sapphire lies the sea;
And incense sweet
Springs as our feet
Tread light the thymy lea.

Fade, vision bright!
Fall rain, fall night!
Forget, gray world, thy green!
For us, nor thee,
Can all days be
As though this had not been!

The Home Of My Heart

Not here in the populous town,
In the playhouse or mart,
Not here in the ways gray and brown,
Bnt afar on the green-swelling down,
Is the home of my heart.

There the hillside slopes down to a dell
Whence a streamlet has start;
There are woods and sweet grass on the swell,
And the south winds and west know it well:
‘Tis the home of my heart.

There’s a cottage o’ershadowed by leaves
Growing fairer than art,
Where under the low sloping eaves -
No false hand the swallow bereaves:
‘Tis the home of my heart.

And there as you gaze down the lea,
Where the trees stand apart,
Over grassland and woodland may be
You will catch the faint gleam of the sea
From the home of my heart.

And there In the rapturous spring,
When the morning rays dart
O’er the plain, and the morning birds sing,
You may see the most beautiful thing
In the home of my heart;

For there at the casement above,
Where the rosebushes part,
Will blush the fair face of my love:
Ah, yes I It is this that will prove
‘Tis the home of my heart.