| |
| AS through the wild green hills of Wyre | |
| The train ran, changing sky and shire, | |
| And far behind, a fading crest, | |
| Low in the forsaken west | |
| Sank the high-reared head of Clee, | 5 |
| My hand lay empty on my knee. | |
| Aching on my knee it lay: | |
| That morning half a shire away | |
| So many an honest fellow’s fist | |
| Had well-nigh wrung it from the wrist. | 10 |
| Hand, said I, since now we part | |
| From fields and men we know by heart, | |
| For strangers’ faces, strangers’ lands,— | |
| Hand, you have held true fellows’ hands. | |
| Be clean then; rot before you do | 15 |
| A thing they’d not believe of you. | |
| You and I must keep from shame | |
| In London streets the Shropshire name; | |
| On banks of Thames they must not say | |
| Severn breeds worse men than they; | 20 |
| And friends abroad must bear in mind | |
| Friends at home they leave behind. | |
| Oh, I shall be stiff and cold | |
| When I forget you, hearts of gold; | |
| The land where I shall mind you not | 25 |
| Is the land where all ’s forgot. | |
| And if my foot returns no more | |
| To Teme nor Corve nor Severn shore, | |
| Luck, my lads, be with you still | |
| By falling stream and standing hill, | 30 |
| By chiming tower and whispering tree, | |
| Men that made a man of me. | |
| About your work in town and farm | |
| Still you’ll keep my head from harm, | |
| Still you’ll help me, hands that gave | 35 |
| A grasp to friend me to the grave. | |
| |
