Wilfred Scawen Blunt (1840-1922). St. Valentine's Day. Arthur Quiller-Couch, comp. 1922. The Oxford Book of Victorian Verse

Arthur Quiller-Couch, comp. The Oxford Book of Victorian Verse. 1922.

St. Valentine’s Day

By Wilfred Scawen Blunt (1840–1922)


TO-DAY, all day, I rode upon the down,
With hounds and horsemen, a brave company,
On this side in its glory lay the sea,
On that the Sussex weald, a sea of brown.
The wind was light, and brightly the sun shone,	5
And still we gallop’d on from gorse to gorse:
And once, when check’d, a thrush sang, and my horse
Prick’d his quick ears as to a sound unknown.
I knew the Spring was come. I knew it even
Better than all by this, that through my chase	10
In bush and stone and hill and sea and heaven
I seem’d to see and follow still your face.
Your face my quarry was. For it I rode,
My horse a thing of wings, myself a god.