Heartsease Country

To Isabel Swinburne

The far green westward heavens are bland, The far green Wiltshire downs are clear As these deep meadows hard at hand: The sight knows hardly far from near, Nor morning joy from evening cheer. In cottage garden-plots their bees Find many a fervent flower to seize And strain and drain the heart away From ripe sweet-williams and sweet-peas At every turn on every way.
But gladliest seems one flower to expand Its whole sweet heart all round us here; 'Tis Heartsease Country, Pansy Land. Nor sounds nor savours harsh and drear Where engines yell and halt and veer Can vex the sense of him who sees One flower-plot midway, that for trees Has poles, and sheds all grimed or grey For bowers like those that take the breeze At every turn on every way.
Content even there they smile and stand, Sweet thought's heart-easing flowers, nor fear, With reek and roaring steam though fanned, Nor shrink nor perish as they peer. The heart's eye holds not those more dear That glow between the lanes and leas Where'er the homeliest hand may please To bid them blossom as they may Where light approves and wind agrees At every turn on every way.
Sister, the word of winds and seas Endures not as the word of these Your wayside flowers whose breath would say How hearts that love may find heart's ease At every turn on every way.