The Cottage

Here in turn succeed and rule   Carter, smith, and village fool,   Then again the place is known   As tavern, shop, and Sunday-school;   Now somehow it’s come to me To light the fire and hold the key,   Here in Heaven to reign alone.     All the walls are white with lime,   Big blue periwinkles climb   And kiss the crumbling window-sill;

Snug inside I sit and rhyme,   Planning, poem, book, or fable,   At my darling beech-wood table   Fresh with bluebells from the hill.     Through the window I can see Rooks above the cherry-tree,   Sparrows in the violet bed,   Bramble-bush and bumble-bee,   And old red bracken smoulders still   Among boulders on the hill,

Far too bright to seem quite dead.     But old Death, who can’t forget,   Waits his time and watches yet,   Waits and watches by the door.   Look, he’s got a great new net,

And when my fighting starts afresh   Stouter cord and smaller mesh   Won’t be cheated as before.     Nor can kindliness of Spring,   Flowers that smile nor birds that sing,

Bumble-bee nor butterfly,   Nor grassy hill nor anything   Of magic keep me safe to rhyme   In this Heaven beyond my time.   No! for Death is waiting by.