VAGRANT VERSE

Southland Times, Issue 19511, 10 May 1922, Page 4

VAGRANT VERSE

THE PILGRIMS’ ROAD. There : we have gathered breath and climbed the hill, And now can view the landscape more at will. This is the Pilgrim road, a well known track, When folk did all their travelling on horaeback, Now long deserted, yet a right of way, And marked on all our maps with due display. Beneath this yew-tree, which perhape has seen, Our fathers riding to St. Thomas’ shrine, (For this was once the way of pilgnmagn From the southwest for all who would en gage Their vows at Canterbury), we will sit, As doubtless they too sat, and rest a bit. I love thia solitude of beech and fern, These quags and mosses, and 1 love ths stern, Black yew-trees and the hoary pastures bare, Or tufted with long growths of withered hair, And rank marsh grass. I love the bellheath’s bloom. . . I love the Forest ; 'tis but this one strip, Along the watershed that still dares keep, Its title to such name. Yet once wide grown A mighty woodland stretched from Down to Down, The last stronghold and desperate standingplace Of that indigenuuM Britannic race That fell before the English. . . —WilLeti Scawen Blunk