Places

Nobody says: Ah, that is the place     Where chanced, in the hollow of years ago,     What none of the Three Towns cared to know     The birth of a little girl of grace -     The sweetest the house saw, first or last;         Yet it was so         On that day long past.     Nobody thinks: There, there she lay     In a room by the Hoe, like the bud of a flower,     And listened, just after the bedtime hour,     To the stammering chimes that used to play     The quaint Old Hundred-and-Thirteenth tune         In Saint Andrew's tower         Night, morn, and noon.     Nobody calls to mind that here     Upon Boterel Hill, where the carters skid,     With cheeks whose airy flush outbid     Fresh fruit in bloom, and free of fear,     She cantered down, as if she must fall         (Though she never did),         To the charm of all.     Nay: one there is to whom these things,     That nobody else's mind calls back,     Have a savour that scenes in being lack,     And a presence more than the actual brings;     To whom to-day is beneaped and stale,         And its urgent clack         But a vapid tale.     PLYMOUTH, March 1913.