Nature’s Cavalcade

Samuel Palmer -The valley Thick With Corn

When Hopkins gloried in dappled things
He must have thought of angels’ wings
Of gossamer and cuckoo spit
Of candles flicker-lit

As Palmer did
In silent chapels
In Kentish fields

 

Of darkening woods
where sunlight hides
In sheepland pastures

On downy hills

In buttercup meadows
Where linnet trills

The silent raptures
Of sunset light
On autumn trees
Where swoops the kite

And evening captures
The thickening shadows

The cooling breeze
Midst fields of golden rippling corn
That now adorn the rustic scene

Such glory in apple blossom seen

As they, with Blake,
Held in their hand
Those grains of sand
To wonder more
How Nature’s glory
Explains itself
In storm
And stillness
In calm and frenzy
Light and shade
In setting sun
And mounting moon

The evening’s glaze
In bounteous harvest
Nature’s cavalcade