Nature

Memorials of Travel: I. Coaching

by Edward Dowden 1843–1913

From Poems (1914)

Nature

Where have I been this perfect summer day,
--Or fortnight is it, since I rose from bed,
Devour’d that kippered fish, the oatmeal bread,
And mounted to this box? O bowl away
Swift stagers through the dusk, I will not say
“Enough,” nor care where I have been or be,
Nor know one name of hill, or lake, or lea,
Or moor, or glen! Were not the clouds at play
Nameless among the hills, and fair as dreams?
On such a day we must love things not words,
And memory take or leave them as they are.
On such a day! What unimagined streams
Are in the world, how many haunts of birds,
What fields and flowers,--and what an evening Star!

✦ ✦ ✦

Dated 1867. In Scotland.

MLA

Dowden, Edward. “Memorials of Travel: I. Coaching.” Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/dowden/36/.

Chicago

Dowden, Edward. “Memorials of Travel: I. Coaching.” Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/dowden/36/.

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