Near Midsummer

Severn’s most fair to-day!
See what a tide of blue
She pours, and flecked alway
With gold, and what a crew
Of seagulls snowy white
Float round her to delight
Villagers, travellers.
A brown thick flood is hers
In winter when the rains
Wash down from Midland plains,
Halting wayfarers,
Low meadows flooding deep
With torrents from the steep
Mountains of Wales and small
Hillocks of no degree--
Streams jostling to the sea;
(Wrangling yet brotherly).
Blue June has altered all--
The river makes its fall
With murmurous still sound,
Past Pridings faëry ground,
And steep-down Newnham cliff....
O Boys in trenches, if
You could see what any may
(Escaping town for the day),
Strong Severn all aglow,
But tideless, running slow:
Far Cotswolds all a-shimmer,
Blue Bredon leagues away--
Huge Malverns, farther, dimmer ...
Then you would feel the fire
Of the First Days inspire
You, when, despising all
Save England’s, honour’s call,
You dared the worst for her:
Faced all things without fear,
So she might stand alway
A free Mother of men;
High Queen as on this day.
There would flood through you again
The old faith, the old pride
Wherein our fathers died,
Whereby our land was builded and dignified.