Page:Poems (Edward Thomas, 1917).djvu/28

 As many children as your heart

Might wish for, a far better art

Than mine can be, all you have lost

Upon the travelling waters tossed,

Or given to me. If I could choose

Freely in that great treasure-house

Anything from any shelf,

I would give you back yourself,

And power to discriminate

What you want and want it not too late,

Many fair days free from care

And heart to enjoy both foul and fair,

And myself, too, if I could find

Where it lay hidden and it proved kind.

WHEN FIRST

first I came here I had hope,

Hope for I knew not what. Fast beat

My heart at sight of the tall slope

Or grass and yews, as if my feet

Only by scaling its steps of chalk

Would see something no other hill

Ever disclosed. And now I walk

Down it the last time. Never will

My heart beat so again at sight

Of any hill although as fair

And loftier. For infinite

The change, late unperceived, this year,

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