Poems of Philip Henry Savage / Philip Henry Savage [electronic text]

THE HEDGEROW

THE sun is up, Great God, the sun is up, High o'er the eastern hill among white clouds Insufferable! I thank Thee for the call. Deep in the Woodstock meadows on a morn Pleasant it is to wander ere the sun Has burned the dewdrops off the bending grass; When each small area seems a world complete, When every forest stem beneath the sun Shoots out a light, and every meadow span Is dowered with moving radiance; and the hills! I had not known their power till I had seen, Limned by the early morn, their mystic heads White in the eastern circuit. From the town The path led out across the dew-wet lands, Crossed the cold river in the river-mist, And turned aside before the columned elms, Heavy with morning light; three things remain In joy, of all the pleasant things I saw Along this early path: the glowing elms, Far off, the line of hills, and suddenly (That rose abrupt and claimed its character) A straight and tangled row of heavy green, A hedge, till then unguessed, where loftier trees Stood up amid a world of clustering things, Brambles and slender vines and, stiffly held,

The heads of little, sturdy, hopeful trees. Along one maple branch some colder wisp Of passing wind had struck an early blow And pressed the green life back; the kindlier airs Had after gathered round and now caressed The broken hope into a golden death. This was a passing fancy, but the elms Are living elms and must forever live, Rich in the willing burden of that morn; I never see beneath the golden mist Of peaceful afternoon, or in the time Of open daylight such an upland slope Without the gentle coming of this one, This morning picture and the further thought Of all the hidden chambers whence are drawn The veils, lights, shadows, colors of the world That spread across the poorest piece of ground To form and to transform; then at the last I saw the tangled hedgerow by the wall, My mind woke to a fancy and at once I found it wandering over English fields And lodging with the primrose and the lark; For here there was a hedge! The pioneer Had built his roadside wall of labored stone, And through his fields had led this simple line Rough-set of rounded rock, to part his herd Of cattle and his flock (perhaps) of sheep,

What time they browsed in Woodstock. Early grass Had pushed a carpet in among the stones And here the scythe had stopped; chance-drifted dust, Holding the promise and the hope of life, Seeds, the small looms of nature's garment, here Found an untroubled resting-place and ran Through all their changes. Years passed by and here The squirrel found a harbor and a home; For overhead the angled beechnut hung, And hazels stood at hand. Here in the spring The gold of summer's sunrise — dandelions — And daisies, starry oxeyes, clustered near; The earlier violets were not absent nor In later days the modest, showy bell, Blue, slender-hanging. So the summers passed, Rising and falling; as his homestead grew The farmer mowed more widely, nor his flocks Demanded less his care in fold and field To bound; and so as ever each day more He saw the need for labor, this one wall, Now old and overgrown, he eyed with pleasure; The stones might fall away, the flooding rains That drove the stream up on the meadow-lands Might roll and still displace them, and the vines,

The wild grape and the bramble, force their way Disintegrating, still no care was his; For over all the green was gathered close And densely massed, so that no glimpse beyond Greeted the searching eye; and here I found The hedgerow standing as the sun had shaped it, Richly confused and prodigal and wild, And yet a straight, well-guided hedge and serving Its master better than he served himself, Adding to service beauty and a soul.