To a Surrey Wood
I love your green and shaded beauty,
When spring has decked each bough.
Here I find great peace when duty,
Care or worry, leave a furrowed brow.
Strolling soft, brown paths,
Where chestnut sentinels stand guard,
I listen to the chiff-chaffs
And spy bluebells in the sward.
Pheasants croak, magpies squawk,
Spider’s gossamer strokes my face.
The air's so still, I hear you talk
In tongues of time and space.
Summer comes with lazy heat;
How cool and fragrant are your shades.
Your paths, firm now beneath my feet,
Lead through sun-dappled glades.
As dog rose sweet succeeds the May,
Foxgloves dance in fern on banks.
Zephyrs are heady with scent of hay
And I recline in you with thanks.
Harvest time and now it seems,
Your gown’s dressed for a ball,
Red and gold; as sunbeams
Dance with leaves that fall.
The golden shower your branches shed
Lies crisp beneath my boots.
Forsaken shells, their “conkers” fled,
Lie lonely round the roots.
The wind is chill, your bare arms part,
Beneath November’s leaden sky.
Still there’s peace within your heart.
Filled with awe, I wonder why.
O’ernight your dress is changed again;
Snow adorns you like a bride.
No trace of paths or banks remain;
All drowned by winter’s virgin tide.
Full circle now as spring returns,
To deck your boughs with green.
My heart and spirit with the ferns,
Unfurl within your verdant screen.
© Lionel Owen
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