The rhyming (with a few exceptions!) in this poem is first line with third, second with fourth. It is also fourth syllable of the first line with fourth of the third; and sixth of the second line with sixth of the fourth.
Fetch me across the Haven’s race
From all that’s false and fanciful and new.
A lover seeking only love’s embrace,
I hear again the call, and come to you.
My feet set down on silver sand
By wind and wave compiled, warmed by the sun;
As though from town and city I had spanned
The seas, and found an isle by coral spun.
Beyond, where lie the dunes, each blade
Of grass whispers my name. A lizard darts
With news that I have come, while in the glade
Sweet Gale to do the same, her scent imparts.
To the land-locked Little Sea I walk
Through Jungle where the Royal Fern holds sway.
Great Water Docks the dark-eyed marsh-pools stalk;
None but the tried and loyal pass this way!
So to the high-skied heath, and tracks
That hum and chirp with insect industry.
Setting alight the heather’s tinder-packs,
The Gorse displays its Incan finery.
The sun goes down at Arish Mell,
Blessing with dusk a land where Curlews call.
Now bats, all soundless, weave an evening spell,
And sleep, with gentle hand, enfolds us all.
The stir of Hazel leaves within
The copse opens the thrushes eye and then
His throat. The daystar fades as dawn wears thin
The mists that shroud and hush the world of men.
Then upward past the Agglestone –
A gift from space – an asteroidal crumb?
Or did some vasty giant, like a bone,
Gouge it from Earth’s carcass with his thumb?
I only know, it now marks out
The path to where, athwart the Isle, are thrown
Two ridges that, like a mother’s arms about
Her sleeping child, will guard and keep their own.
Only on these green, sun-blown hills
Does my heart ever sing its native song.
Here sorrows ease and all my being stills;
Here, where the summer lingers, I belong.
And, where I climb Nine Barrow Down,
The Painted Lady sips the Harebell’s cup;
And purple Thyme diffuses fragrance round
Luring the Lark who dips and rises up –
Up to the crest and widest blue
Where I may gaze and gaze from sea to sea
Nor ever rest my eye on any view
That does not fill with praise the soul of me.
So must the Island soon beguile
My feet to thread their way to Purbeck’s edge.
And gladly I’ll be drawn to rest awhile
At Winspit, Brandy Bay or Dancing Ledge.
Here, graven in the rocks, is scored
The music of the ages, line by line,
And breakers, breaking, sound the ancient chord
That tells of life’s beginnings and of mine.
Liege-lordly stand the towering cliffs
While vassal seas their foaming tribute pay.
Nor would my hand withhold its gift,
For I am more at home, more loved than they.