An Idyll

 

It was an English summer´s day

with my friends we were at play

Behind the parish church there was a field

with grass waist high about to become the farmer´s yield

We frolicked, shouted and fell about

school was closed and we were out

The field sloped down to a hidden dell

where we had made our secret den

The trees surrounded a muddy pond

from which grew large green leafy fronds

On the surface lived a Moorhen family

who were often seen to be at play 

Shiny black with pert red beaks

we wondered if they were able to speak

Not too far away a Market Garden could be seen

tended by a gardener who was known to be very keen

All of this was my hidden England

far removed from icy mountains or deserts with their sand

This was a far better and richer place

reserved for a nation, an island race

We the inhabitants inherited this gem 

for which many a foreigner did also yen

This landscape moulded who we are

a people with a vision of the afar

A summer´s day in an English meadow

it was like opening a huge bay window

Onto a view of incomparable tranquility

which formed the soul of our identity