I rejoice to see that old wood five-bar gate

that still stands guard beneath the ancient beech

to a field sloping gently down the hill.

 

The gate from an old farm track - now lost to time -

has seen so many seasons, so many harvests pass

and must have known an age of scythes and stooks

of horse drawn harrows, ploughs and wooden carts.

 

What could it tell of the village girl who once leaned

against the mossy beech beside its hinge, or rested

on its bar that summer eve, and waited for her love:

sucked on a stem of grass as a cuckoo called from a distant copse,

plucked celandine, woodruff and wild thyme from the bank,

until his toil done, homeward hand in hand they go.