The Clough Among The Hills

I know a clough where nightly My spirit goes in dream, Where wind-bent trees grow scantly Beside a brawling stream, And there, by gorse and heather, Grey moorland and grey stone, The ghost of the years forsaken Walks in the hills alone. There in the shy North springtime Our first late cuckoo calls, And last on yellowing leafage The touch of Autumn falls. There first the budding willows Break forth in golden pride, And the snow lies there the longest In all the countryside. The upland winds there wander: The brown moor broods above Like a stern-seeming mother Whose heart is filled with love: And more than banks and moorlands A hundred times more fair I love its few late flowerets And treetops, early bare. For through yon scattered planting, Beside yon hurrying stream, All times and tides forgetting, My spirit walks in dream, Where the quiet dough unchanging With sun or shadow fills, And the soul o' the past dwells lonely In the silence of the hills.