The Better Part

THERE'S a grey old church on a wind-swept hill Where three bent yew trees cower, The gipsy roses grow there still, And the thyme and Saint John's gold flower, The pale blue violets that love the chalk Cling light round the lichened stone, And starlings chatter and grey owls talk In the belfry o' nights alone. It's a thousand leagues and a thousand years From the brick-built, gas-lit town To the little church where the wild thyme hears The bees and the breeze of the down. The town is crowded and hard and rough; Let those fight in its press who will-- But the little churchyard is quiet enough, And there's room in the churchyard still.