Larches are most fitting small red hills
That rise like swollen antheaps likeably
And modest before big things like near Malvern
Or Cotswold's farther early Italian
Blue arrangement; unassuming as the
Cowslips, celandines, buglewort and daisies
That trinket out the green swerves like a child's game.
O never so careless or lavish as here,
I thought, 'You beauty! I must rise soon one dawn time
And ride to see the first beam strike on you
Of gold or ruddy recognisance over
Crickley level or Bredon sloping down.
I must play tunes like Bums, or sing like David,
A saying out of what the hill leaves unexprest
The tale or song that lives in it, and is sole,
A round red thing, green upright things of flame
It is May, and the conceited cuckoo toots and whoos his name.