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“On a Marsh Road” by Ford Madox Ford 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 (17 Dec 1873 – 26 Jun 1939)
A bluff of cliff, purple against the south,
And nigh one shoulder-top an orange pane.
This wet, clean road; clear twilight held in the pools,
And ragged thorns, ghost reeds and dim, dead willows.
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Past all the windings of these grey, forgotten valleys,
To west, past clouds that close on one dim rift—
The golden plains; the infinite, glimpsing distances,
The eternal silences; dim lands of peace.
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Infinite plains to know no wanderer’s foot; infinite distances where alone is rest;
All-virgin downs where none shall pasture sheep; inviolable peaks that none shall climb,
From whose summit nor you nor I shall gaze on ocean’s infinite beyond,
Nor none look back upon this world folding to-night, to rain and to sleep.