Wednesday, 20 April 2011

Another April Poem: Cotswold Love

Before Holy Week proper takes over, here's another cheerful poem about spring, by John Drinkwater (1882-1937). All the places named are in Gloucestershire, but Oxfordshire is part of the Cotswolds too, so it's almost a local poem...


Cotswold Love

Blue skies are over Cotswold
 And April snows go by,
The lasses turn their ribbons
 For April's in the sky,
And April is the season
 When Sabbath girls are dressed,
From Rodboro' to Campden,
 In all their silken best.

An ankle is a marvel
 When first the buds are brown,
And not a lass but knows it
 From Stow to Gloucester town.
And not a girl goes walking
 Along the Cotswold lanes
But knows men's eyes in April
 Are quicker than their brains.

It's little that it matters,
 So long as you're alive,
If you're eighteen in April,
 Or rising sixty-five,
When April comes to Amberley
 With skies of April blue,
And Cotswold girls are briding
 With slyly tilted shoe.

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