Words + 

Out of us all + 

That make rhymes, + 

Will you choose + 

Sometimes⁠— + 

As the winds use + 

A crack in a wall + 

Or a drain, + 

Their joy or their pain + 

To whistle through⁠— + 

Choose me, + 

You English words? + 

I know you: + 

You are light as dreams, + 

Tough as oak, + 

Precious as gold, + 

As poppies and corn, + 

Or an old cloak: + 

Sweet as our birds + 

To the ear, + 

As the burnet rose + 

In the heat + 

Of Midsummer: + 

Strange as the races + 

Of dead and unborn: + 

Strange and sweet + 

Equally, + 

And familiar, + 

To the eye, + 

As the dearest faces + 

That a man knows, + 

And as lost homes are: + 

But though older far + 

Than oldest yew⁠— + 

As our hills are, old⁠— + 

Worn new + 

Again and again: + 

Young as our streams + 

After rain: + 

And as dear + 

As the earth which you prove + 

That we love. + 

Make me content + 

With some sweetness + 

From Wales + 

Whose nightingales + 

Have no wings⁠— + 

From Wiltshire and Kent + 

And Herefordshire, + 

And the villages there⁠— + 

From the names, and the things + 

No less. + 

Let me sometimes dance + 

With you, + 

Or climb + 

Or stand perchance + 

In ecstasy, + 

Fixed and free + 

In a rhyme, + 

As poets do. + 