Verse is the natural speech of men, as singing is of birds'The Week's Survey, 18 June 1904

I like to think how easily Nature will absorb London as she absorbed the mastodon, setting her spiders to spin the winding-sheet and her worms to fill in the grave, and her grass to cover it pitifully up, adding flowers - as an unknown hand added them to the grave of Nero.

The simple lack of her is more to me than others' presence.

November’s days are thirty: November’s earth is dirty, Those thirty days, from first to last And the prettiest things on ground are the paths.... Few care for the mixture of earth and water, Twig, leaf, flint, thorn, Straw, feather, all that men scorn, Pounded up and sodden by flood, Condemned as mud.

If I should ever by chance grow richI'll buy Codham, Cockridden, and Childerditch,Roses, Pyrgo, and Lapwater,And let them all to my eldest daughter.

I, too, often shrivel the grey shreds,Sniff them and think and sniff again and tryOnce more to think what it is I am remembering,Always in vain. I cannot like the scent,Yet I would rather give up others more sweet,With no meaning, than this bitter one.

Over the land freckled with snow half-thawed The speculating rooks at their nests cawed And saw from elm tops, delicate as flower of grass, What we below could not see, Winter pass.

Yes I remember Adlestrop- The name, because one afternoon Of heat the express-train drew up there Unwontedly. It was late June.

I built myself a house of glass:It took me years to make it:And I was proud. But now, alas!Would God someone would break it.