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Robert Graves - The Cottage
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Here in turn succeed and rule   
Carter, smith, and village fool,   
Then again the place is known   
As tavern, shop, and Sunday-school;   
Now somehow it’s come to me 
To light the fire and hold the key,   
Here in Heaven to reign alone.   
   
All the walls are white with lime,   
Big blue periwinkles climb   
And kiss the crumbling window-sill;
Snug inside I sit and rhyme,   
Planning, poem, book, or fable,   
At my darling beech-wood table   
Fresh with bluebells from the hill.   
   
Through the window I can see 
Rooks above the cherry-tree,   
Sparrows in the violet bed,   
Bramble-bush and bumble-bee,   
And old red bracken smoulders still   
Among boulders on the hill, 
Far too bright to seem quite dead.   
   
But old Death, who can’t forget,   
Waits his time and watches yet,   
Waits and watches by the door.   
Look, he’s got a great new net, 
And when my fighting starts afresh   
Stouter cord and smaller mesh   
Won’t be cheated as before.   
   
Nor can kindliness of Spring,   
Flowers that smile nor birds that sing,
Bumble-bee nor butterfly,   
Nor grassy hill nor anything   
Of magic keep me safe to rhyme   
In this Heaven beyond my time.   
No! for Death is waiting by.
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