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Home  »  The Oxford Book of English Verse  »  820. St. Valentine’s Day

Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.

Wilfrid Scawen Blunt. b. 1840

820. St. Valentine’s Day

TO-DAY, all day, I rode upon the down, 
With hounds and horsemen, a brave company 
On this side in its glory lay the sea, 
On that the Sussex weald, a sea of brown. 
The wind was light, and brightly the sun shone,         5
And still we gallop’d on from gorse to gorse: 
And once, when check’d, a thrush sang, and my horse 
Prick’d his quick ears as to a sound unknown. 
  I knew the Spring was come. I knew it even 
Better than all by this, that through my chase  10
In bush and stone and hill and sea and heaven 
I seem’d to see and follow still your face. 
Your face my quarry was. For it I rode, 
My horse a thing of wings, myself a god.