Larches Poem by Ivor Gurney

Larches are most fitting small red hills
That rise like swollen antheaps likeably
And modest before big things like near Malvern
Or Cotswold's farther early Italian
Blue arrangement; unassuming as the
Cowslips, celandines, buglewort and daisies
That trinket out the green swerves like a child's game.
O never so careless or lavish as here,
I thought, 'You beauty! I must rise soon one dawn time
And ride to see the first beam strike on you
Of gold or ruddy recognisance over
Crickley level or Bredon sloping down.
I must play tunes like Bums, or sing like David,
A saying out of what the hill leaves unexprest
The tale or song that lives in it, and is sole,
A round red thing, green upright things of flame
It is May, and the conceited cuckoo toots and whoos his name.