A tall tree on the brow of the hill,
Meadow stretch as far a you gaze;
A tumbledown farm near the mill,
The stream covered in misted haze.
The noise of the sheep away in the fold,
And cattle in the byre near:
Dreams of a land where we never grow old
And never a worry or fear.
But alas, it's a dream for me now,
As I gaze down the brambled track.
Not a sheep nor a lonesome cow ---
Just a land that is calling me back.
The mill-stream goes on through the ages,
Though the farmhouse is crumbling still;
And we look at the last broken stages
Of the tree on the brow of the hill.
© 1961 : Colin Gordon-Farleigh
This poem dates back 50 years to 1961, and I remember the time that I wrote it very clearly. It was inspired by a painting at the home of my very first love, which showed a ploughed hill crest with a tumbledown farmhouse to the right of the picture and a lone tree towards the left. There was such beauty and yet such sadness in the sparsity of the painting, and I had looked at it so many times as I sat with the family in their lounge. The image is still imprinted on my memory, and still evokes the same feelings about it that I had when I first saw it over fifty years ago.
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