River Severn Poetry Spring 1924 by F W Harvey Spring came by water to Broadoak Hay-wisps which showed the fast this year. Of winter was over for cattle, I saw her clear. Who needed no longer battle Though on the earth a sprinkling For food in some far meadow Of snowdrops shone, the Soft as shadow unwrinkling There glided past a skiff, Bright curve of Severn River Heavy with mended nets for Was of her gospel first giver. salmon. If Like a colt new put to pasture it Spring dreamed galloped on; Lazily in Earth’s half-frozen blood, And a million On Severn’s flood Small things on its back for token Her presence bravely gleamed. Of her coming it bore. A broken Yea, all who sought her Hawthorn floated green Might see, wondering, how Spring Gem-bright upon the sheen walked the water. Of the moving water. There past The Fisherman of Newnham by Ivor Gurney When I was a boy at Newnham, And now I’ve come to manhood, For every tide that ran Too many cares have I Swift on its way to Bollow, To think of gallivanting I wished I were a man (A wife and child forbye). To sail out and discover So I must wonder ever Where such a tide began. Until time comes to die. But when my strength came on me Then I shall question Peter ‘Tis I must earn my bread: Upon the heavenly floor, My Father set me fishing What makes the tide in rivers – By Frampton Hock, instead How comes the Severn Bore, Of wandering to the ocean – And all things he will tell me Wherever Severn led. I never knew before. Gloucestershire Archives Gloucestershire from Abroad By F W Harvey On Dinny Hill the daffodil Are blinded by a twinkling fire Has crowned the years returning. Of turning leaves in The water cool in Placket Pool Gloucestershire. Is ruffled up and burning In little wings of fluttering fire. The shadows fleet o’er And all the heart of my desire springing wheat. Is now to be in Gloucestershire. Which like green water washes The red old earth of Minsterworth The river flows, the blossom blows And ripples in such flashes In orchards by the river. As by their little harmless fire O now to stand in that, my land, Light the great stack of my desire And watch the withies shiver! The day to be in Gloucestershire. The yearning eyes of my desire From Songs of the Three Rivers by Francis Brett Young Yet rare and fugitive, hour by hour, Shall dreaming Severn Fade on the moving mirror’s face awake from sleep, The imagined beauty of Not till the green vale opens wide Worcester tower And the wrath of the bore And Tewkesbury tower, and the rolls in from sea stony lace And the stinging salt of the Of Gloucester’s fretted parapet; sudden tide And the mournful stone of Berkley’s keep Mindeth her of her destiny Saddens her surface – but not yet From The Roads Go Down by F Mansell The roads go down to Gloucester town And Severn seeks the sea; But what road leads where I’d be gone, What river flows to thee? F.W. Harvey, Collected Poems 1912 - 1957 (McLean, 2009). Francis Brett Young, ‘Song of the three rivers‘, Section XI, The Island (1944), 105-123. Gloucestershire Archives.