Granchester revisited * Copyright © Victor Weston 2010

Oh to get into my car
And spend some while in Granchester
Where green-waters flow
And green-headed mallard fly
Beneath a wide Cambridgeshire sky
Now that the May green’s crowned
The trees and hedges
And fields around

Cycling along a winding lane
I feel my youthfulness back again
Passed Alice’s Lace and buttercups
Time has slipped, there's space for much
By horse chestnuts proud
With candles fair
The fragrance of lilac’s in the air
Into an expanse of meadowland
There's only natural beauty
As far as the eye can scan

Down through a gate to the silver stream
The sky is reflected in the rippling gleam
The picnickers are sprawling, its still cold!
They could be Nereids from an age of gold
I walk to the edge where I used to swim
to look for fish, but the clarity’s dim
And now I feel the warm touch of the sun
As if the “god” Pan’s present
And the world’s first begun

*with apologies to Rupert Brooke