Sonnet: 'Happy is England! I could be content'

Happy is England! I could be content

      To see no other verdure than its own;

      To feel no other breezes than are blown

Through its tall woods with high romances blent:

Yet do I sometimes feel a languishment

      For skies Italian, and an inward groan

      To sit upon an Alp as on a throne,

And half forget what world or worldling meant.

Happy is England, sweet her artless daughters;

      Enough their simple loveliness for me,

            Enough their whitest arms in silence clinging:

      Yet do I often warmly burn to see

            Beauties of deeper glance, and hear their singing,

And float with them about the summer waters.