Here in the green scooped valley I walk to and fro.

In all my journeyings I have not seen

A place so tranquil, so green;

And yet I think I have seen it long ago,

The grassy slopes, and the cart-track winding, so.

O now I remember it well, now all is plain,

Why twitched my memory like a dowser’s rod

At waters hidden under sod.

When I was a child they told me of Charlemagne,

Of Gan the traitor, and Roland outmatched and slain.

Weeping for Roland then, I scooped in my spirit

A scant green Roncesvalles, a holy ground,

Which here in Dorset I’ve found:

But finding, I knew it not. The years disinherit

Their children. The horn is blown, but I do not hear it.