Explore "RYE" by Edith Nesbit on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
A little town that stands upon a hill, / Against whose base the white waves once leaped high; / Now spreading round it, even, green and still, / The placid pastures of the marshes lie.
The red-roofed houses and the gray church tower / Bear half asleep the sunshine and the rain; / They wait, so long have waited, for the hour / When the wild, welcome sea shall come again.
The lovely lights across the marshes pass, / The dykes grow fair with blossom, reed and sedge; / The patient beasts crop the long, cool, green grass, / The willows shiver at the water's edge;
But the town sleeps, it will not wake for these.
The sea some day again will round it break, / Will surge across these leagues of pastoral peace, / And then the little town will laugh, and wake.