Pretty Wherwell

A mental picture –Seen somewhere in France
(1st World War 1914-1918)

By Private.A.J.Parker

In fancy I walk through the pine at the Mount
And gaze on the elms too many to count
The beeches that border the drive through the Park
And hear overhead the song of the lark


Below there’s Will Smith raking the weeds from the rack
While hoping he’ll not find a trout on his back
Just watch with what care his footway he feels
Over the weir dropping pots for the eels


And elsewhere over top of the hill
Lovely is nesting the old water mill
And I ask our friend Carter who’s feeding the trout
If that big one I knew is still about


In the tail of my eye I can just see the spire
Of the ivied old church where I helped in the choir
And I thought of the people below in the nave
And wondered how many more sleep in the grave


A magnificent sight of a sweet summers day
Is the Test, which is winding its silvery way
I think of the wild duck, which rest in the sedge
And see Freddy Young at a gap in the hedge


And gently the hill two motors descend
And slacken their pace at the hairpin bend
At the foot of the hill comes a man on a bike
And all get a welcome from genial Fred Pike


I see woods in the distance with oak and with larch
And Spratt’s teams of horses comes under first arch
And woodman Will Monk works with saw in his hand
And Sandom’s just left with a cart full of sand


And next comes a cart all loaded with hay
Brushing bloom from red masses of May
While close to the Smithy with chestnuts o’erhead
Passes old friend H. Olliff with a new load of bread


The tower of the Priory above the trees shows
And there’s Freelands below with its masses of rose
The island in front where coots make their nests
The Seven stars in the distance where labourers rest


Was ever a place so peacefully blest
From turmoil so free, so brimful of rest
Serene and delightful, no poet could tell
Half of the charms of my home, my native Wherwell

Submitted by: Christopher Pilkington