Better grey lakes, grey mountains, and grey skies,
        With song of water-brooks and sound of rain,
        Than that immeasurable Lombard plain—
For all its vines and corn and mulberries—
Sunburnt to silence: with what sweet surprise
        The mellow ouzel greets us once again!
        Clear and familiar from the springing grain,
With what a sense of home the corncrake cries!

But not the cry of crake, nor throstle’s tune,
    Nor daisied fields, nor plumy laurel-bowers
        That gleam snow-white at evening’s long-lit
            close,
So made me sure of Cumberland and June,
    As Crosthwaite lanes full-breathed of elder-flowers,
        And hedges broidered over with wild rose.

(Sonnets in Switzerland and Italy, p. 163)