In mist-soft dawn by Frome’s slow bend,
Where reeds are thick and waters wend,
She wakes in hush, in silver shroud,
The earth-mother, gentle, rising proud.

Her hair is fern, her eyes are rain,
Her breath the wind on Marshwood Plain,
She walks the ridge where skylarks rise,
And paints with cloud the Purbeck skies.

No sword is raised in Nerþum’s presence,
The forge is still, war-drums stilled silence,
For peace is hers, the ploughshare’s friend,
The green’s beginning, summer’s end.

In wagon veiled, through meadow deep,
Drawn slow by kine, her secrets keep,
The folk bow low in whispered prayer,
And weave her name in Dorset air.

She scatters seeds on Egdon’s moor,
Gives fish to tide and grain to floor,
And when she rests, the land lies blessed,
The heaths lie green, the osprey’s nest.

O Nerþum, mother, soil and stream,
You hold us fast within your dream,
From Yule’s cold heart to harvest’s glow,
Through Dorset’s wheel of months, you go.