In Grantchester, in Grantchester!

UPDATE ON THE UPDATE: According to 2 other versions of the poem, I found this phrase, "ei’ qe genoi mhn" - in place of this phrase, "Uítu gunoímen." The explanation reads as such: Epsilon-Iota/Theta-Epsilon /Gamma-Epsilon-Nu-Omicron-Iota/ Mu-Eta-Nu"

Which still means little to me - (It's all Greek to me...?) - ideas, thoughts translations? Again, please share.

UPDATE: No, I have no idea what "Uítu gunoímen" translates to... if you know, please share.

Excerpts from "Grantchester" by Rupert Brooke, May 1912

"Uítu gunoímen . . . would I were
In Grantchester, in Grantchester! -- -
Some, it may be, can get in touch
With Nature there, or Earth, or such.
And clever modern men have seen
A Faun a-peeping through the green,
And felt the Classics were not dead,
To glimpse a Naiad's reedy head,
Or hear the Goat-foot piping low: . . .
But these are things I do not know.
I only know that you may lie
Day long and watch the Cambridge sky,
And, flower-lulled in sleepy grass,
Hear the cool lapse of hours pass,
Until the centuries blend and blur
In Grantchester, in Grantchester. . . .
Still in the dawnlit waters cool
His ghostly Lordship swims his pool,
And tries the strokes, essays the tricks,
Long learnt on Hellespont, or Styx.
Dan Chaucer hears his river still
Chatter beneath a phantom mill.
Tennyson notes, with studious eye,
How Cambridge waters hurry by . . .



God! I will pack, and take a train,
And get me to England once again!
For England's the one land, I know,
Where men with Splendid Hearts may go;
And Cambridgeshire, of all England,
The shire for Men who Understand;
And of that district I prefer
The lovely hamlet Grantchester."

For entire text, click here

photo by l. perkowski