Song: Let Us Go Back by Vita Sackville-West

Song: Let Us Go Back

by Vita Sackville-West

Let us go back together to the hills. 

Weary am I of palaces and courts, 

Weary of words disloyal to my thoughts,—

Come, my belovèd, let us to the hills.

Let us go back together to the land, 

And wander hand in hand upon the heights;

Kings have we seen, and manifold delights,—

Oh, my beloved, let us to the land!

Lone and unshackled, let us to the road 

Which holds enchantment round each hidden bend, 

Our course uncompassed and our whim its end, 

Our feet once more, belovèd, to the road!

The Cheviot Hills along the English-Scottish border

Vita Sackville-West, aka Victoria Mary, Lady Nicolson, was an English poet, prose writer, journalist, and garden designer. Virginia Woolf was a friend and a lover, and Woolf used Sackville-West as inspiration for the protagonist of her novel Orlando. Sackville-West had a number of lovers of both sexes and was also married for a time. Her memoir focusing on her relationships and her open marriage, Portrait of a Marriage, was published in 1973, 11 years after her death at the age of 70. She hoped the book would help people understand bisexuals. Besides her own writing--which was voluminous--she also translated a collection of poems by Rainer Maria Rilke.

The poem above is a great example of her poetry, as both nature and romantic love were common themes for her.

I have never hung out with kings or attended parties in castles, but I can relate--and I think most of us can--to the desire expressed in this poem: getting away from people and, with just a lover as a companion, heading--literally--for the hills, or some other natural environment. Getting away from it all rarely means going to a city or suburb. To decompress and re-center, most humans find they need a natural environment, be it the ocean, the hills or mountains, a lake, the forest, or the desert.

If you are interested in discovering a fascinating woman who wrote a lot, look no more. One of Vita Sackville-West's novels, All Passion Spent, was made into a TV mini-series by the BBC. Subjects for her biographies include Andrew Marvell, Aphra Behn, and Saint Joan of Arc. Her letters have been collected and published, including her correspondence with Virginia Woolf. Wilton House in Wiltshire, England, her ancestral home, is closed this year (2026) for updates to the heating systems, but can normally be visited. It is in a hilly area, and perhaps this was Sackville-West's idea of going to the hills, the land, the roads. You can learn more about it, and buy a membership (what we would call a season pass) here.