The Project Gutenberg eBook ofPoemsThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: PoemsAuthor: Edward ThomasRelease date: August 29, 2007 [eBook #22423]Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Lewis Jones*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POEMS ***
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: PoemsAuthor: Edward ThomasRelease date: August 29, 2007 [eBook #22423]Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Lewis Jones
Title: Poems
Author: Edward Thomas
Author: Edward Thomas
Release date: August 29, 2007 [eBook #22423]
Language: English
Credits: Produced by Lewis Jones
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POEMS ***
Produced by Lewis Jones
Edward Thomas (1917)Poems
LONDONSELWYN & BLOUNT
1917
First printed, Oct., 1917.Reprinted, Nov., 1917." Dec., 1917.
THE TRUMPETTHE SIGN-POSTTEARSTWO PEWITSTHE MANOR FARMTHE OWLSWEDESWILL YOU COME?As THE TEAM'S HEAD-BRASSTHAWINTERVALLIKE THE TOUCH OF RAINTHE PATHTHE COMBEIF I SHOULD EVER BY CHANCEWHAT SHALL I GIVE?IF I WERE TO OWNAND YOU, HELENWHEN FIRSTHEAD AND BOTTLEAFTER YOU SPEAKSOWINGWHEN WE TWO WALKEDIN MEMORIAMFIFTY FAGGOTSWOMEN HE LIKEDEARLY ONE MORNINGCHERRY TREESIT RAINSTHE HUXTERA GENTLEMANTHE BRIDGELOBBRIGHT CLOUDSTHE CLOUDS THAT ARE SO LIGHTSOME EYES CONDEMNMAY 23THE GLORYMELANCHOLYADLESTROPTHE GREEN ROADSTHE MILL-PONDIT WAS UPONTALL NETTLESHAYMAKINGHOW AT ONCEGONE, GONE AGAINTHE SUN USED TO SHINEOCTOBERTHE LONG SMALL ROOMLIBERTYNOVEMBERTHE SHEILINGTHE GALLOWSBIRDS' NESTSRAIN"HOME"THERE'S NOTHING LIKE THE SUNWHEN HE SHOULD LAUGHAN OLD SONGTHE PENNY WHISTLELIGHTS OUTCOCK-CROWWORDS
RISE up, rise up,And, as the trumpet blowingChases the dreams of men,As the dawn glowingThe stars that left unlitThe land and water,Rise up and scatterThe dew that coversThe print of last night's lovers—Scatter it, scatter it!
While you are listeningTo the clear horn,Forget, men, everythingOn this earth newborn,Except that it is lovelierThan any mysteries.Open your eyes to the airThat has washed the eyes of the starsThrough all the dewy night:Up with the light,To the old wars;Arise, arise!
THE dim sea glints chill. The white sun is shy.And the skeleton weeds and the never-dry,Rough, long grasses keep white with frostAt the hilltop by the finger-post;The smoke of the traveller's-joy is puffedOver hawthorn berry and hazel tuft.
I read the sign. Which way shall I go?A voice says: You would not have doubted soAt twenty. Another voice gentle with scornSays: At twenty you wished you had never been born.
One hazel lost a leaf of goldFrom a tuft at the tip, when the first voice toldThe other he wished to know what 'twould beTo be sixty by this same post. "You shall see,"He laughed—and I had to join his laughter—"You shall see; but either before or after,Whatever happens, it must befall,A mouthful of earth to remedy allRegrets and wishes shall freely be given;And if there be a flaw in that heaven'Twill be freedom to wish, and your wish may beTo be here or anywhere talking to me,No matter what the weather, on earth,At any age between death and birth,—To see what day or night can be,The sun and the frost, the land and the sea,Summer, Autumn, Winter, Spring,—With a poor man of any sort, down to a king,Standing upright out in the airWondering where he shall journey, O where?"
IT seems I have no tears left. They should have fallen—Their ghosts, if tears have ghosts, did fall—that dayWhen twenty hounds streamed by me, not yet combedoutBut still all equals in their rage of gladnessUpon the scent, made one, like a great dragonIn Blooming Meadow that bends towards the sunAnd once bore hops: and on that other dayWhen I stepped out from the double-shadowed TowerInto an April morning, stirring and sweetAnd warm. Strange solitude was there and silence.A mightier charm than any in the TowerPossessed the courtyard. They were changing guardSoldiers in line, young English countrymen,Fair-haired and ruddy, in white tunics. DrumsAnd fifes were playing "The British Grenadiers".The men, the music piercing that solitudeAnd silence, told me truths I had not dreamedAnd have forgotten since their beauty passed.
UNDER the after-sunset skyTwo pewits sport and cry,More white than is the moon on highRiding the dark surge silently;More black than earth. Their cryIs the one sound under the sky.They alone move, now low, now high,And merrily they cryTo the mischievous Spring sky,Plunging earthward, tossing high,Over the ghost who wonders whySo merrily they cry and fly,Nor choose 'twixt earth and sky,While the moon's quarter silentlyRides, and earth rests as silently.
THE rock-like mud unfroze a little and rillsRan and sparkled down each side of the roadUnder the catkins wagging in the hedge.But earth would have her sleep out, spite of the sun;Nor did I value that thin gilding beamMore than a pretty February thingTill I came down to the old Manor Farm,And church and yew-tree opposite, in ageIts equals and in size. The church and yewAnd farmhouse slept in a Sunday silentness.The air raised not a straw. The steep farm roof,With tiles duskily glowing, entertainedThe mid-day sun; and up and down the roofWhite pigeons nestled. There was no sound but one.Three cart-horses were looking over a gateDrowsily through their forelocks, swishing their tailsAgainst a fly, a solitary fly.
The Winter's cheek flushed as if he had drainedSpring, Summer, and Autumn at a draughtAnd smiled quietly. But 'twas not Winter—Rather a season of bliss unchangeableAwakened from farm and church where it had lainSafe under tile and thatch for ages sinceThis England, Old already, was called Merry.
DOWNHILL I came, hungry, and yet not starved;Cold, yet had heat within me that was proofAgainst the North wind; tired, yet so that restHad seemed the sweetest thing under a roof.
Then at the inn I had food, fire, and rest,Knowing how hungry, cold, and tired was I.All of the night was quite barred out exceptAn owl's cry, a most melancholy cry
Shaken out long and clear upon the hill,No merry note, nor cause of merriment,But one telling me plain what I escapedAnd others could not, that night, as in I went.
And salted was my food, and my repose,Salted and sobered, too, by the bird's voiceSpeaking for all who lay under the stars,Soldiers and poor, unable to rejoice.
THEY have taken the gable from the roof of clayOn the long swede pile. They have let in the sunTo the white and gold and purple of curled frondsUnsunned. It is a sight more tender-gorgeousAt the wood-corner where Winter moans and dripsThan when, in the Valley of the Tombs of Kings,A boy crawls down into a Pharaoh's tombAnd, first of Christian men, beholds the mummy,God and monkey, chariot and throne and vase,Blue pottery, alabaster, and gold.
But dreamless long-dead Amen-hotep lies.This is a dream of Winter, sweet as Spring.
WILL you come?Will you come?Will you rideSo lateAt my side?O, will you come?
Will you come?Will you comeIf the nightHas a moon,Full and bright?O, will you come?
Would you come?Would you comeIf the noonGave light,Not the moon?Beautiful, would you come?
Would you have come?Would you have comeWithout scorning,Had it beenStill morning?Beloved, would you have come?
If you comeHaste and come.Owls have cried:It grows darkTo ride.Beloved, beautiful, come.
As the team's head-brass flashed out on the turnThe lovers disappeared into the wood.I sat among the boughs of the fallen elmThat strewed an angle of the fallow, andWatched the plough narrowing a yellow squareOf charlock. Every time the horses turnedInstead of treading me down, the ploughman leanedUpon the handles to say or ask a word,About the weather, next about the war.Scraping the share he faced towards the wood,And screwed along the furrow till the brass flashedOnce more.
The blizzard felled the elm whose crestI sat in, by a woodpecker's round hole,The ploughman said. "When will they take it away?""When the war's over." So the talk began—One minute and an interval of ten,A minute more and the same interval."Have you been out?" "No." "And don't wantto, perhaps?""If I could only come back again, I should.I could spare an arm. I shouldn't want to loseA leg. If I should lose my head, why, so,I should want nothing more. . . . Have many goneFrom here?" "Yes." "Many lost?" "Yes:good few.Only two teams work on the farm this year.One of my mates is dead. The second dayIn France they killed him. It was back in March,The very night of the blizzard, too. Now ifHe had stayed here we should have moved the tree.""And I should not have sat here. EverythingWould have been different. For it would have beenAnother world." "Ay, and a better, thoughIf we could see all all might seem good." ThenThe lovers came out of the wood again:The horses started and for the last timeI watched the clods crumble and topple overAfter the ploughshare and the stumbling team.
OVER the land freckled with snow half-thawedThe speculating rooks at their nests cawedAnd saw from elm-tops, delicate as flower of grass,What we below could not see, Winter pass.
GONE the wild day:A wilder nightComing makes wayFor brief twilight.
Where the firm soaked roadMounts and is lostIn the high beech-woodIt shines almost.
The beeches keepA stormy rest,Breathing deepOf wind from the west.
The wood is black,With a misty steam.Above, the cloud packBreaks for one gleam.
But the woodman's cotBy the ivied treesAwakens notTo light or breeze.
It smokes aloftUnwavering:It hunches softUnder storm's wing.
It has no careFor gleam or gloom:It stays thereWhile I shall roam,
Die, and forgetThe hill of trees,The gleam, the wet,This roaring peace.
LIKE the touch of rain she wasOn a man's flesh and hair and eyesWhen the joy of walking thusHas taken him by surprise:
With the love of the storm he burns,He sings, he laughs, well I know how,But forgets when he returnsAs I shall not forget her "Go now."
Those two words shut a doorBetween me and the blessed rainThat was never shut beforeAnd will not open again.
RUNNING along a bank, a parapetThat saves from the precipitous wood belowThe level road, there is a path. It servesChildren for looking down the long smooth steep,Between the legs of beech and yew, to whereA fallen tree checks the sight: while men and womenContent themselves with the road and what they seeOver the bank, and what the children tell.The path, winding like silver, trickles on,Bordered and even invaded by thinnest mossThat tries to cover roots and crumbling chalkWith gold, olive, and emerald, but in vain.The children wear it. They have flattened the bankOn top, and silvered it between the mossWith the current of their feet, year after year.But the road is houseless, and leads not to school.To see a child is rare there, and the eyeHas but the road, the wood that overhangsAnd underyawns it, and the path that looksAs if it led on to some legendaryOr fancied place where men have wished to goAnd stay; till, sudden, it ends where the wood ends.
THE Combe was ever dark, ancient and dark.Its mouth is stopped with bramble, thorn, and briar;And no one scrambles over the sliding chalkBy beech and yew and perishing juniperDown the half precipices of its sides, with rootsAnd rabbit holes for steps. The sun of Winter,The moon of Summer, and all the singing birdsExcept the missel-thrush that loves juniper,Are quite shut out. But far more ancient and darkThe Combe looks since they killed the badger there,Dug him out and gave him to the hounds,That most ancient Briton of English beasts.
IF I should ever by chance grow richI'll buy Codham, Cockridden, and Childerditch,Roses, Pyrgo, and Lapwater,And let them all to my elder daughter.The rent I shall ask of her will be onlyEach year's first violets, white and lonely,The first primroses and orchises—She must find them before I do, that is.But if she finds a blossom on furzeWithout rent they shall all for ever be hers,Codham, Cockridden, and Childerditch,Roses, Pyrgo and Lapwater,—I shall give them all to my elder daughter.
WHAT shall I give my daughter the youngerMore than will keep her from cold and hunger?I shall not give her anything.If she shared South Weald and Havering,Their acres, the two brooks running between,Paine's Brook and Weald Brook,With pewit, woodpecker, swan, and rook,She would be no richer than the queenWho once on a time sat in Havering BowerAlone, with the shadows, pleasure and power.She could do no more with Samarcand,Or the mountains of a mountain landAnd its far white house above cottagesLike Venus above the Pleiades.Her small hands I would not cumberWith so many acres and their lumber,But leave her Steep and her own worldAnd her spectacled self with hair uncurled,Wanting a thousand little thingsThat time without contentment brings.
IF I were to own this countrysideAs far as a man in a day could ride,And the Tyes were mine for giving or letting,—Wingle Tye and MargarettingTye,—and Skreens, Gooshays, and Cockerells,Shellow, Rochetts, Bandish, and Pickerells,Marlins, Lambkins, and Lillyputs,Their copses, ponds, roads, and ruts,Fields where plough-horses steam and ploversFling and whimper, hedges that loversLove, and orchards, shrubberies, wallsWhere the sun untroubled by north wind falls,And single trees where the thrush sings wellHis proverbs untranslatable,I would give them all to my sonIf he would let me any oneFor a song, a blackbird's song, at dawn.He should have no more, till on my lawnNever a one was left, because IHad shot them to put them into a pie,—His Essex blackbirds, every one,And I was left old and alone.
Then unless I could pay, for rent, a songAs sweet as a blackbird's, and as long—No more—he should have the house, not I:Margaretting or Wingle Tye,Or it might be Skreens, Gooshays, or Cockerells,Shellow, Rochetts, Bandish, or Pickerells,Martins, Lambkins, or Lillyputs,Should be his till the cart tracks had no ruts.
AND you, Helen, what should I give you?So many things I would give youHad I an infinite great storeOffered me and I stood beforeTo choose. I would give you youth,All kinds of loveliness and truth,A clear eye as good as mine,Lands, waters, flowers, wine,As many children as your heartMight wish for, a far better artThan mine can be, all you have lostUpon the travelling waters tossed,Or given to me. If I could chooseFreely in that great treasure-houseAnything from any shelf,I would give you back yourself,And power to discriminateWhat you want and want it not too late,Many fair days free from careAnd heart to enjoy both foul and fair,And myself, too, if I could findWhere it lay hidden and it proved kind.
WHEN first I came here I had hope,Hope for I knew not what. Fast beatMy heart at sight of the tall slopeOr grass and yews, as if my feet
Only by scaling its steps of chalkWould see something no other hillEver disclosed. And now I walkDown it the last time. Never will
My heart beat so again at sightOf any hill although as fairAnd loftier. For infiniteThe change, late unperceived, this year,
The twelfth, suddenly, shows me plain.Hope now,—not health, nor cheerfulness,Since they can come and go again,As often one brief hour witnesses,—
Just hope has gone for ever. PerhapsI may love other hills yet moreThan this: the future and the mapsHide something I was waiting for.
One thing I know, that love with chanceAnd use and time and necessityWill grow, and louder the heart's danceAt parting than at meeting be.
THE downs will lose the sun, white alyssumLose the bees' hum;But head and bottle tilted back in the cartWill never partTill I am cold as midnight and all my hoursAre beeless flowers.He neither sees, nor hears, nor smells, nor thinks,But only drinks,Quiet in the yard where tree trunks do not lieMore quietly.
AFTER you speakAnd what you meantIs plain,My eyesMeet yours that mean—With your cheeks and hair—Something more wise,More dark,And far different.Even so the larkLoves dustAnd nestles in itThe minuteBefore he mustSoar in lone flightSo far,Like a black starHe seems—A moteOf singing dustAfloatAbove,That dreamsAnd sheds no light.I know your lustIs love.
IT was a perfect dayFor sowing; justAs sweet and dry was the groundAs tobacco-dust.
I tasted deep the hourBetween the farOwl's chuckling first soft cryAnd the first star.
A long stretched hour it was;Nothing undoneRemained; the early seedsAll safely sown.
And now, hark at the rain,Windless and light,Half a kiss, half a tear,Saying good-night.
WHEN we two walked in LentWe imagined that happinessWas something differentAnd this was something less.
But happy were we to hideOur happiness, not as they wereWho acted in their prideJuno and Jupiter:
For the Gods in their jealousyMurdered that wife and man,And we that were wise live freeTo recall our happiness then.
IN MEMORIAM (Easter, 1915)
THE flowers left thick at nightfall in the woodThis Eastertide call into mind the men,Now far from home, who, with their sweethearts, shouldHave gathered them and will do never again.
THERE they stand, on their ends, the fifty faggotsThat once were underwood of hazel and ashIn Jenny Pinks's Copse. Now, by the hedgeClose packed, they make a thicket fancy aloneCan creep through with the mouse and wren. NextSpringA blackbird or a robin will nest there,Accustomed to them, thinking they will remainWhatever is for ever to a bird:This Spring it is too late; the swift has come.'Twas a hot day for carrying them up:Better they will never warm me, though they mustLight several Winters' fires. Before they are doneThe war will have ended, many other thingsHave ended, maybe, that I can no moreForesee or more control than robin and wren.
WOMEN he liked, did shovel-bearded Bob,Old Farmer Hayward of the Heath, but heLoved horses. He himself was like a cob,And leather-coloured. Also he loved a tree.
For the life in them he loved most living things,But a tree chiefly. All along the laneHe planted elms where now the stormcock singsThat travellers hear from the slow-climbing train.
Till then the track had never had a nameFor all its thicket and the nightingalesThat should have earned it. No one was to blame.To name a thing beloved man sometimes fails.
Many years since, Bob Hayward died, and nowNone passes there because the mist and the rainOut of the elms have turned the lane to sloughAnd gloom, the name alone survives, Bob's Lane.
EARLY one morning in May I set out,And nobody I knew was about.I'm bound away for ever,Away somewhere, away for ever.
There was no wind to trouble the weathercocks.I had burnt my letters and darned my socks.
No one knew I was going away,I thought myself I should come back some day.
I heard the brook through the town gardens run.O sweet was the mud turned to dust by the sun.
A gate banged in a fence and banged in my head."A fine morning, sir." a shepherd said.
I could not return from my liberty,To my youth and my love and my misery.
The past is the only dead thing that smells sweet,The only sweet thing that is not also fleet.I'm bound away for ever,Away somewhere, away for ever.
THE cherry trees bend over and are sheddingOn the old road where all that passed are dead,Their petals, strewing the grass as for a weddingThis early May morn when there is none to wed.
IT rains, and nothing stirs within the fenceAnywhere through the orchard's untrodden, denseForest of parsley. The great diamondsOf rain on the grassblades there is none to break,Or the fallen petals further down to shake.
And I am nearly as happy as possibleTo search the wilderness in vain though well,To think of two walking, kissing there,Drenched, yet forgetting the kisses of the rain:Sad, too, to think that never, never again,
Unless alone, so happy shall I walkIn the rain. When I turn away, on its fine stalkTwilight has fined to naught, the parsley flowerFigures, suspended still and ghostly white,The past hovering as it revisits the light.
HE has a hump like an ape on his back;He has of money a plentiful lack;And but for a gay coat of double his girthThere is not a plainer thing on the earthThis fine May morning.
But the huxter has a bottle of beer;He drives a cart and his wife sits nearWho does not heed his lack or his hump;And they laugh as down the lane they bumpThis fine May morning.
"HE has robbed two clubs. The judge at SalisburyCan't give him more than he undoubtedlyDeserves. The scoundrel! Look at his photograph!A lady-killer! Hanging's too good by halfFor such as he." So said the stranger, oneWith crimes yet undiscovered or undone.But at the inn the Gipsy dame began:"Now he was what I call a gentleman.He went along with Carrie, and when sheHad a baby he paid up so readilyHis half a crown. Just like him. A crown'd havebeenMore like him. For I never knew him mean.Oh! but he was such a nice gentleman. Oh!Last time we met he said if me and JoeWas anywhere near we must be sure and call.He put his arms around our Amos allAs if he were his own son. I pray GodSave him from justice! Nicer man never trod."
I HAVE come a long way to-day:On a strange bridge alone,Remembering friends, old friends,I rest, without smile or moan,As they remember me without smile or moan.
All are behind, the kindAnd the unkind too, no moreTo-night than a dream. The streamRuns softly yet drowns the Past,The dark-lit stream has drowned the Future and thePast.
No traveller has rest more blestThan this moment brief betweenTwo lives, when the Night's first lightsAnd shades hide what has never been,Things goodlier, lovelier, dearer, than will be or havebeen.
AT hawthorn-time in Wiltshire travellingIn search of something chance would never bring,An old man's face, by life and weather cutAnd coloured,—rough, brown, sweet as any nut,—A land face, sea-blue-eyed,—hung in my mindWhen I had left him many a mile behind.All he said was: "Nobody can't stop 'ee. It'sA footpath, right enough. You see those bitsOf mounds—that's where they opened up the barrowsSixty years since, while I was scaring sparrows.They thought as there was something to find there,But couldn't find it, by digging, anywhere."
To turn back then and seek him, where was the use?There were three Manningfords,—Abbots, Bohun, andBruce:And whether Alton, not Manningford, it was,My memory could not decide, becauseThere was both Alton Barnes and Alton Priors.All had their churches, graveyards, farms, and byres,Lurking to one side up the paths and lanes,Seldom well seen except by aeroplanes;And when bells rang, or pigs squealed, or cocks crowed,Then only heard. Ages ago the roadApproached. The people stood and looked and turned,Nor asked it to come nearer, nor yet learnedTo move out there and dwell in all men's dust.And yet withal they shot the weathercock, justBecause 'twas he crowed out of tune, they said:So now the copper weathercock is dead.If they had reaped their dandelions and soldThem fairly, they could have afforded gold.
Many years passed, and I went back againAmong those villages, and looked for menWho might have known my ancient. He himselfHad long been dead or laid upon the shelf,I thought. One man I asked about him roaredAt my description: "'Tis old BottlesfordHe means, Bill." But another said: "Of course,It was Jack Button up at the White Horse.He's dead, sir, these three years." This lasted tillA girl proposed Walker of Walker's Hill,"Old Adam Walker. Adam's Point you'll seeMarked on the maps."
"That was her roguery,"The next man said. He was a squire's sonWho loved wild bird and beast, and dog and gunFor killing them. He had loved them from his birth,One with another, as he loved the earth."The man may be like Button, or Walker, orLike Bottlesford, that you want, but far moreHe sounds like one I saw when I was a child.I could almost swear to him. The man was wildAnd wandered. His home was where he was free.Everybody has met one such man as he.Does he keep clear old paths that no one usesBut once a life-time when he loves or muses?He is English as this gate, these flowers, this mire.And when at eight years old Lob-lie-by-the-fireCame in my books, this was the man I saw.He has been in England as long as dove and daw,Calling the wild cherry tree the merry tree,The rose campion Bridget-in-her-bravery;And in a tender mood he, as I guess,Christened one flower Love-in-idleness,And while he walked from Exeter to LeedsOne April called all cuckoo-flowers Milkmaids.From him old herbal Gerard learnt, as a boy,To name wild clematis the Traveller's-joy.Our blackbirds sang no English till his earTold him they called his Jan Toy 'Pretty dear.'(She was Jan Toy the Lucky, who, having lostA shilling, and found a penny loaf, rejoiced.)For reasons of his own to him the wrenIs Jenny Pooter. Before all other men'Twas he first called the Hog's Back the Hog's Back.That Mother Dunch's Buttocks should not lackTheir name was his care. He too could explainTotteridge and Totterdown and Juggler's Lane:He knows, if anyone. Why Tumbling Bay,Inland in Kent, is called so, he might say.
"But little he says compared with what he does.If ever a sage troubles him he will buzzLike a beehive to conclude the tedious fray:And the sage, who knows all languages, runs away.Yet Lob has thirteen hundred names for a fool,And though he never could spare time for schoolTo unteach what the fox so well expressed,On biting the cock's head off,—Quietness is best,—He can talk quite as well as anyoneAfter his thinking is forgot and done.He first of all told someone else's wife,For a farthing she'd skin a flint and spoil a knifeWorth sixpence skinning it. She heard him speak:'She had a face as long as a wet week'Said he, telling the tale in after years.With blue smock and with gold rings in his ears,Sometimes he is a pedlar, not too poorTo keep his wit. This is tall Tom that boreThe logs in, and with Shakespeare in the hallOnce talked, when icicles hung by the wall.As Herne the Hunter he has known hard times.On sleepless nights he made up weather rhymesWhich others spoilt. And, Hob being then his name,He kept the hog that thought the butcher cameTo bring his breakfast 'You thought wrong,' said Hob.When there were kings in Kent this very Lob,Whose sheep grew fat and he himself grew merry,Wedded the king's daughter of Canterbury;For he alone, unlike squire, lord, and king,Watched a night by her without slumbering;He kept both waking. When he was but a ladHe won a rich man's heiress, deaf, dumb, and sad,By rousing her to laugh at him. He carriedHis donkey on his back. So they were married.And while he was a little cobbler's boyHe tricked the giant coming to destroyShrewsbury by flood. 'And how far is it yet?'The giant asked in passing. 'I forget;But see these shoes I've worn out on the roadAnd we're not there yet.' He emptied out his loadOf shoes for mending. The giant let fall from his spadeThe earth for damming Severn, and thus madeThe Wrekin hill; and little Ercall hillRose where the giant scraped his boots. While stillSo young, our Jack was chief of Gotham's sages.But long before he could have been wise, agesEarlier than this, while he grew thick and strongAnd ate his bacon, or, at times, sang a songAnd merely smelt it, as Jack the giant-killerHe made a name. He too ground up the miller,The Yorkshireman who ground men's bones for flour.
"Do you believe Jack dead before his hour?Or that his name is Walker, or Bottlesford,Or Button, a mere clown, or squire, or lord?The man you saw,—Lob-lie-by-the-fire, Jack Cade,Jack Smith, Jack Moon, poor Jack of every trade,Young Jack, or old Jack, or Jack What-d'ye-call,Jack-in-the-hedge, or Robin-run-by-the-wall,Robin Hood, Ragged Robin, lazy Bob,One of the lords of No Man's Land, good Lob,—Although he was seen dying at Waterloo,Hastings, Agincourt, and Sedgemoor too,—Lives yet. He never will admit he is deadTill millers cease to grind men's bones for bread,Not till our weathercock crows once againAnd I remove my house out of the laneOn to the road." With this he disappearedIn hazel and thorn tangled with old-man's-beard.But one glimpse of his back, as there he stood,Choosing his way, proved him of old Jack's bloodYoung Jack perhaps, and now a WiltshiremanAs he has oft been since his days began.
BRIGHT clouds of mayShade half the pond.Beyond,All but one bayOf emeraldTall reedsLike criss-cross bayonetsWhere a bird once called,Lies bright as the sun.No one heeds.The light wind fretsAnd drifts the scumOf may-blossom.Till the moorhen callsAgainNaught's to be doneBy birds or men.Still the may falls.
THE clouds that are so light,Beautiful, swift and bright,Cast shadows on field and parkOf the earth that is so dark,
And even so now, light one!Beautiful, swift and bright one!You let fall on a heart that was dark,Unillumined, a deeper mark.
But clouds would have, without earthTo shadow, far less worth:Away from your shadow on meYour beauty less would be,
And if it still be treasuredAn age hence, it shall be measuredBy this small dark spotWithout which it were not.
SOME eyes condemn the earth they gaze upon:Some wait patiently till they know far moreThan earth can tell them: some laugh at the wholeAs folly of another's making: oneI knew that laughed because he saw, from coreTo rind, not one thing worth the laugh his soulHad ready at waking: some eyes have begunWith laughing; some stand startled at the door.
Others, too, I have seen rest, question, roll,Dance, shoot. And many I have loved watchingSomeI could not take my eyes from till they turnedAnd loving died. I had not found my goal.But thinking of your eyes, dear, I becomeDumb: for they flamed, and it was me they burned.
THERE never was a finer day,And never will be while May is May,—The third, and not the last of its kind;But though fair and clear the two behindSeemed pursued by tempests overpast;And the morrow with fear that it could not lastWas spoiled. To-day ere the stones were warmFive minutes of thunderstormDashed it with rain, as if to secure,By one tear, its beauty the luck to endure.
At mid-day then along the laneOld Jack Noman appeared again,Jaunty and old, crooked and tall,And stopped and grinned at me over the wall,With a cowslip bunch in his button-holeAnd one in his cap. Who could say if his rollCame from flints in the road, the weather, or ale?He was welcome as the nightingale.Not an hour of the sun had been wasted on Jack"I've got my Indian complexion back"Said he. He was tanned like a harvester,Like his short clay pipe, like the leaf and burThat clung to his coat from last night's bed,Like the ploughland crumbling red.Fairer flowers were none on the earthThan his cowslips wet with the dew of their birth,Or fresher leaves than the cress in his basket."Where did they come from, Jack?" "Don't ask it,And you'll be told no lies." "Very well:Then I can't buy." "I don't want to sell.Take them and these flowers, too, free.Perhaps you have something to give me?Wait till next time. The better the day . . .The Lord couldn't make a better, I say;If he could, he never has done."So off went Jack with his roll-walk-run,Leaving his cresses from Oakshott rillAnd his cowslips from Wheatham hill.
'Twas the first day that the midges bit;But though they bit me, I was glad of it:Of the dust in my face, too, I was glad.Spring could do nothing to make me sad.Bluebells hid all the ruts in the copse.The elm seeds lay in the road like hops,That fine day, May the twenty-third,The day Jack Noman disappeared.
THE glory of the beauty of the morning,—The cuckoo crying over the untouched dew;The blackbird that has found it, and the doveThat tempts me on to something sweeter than love;White clouds ranged even and fair as new-mown hay;The heat, the stir, the sublime vacancyOf sky and meadow and forest and my own heart:—The glory invites me, yet it leaves me scorningAll I can ever do, all I can be,Beside the lovely of motion, shape, and hue,The happiness I fancy fit to dwellIn beauty's presence. Shall I now this dayBegin to seek as far as heaven, as hell,Wisdom or strength to match this beauty, startAnd tread the pale dust pitted with small dark drops,In hope to find whatever it is I seek,Hearkening to short-lived happy-seeming thingsThat we know naught of, in the hazel copse?Or must I be content with discontentAs larks and swallows are perhaps with wings?And shall I ask at the day's end once moreWhat beauty is, and what I can have meantBy happiness? And shall I let all go,Glad, weary, or both? Or shall I perhaps knowThat I was happy oft and oft before,Awhile forgetting how I am fast pent,How dreary-swift, with naught to travel to,Is Time? I cannot bite the day to the core.
THE rain and wind, the rain and wind, raved endlessly.On me the Summer storm, and fever, and melancholyWrought magic, so that if I feared the solitudeFar more I feared all company: too sharp, too rude,Had been the wisest or the dearest human voice.What I desired I knew not, but whate'er my choiceVain it must be, I knew. Yet naught did my despairBut sweeten the strange sweetness, while through thewild airAll day long I heard a distant cuckoo callingAnd, soft as dulcimers, sounds of near water falling,And, softer, and remote as if in history,Rumours of what had touched my friends, my foes,or me.
YES. I remember Adlestrop—The name, because one afternoonOf heat the express-train drew up thereUnwontedly. It was late June.
The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat.No one left and no one cameOn the bare platform. What I sawWas Adlestrop—only the name
And willows, willow-herb, and grass,And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry,No whit less still and lonely fairThan the high cloudlets in the sky.
And for that minute a blackbird sangClose by, and round him, mistier,Farther and farther, all the birdsOf Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.
THE green roads that end in the forestAre strewn with white goose feathers this June,
Like marks left behind by some one gone to the forestTo show his track. But he has never come back.
Down each green road a cottage looks at the forest.Round one the nettle towers; two are bathed in flowers.
An old man along the green road to the forestStrays from one, from another a child alone.
In the thicket bordering the forest,All day long a thrush twiddles his song.
It is old, but the trees are young in the forest,All but one like a castle keep, in the middle deep.
That oak saw the ages pass in the forest:They were a host, but their memories are lost,
For the tree is dead: all things forget the forestExcepting perhaps me, when now I see
The old man, the child, the goose feathers at the edgeof the forest,And hear all day long the thrush repeat his song.
THE sun blazed while the thunder yetAdded a boom:A wagtail flickered bright overThe mill-pond's gloom:
Less than the cooing in the alderIsles of the poolSounded the thunder through that plungeOf waters cool.
Scared starlings on the aspen tipPast the black millOutchattered the stream and the next roarFar on the hill.
As my feet dangling teased the foamThat slid belowA girl came out. "Take care!" she said—Ages ago.
She startled me, standing quite closeDressed all in white:Ages ago I was angry tillShe passed from sight.
Then the storm burst, and as I crouchedTo shelter, howBeautiful and kind, too, she seemed,As she does now!
IT was upon a July evening.At a stile I stood, looking along a pathOver the country by a second SpringDrenched perfect green again. "The lattermathWill be a fine one." So the stranger said,A wandering man. Albeit I stood at rest,Flushed with desire I was. The earth outspread,Like meadows of the future, I possessed.
And as an unaccomplished prophecyThe stranger's words, after the intervalOf a score years, when those fields are by meNever to be recrossed, now I recall,This July eve, and question, wondering,What of the lattermath to this hoar Spring?
TALL nettles cover up, as they have doneThese many springs, the rusty harrow, the ploughLong worn out, and the roller made of stone:Only the elm butt tops the nettles now.
This corner of the farmyard I like most:As well as any bloom upon a flowerI like the dust on the nettles, never lostExcept to prove the sweetness of a shower.
AFTER night's thunder far away had rolledThe fiery day had a kernel sweet of cold,And in the perfect blue the clouds uncurled,Like the first gods before they made the worldAnd misery, swimming the stormless seaIn beauty and in divine gaiety.The smooth white empty road was lightly strewnWith leaves—the holly's Autumn falls in June—And fir cones standing stiff up in the heat.The mill-foot water tumbled white and litWith tossing crystals, happier than any crowdOf children pouring out of school aloud.And in the little thickets where a sleeperFor ever might lie lost, the nettle-creeperAnd garden warbler sang unceasingly;While over them shrill shrieked in his fierce gleeThe swift with wings and tail as sharp and narrowAs if the bow had flown off with the arrow.Only the scent of woodbine and hay new-mownTravelled the road. In the field sloping down,Park-like, to where its willows showed the brook,Haymakers rested. The tosser lay forsookOut in the sun; and the long waggon stoodWithout its team, it seemed it never wouldMove from the shadow of that single yew.The team, as still, until their task was due,Beside the labourers enjoyed the shadeThat three squat oaks mid-field together madeUpon a circle of grass and weed uncut,And on the hollow, once a chalk-pit, butNow brimmed with nut and elder-flower so clean.The men leaned on their rakes, about to begin,But still. And all were silent. All was old,This morning time, with a great age untold,Older than Clare and Cobbett, Morland and Crome,Than, at the field's far edge, the farmer's home,A white house crouched at the foot of a great tree.Under the heavens that know not what years beThe men, the beasts, the trees, the implementsUttered even what they will in times far hence—All of us gone out of the reach of change—Immortal in a picture of an old grange.
How at once should I know,When stretched in the harvest blueI saw the swift's black bow,That I would not have that viewAnother dayUntil next MayAgain it is due?
The same year after year—But with the swift alone.With other things I but fearThat they will be over and doneSuddenlyAnd I only seeThem to know them gone.
GONE, gone again,May, June, July,And August gone,Again gone by,
Not memorableSave that I saw them go,As past the empty quaysThe rivers flow.
And now again,In the harvest rain,The Blenheim orangesFall grubby from the trees,
As when I was young—And when the lost one was here—And when the war beganTo turn young men to dung.
Look at the old house,Outmoded, dignified,Dark and untenanted,With grass growing instead
Of the footsteps of life,The friendliness, the strife;In its beds have lainYouth, love, age and pain:
I am something like that;Only I am not dead,Still breathing and interestedIn the house that is not dark:—
I am something like that:Not one pane to reflect the sun,For the schoolboys to throw at—They have broken every one.
THE sun used to shine while we two walkedSlowly together, paused and startedAgain, and sometimes mused, sometimes talkedAs either pleased, and cheerfully parted
Each night. We never disagreedWhich gate to rest on. The to beAnd the late past we gave small heed.We turned from men or poetry
To rumours of the war remoteOnly till both stood disinclinedFor aught but the yellow flavorous coatOf an apple wasps had undermined;
Or a sentry of dark betonies,The stateliest of small flowers on earth,At the forest verge; or crocusesPale purple as if they had their birth
In sunless Hades fields. The warCame back to mind with the moonriseWhich soldiers in the east afarBeheld then. Nevertheless, our eyes
Could as well imagine the CrusadesOr Caesar's battles. EverythingTo faintness like those rumours fades—Like the brook's water glittering
Under the moonlight—like those walksNow—like us two that took them, andThe fallen apples, all the talksAnd silences—like memory's sand
When the tide covers it late or soon,And other men through other flowersIn those fields under the same moonGo talking and have easy hours.
THE green elm with the one great bough of goldLets leaves into the grass slip, one by one,—The short hill grass, the mushrooms small milk-white,Harebell and scabious and tormentil,That blackberry and gorse, in dew and sun,Bow down to; and the wind travels too lightTo shake the fallen birch leaves from the fern;The gossamers wander at their own will.At heavier steps than birds' the squirrels scold.
The rich scene has grown fresh again and newAs Spring and to the touch is not more coolThan it is warm to the gaze; and now I mightAs happy be as earth is beautiful,Were I some other or with earth could turnIn alternation of violet and rose,Harebell and snowdrop, at their season due,And gorse that has no time not to be gay.But if this be not happiness,—who knows?Some day I shall think this a happy day,And this mood by the name of melancholyShall no more blackened and obscured be.
THE long small room that showed willows in the westNarrowed up to the end the fireplace filled,Although not wide. I liked it. No one guessedWhat need or accident made them so build.
Only the moon, the mouse and the sparrow peepedIn from the ivy round the casement thick.Of all they saw and heard there they shall keepThe tale for the old ivy and older brick.
When I look back I am like moon, sparrow and mouseThat witnessed what they could never understandOr alter or prevent in the dark house.One thing remains the same—this my right hand
Crawling crab-like over the clean white page,Resting awhile each morning on the pillow,Then once more starting to crawl on towards age.The hundred last leaves stream upon the willow.
THE last light has gone out of the world, exceptThis moonlight lying on the grass like frostBeyond the brink of the tall elm's shadowIt is as if everything else had sleptMany an age, unforgotten and lostThe men that were, the things done, long ago,All I have thought; and but the moon and ILive yet and here stand idle over the graveWhere all is buried. Both have libertyTo dream what we could do if we were freeTo do some thing we had desired long,The moon and I. There's none less free than whoDoes nothing and has nothing else to do,Being free only for what is not to his mind,And nothing is to his mind. If every hourLike this one passing that I have spent amongThe wiser others when I have forgotTo wonder whether I was free or not,Were piled before me, and not lost behind,And I could take and carry them awayI should be rich; or if I had the powerTo wipe out every one and not againRegret, I should be rich to be so poor.And yet I still am half in love with pain,With what is imperfect, with both tears and mirth,With things that have an end, with life and earth,And this moon that leaves me dark within the door.
NOVEMBER'S days are thirty:November's earth is dirty,Those thirty days, from first to last;And the prettiest things on ground are the pathsWith morning and evening hobnails dinted,With foot and wing-tip overprintedOr separately charactered,Of little beast and little bird.The fields are mashed by sheep, the roadsMake the worst going, the best the woodsWhere dead leaves upward and downward scatter.Few care for the mixture of earth and water,Twig, leaf, flint, thorn,Straw, feather, all that men scorn,Pounded up and sodden by flood,Condemned as mud.
But of all the months when earth is greenerNot one has clean skies that are cleaner.Clean and clear and sweet and cold,They shine above the earth so old,While the after-tempest cloudSails over in silence though winds are loud,Till the full moon in the eastLooks at the planet in the westAnd earth is silent as it is black,Yet not unhappy for its lack.Up from the dirty earth men stare:One imagines a refuge thereAbove the mud, in the pure brightOf the cloudless heavenly light:Another loves earth and November more dearlyBecause without them, he sees clearly,The sky would be nothing more to his eyeThan he, in any case, is to the sky;He loves even the mud whose dyesRenounce all brightness to the skies.
IT stands aloneUp in a land of stoneAll worn like ancient stairs,A land of rocks and treesNourished on wind and stone.
And all withinLong delicate has been;By arts and kindlinessColoured, sweetened, and warmedFor many years has been.
Safe resting thereMen hear in the travelling airBut music, pictures seeIn the same daily landPainted by the wild air.
One maker's mindMade both, and the house is kindTo the land that gave it peace,And the stone has taken the houseTo its cold heart and is kind.
THERE was a weasel lived in the sunWith all his family,Till a keeper shot him with his gunAnd hung him up on a tree,Where he swings in the wind and rain,In the sun and in the snow,Without pleasure, without pain,On the dead oak tree bough.
There was a crow who was no sleeper,But a thief and a murdererTill a very late hour; and this keeperMade him one of the things that were,To hang and flap in rain and wind,In the sun and in the snow.There are no more sins to be sinnedOn the dead oak tree bough.
There was a magpie, too,Had a long tongue and a long tail;He could both talk and do—But what did that avail?He, too, flaps in the wind and rainAlongside weasel and crow,Without pleasure, without pain,On the dead oak tree bough.
And many other beastsAnd birds, skin, bone and feather,Have been taken from their feastsAnd hung up there together,To swing and have endless leisureIn the sun and in the snow,Without pain, without pleasure,On the dead oak tree bough.
THE summer nests uncovered by autumn wind.Some torn, others dislodged, all dark.Everyone sees them: low or high in tree,Or hedge, or single bush, they hang like a mark.
Since there's no need of eyes to see them withI cannot help a little shameThat I missed most, even at eye's level, tillThe leaves blew off and made the seeing no game.
'Tis a light pang. I like to see the nestsStill in their places, now first known,At home and by far roads. Boys knew them not,Whatever jays and squirrels may have done.
And most I like the winter nests deep-hidThat leaves and berries fell into;Once a dormouse dined there on hazel-nuts,And grass and goose-grass seeds found soil and grew.
RAIN, midnight rain, nothing but the wild rainOn this bleak hut, and solitude, and meRemembering again that I shall dieAnd neither hear the rain nor give it thanksFor washing me cleaner than I have beenSince I was born into this solitude.Blessed are the dead that the rain rains upon:But here I pray that none whom once I lovedIs dying to-night or lying still awakeSolitary, listening to the rain,Either in pain or thus in sympathyHelpless among the living and the dead,Like a cold water among broken reeds,Myriads of broken reeds all still and stiff,Like me who have no love which this wild rainHas not dissolved except the love of death,If love it be towards what is perfect andCannot, the tempest tells me, disappoint.
FAIR was the morning, fair our tempers, andWe had seen nothing fairer than that land,Though strange, and the untrodden snow that madeWild of the tame, casting out all that wasNot wild and rustic and old; and we were glad.
Fair, too, was afternoon, and first to passWere we that league of snow, next the north wind
There was nothing to return for, except need,And yet we sang nor ever stopped for speed,As we did often with the start behind.Faster still strode we when we came in sightOf the cold roofs where we must spend the night.Happy we had not been there, nor could be.Though we had tasted sleep and food and fellowshipTogether long.
"How quick" to someone's lipThe words came, "will the beaten horse run home."
The word "home" raised a smile in us all three,And one repeated it, smiling just soThat all knew what he meant and none would say.Between three counties far apart that layWe were divided and looked strangely eachAt the other, and we knew we were not friendsBut fellows in a union that endsWith the necessity for it, as it ought.
Never a word was spoken, not a thoughtWas thought, of what the look meant with the word"Home" as we walked and watched the sunset blurred.And then to me the word, only the word,"Homesick," as it were playfully occurred:No more.
If I should ever more admitThan the mere word I could not endure itFor a day longer: this captivityMust somehow come to an end, else I should beAnother man, as often now I seem,Or this life be only an evil dream.
THERE'S nothing like the sun as the year dies,Kind as it can be, this world being made so,To stones and men and beasts and birds and flies,To all things that it touches except snow,Whether on mountain side or street of town.The south wall warms me: November has begun,Yet never shone the sun as fair as nowWhile the sweet last-left damsons from the boughWith spangles of the morning's storm drop downBecause the starling shakes it, whistling whatOnce swallows sang. But I have not forgotThat there is nothing, too, like March's sun,Like April's, or July's, or June's, or May's,Or January's, or February's, great days:And August, September, October, and DecemberHave equal days, all different from November.No day of any month but I have said—Or, if I could live long enough, should say—"There's nothing like the sun that shines to-day"There's nothing like the sun till we are dead.
WHEN he should laugh the wise man knows full well:For he knows what is truly laughable.But wiser is the man who laughs also,Or holds his laughter, when the foolish do.
THE sun set, the wind fell, the seaWas like a mirror shaking:The one small wave that clapped the landA mile-long snake of foam was makingWhere tide had smoothed and wind had driedThe vacant sand.
A light divided the swollen cloudsAnd lay most perfectlyLike a straight narrow footbridge brightThat crossed over the sea to me;And no one else in the whole worldSaw that same sight.
I walked elate, my bridge alwaysJust one step from my feet:A robin sang, a shade in shade:And all I did was to repeat:"I'll go no more a-rovingWith you, fair maid."
The sailors' song of merry lovingWith dusk and sea-gull's mewingMixed sweet, the lewdness far outweighedBy the wild charm the chorus played:"I'll go no more a-rovingWith you, fair maid:A-roving, a-roving, since roving's been my ruin,I'll go no more a-roving with you, fair maid."
In Amsterdam there dwelt a maid—Mark well what I do say—In Amsterdam there dwelt a maidAnd she was a mistress of her trade:I'll go no more a-rovingWith you, fair maid:A-roving, a-roving, since roving's been my ruin,I'll go no more a-roving with you, fair maid.
THE new moon hangs like an ivory bugleIn the naked frosty blue;And the ghylls of the forest, already blackenedBy Winter, are blackened anew.
The brooks that cut up and increase the forest,As if they had never knownThe sun, are roaring with black hollow voicesBetwixt rage and a moan.
But still the caravan-hut by the holliesLike a kingfisher gleams between:Round the mossed old hearths of the charcoal-burnersFirst primroses ask to be seen.
The charcoal-burners are black, but their linenBlows white on the line;And white the letter the girl is readingUnder that crescent fine;
And her brother who hides apart in a thicket,Slowly and surely playingOn a whistle an olden nursery melody,Says far more than I am saying.
I HAVE come to the borders of sleep,The unfathomable deepForest where all must loseTheir way, however straight,Or winding, soon or late;They cannot choose.
Many a road and trackThat, since the dawn's first crack,Up to the forest brink,Deceived the travellersSuddenly now blurs,And in they sink.
Here love ends,Despair, ambition ends,All pleasure and all trouble,Although most sweet or bitter,Here ends in sleep that is sweeterThan tasks most noble.
There is not any bookOr face of dearest lookThat I would not turn from nowTo go into the unknownI must enter and leave aloneI know not how.
The tall forest towers;Its cloudy foliage lowersAhead, shelf above shelf;Its silence I hear and obeyThat I may lose my wayAnd myself.
OUT of the wood of thoughts that grows by nightTo be cut down by the sharp axe of light,—Out of the night, two cocks together crow,Cleaving the darkness with a silver blow:And bright before my eyes twin trumpeters stand,Heralds of splendour, one at either hand,Each facing each as in a coat of arms:The milkers lace their boots up at the farms.
OUT of us allThat make rhymes,Will you chooseSometimes—As the winds useA crack in a wallOr a drain,Their joy or their painTo whistle through—Choose me,You English words?
I know you:You are light as dreams,Tough as oak,Precious as gold,As poppies and corn,Or an old cloak:Sweet as our birdsTo the ear,As the burnet roseIn the heatOf Midsummer:Strange as the racesOf dead and unborn:Strange and sweetEqually,And familiar,To the eye,As the dearest facesThat a man knows,And as lost homes are:But though older farThan oldest yew,—As our hills are, old.—Worn newAgain and again:Young as our streamsAfter rain:And as dearAs the earth which you proveThat we love.