To-day the grass runs over
With ripples like the sea,
And men stand up and drink air
Easy and sweet and free;
But days like this are half a curse,
And Beauty troubles me.
The shadows under orchards there
Must be as clear and black—
At Minsterworth, at Framilode—
As though we had all come back;
Were out at making hay or tedding,
Piling the yellow stack.
The gardens grow as freshly
On Cotswold’s green and white;
The grey-stone cottage colours
Are lovely to the sight,
As we were glad for dreams there,
Slept deep at home at night;
While here we die a dozen deaths
A score of times a day;
Trying to keep up heart and not
To give ourselves away.
“Two years longer,” “Peace to-morrow,”
“Some time yet,” they say!
TO F. W. H.
Ink black and lustreless may hold
A passion full of living fire:
Spring’s green the Autumn does enfold—
Things precious hide their bright in the mire.
And a whole county’s lovely pride
In one small book I found that made
More real the pictured Severn side
Than crash and shock of cannonade.
Beneath, more strong than that dread noise
The talk I heard of trees and men,
The still low-murmuring Earth-voice ...
God send us dreams in peace again.
THE IMMORTAL HOUR
(To Winnie)
I have forgotten where the pleasure lay
In resting idle in the summer weather,
Waiting on Beauty’s power my spirit to sway,
Since Life has taken me and flung me hither;