FROM THE WINDOW
Tall poplars in the sun
Are quivering, and planes,
Forgetting the day gone,
Its cold un-August rains;
But with me still remains
The sight of beaten corn,
Crushed flowers and forlorn,
The summer’s wasted gains—
Yet pools in secret lanes
Abrim with heavenly blue
Life’s wonder mirror anew.
I must forget the pains
Of yesterday, and do
Brave things—bring loaded wains
The bare brown meadows through,
I must haste, I must out and run,
Wonder, till my heart drains
Joy’s cup, as in high champagnes
Of blue, where great clouds go on
With white sails free from stains
Full-stretched, on fleckless mains—
With captain’s joy of some proud galleon.
YPRES—MINSTERWORTH
(To F. W. H.)
Thick lie in Gloucester orchards now
Apples the Severn wind
With rough play tore from the tossing
Branches, and left behind
Leaves strewn on pastures, blown in hedges,
And by the roadway lined.
And I lie leagues on leagues afar
To think how that wind made
Great shoutings in the wide chimney,
A noise of cannonade—
Of how the proud elms by the signpost
The tempest’s will obeyed—
To think how in some German prison
A boy lies with whom
I might have taken joy full-hearted
Hearing the great boom
Of Autumn, watching the fire, talking
Of books in the half gloom.
O wind of Ypres and of Severn
Riot there also, and tell
Of comrades safe returned, home-keeping
Music and Autumn smell.
Comfort blow him and friendly greeting,
Hearten him, wish him well!
NEAR MIDSUMMER
Severn’s most fair to-day!
See what a tide of blue
She pours, and flecked alway
With gold, and what a crew
Of seagulls snowy white
Float round her to delight
Villagers, travellers.
A brown thick flood is hers
In winter when the rains
Wash down from Midland plains,
Halting wayfarers,
Low meadows flooding deep
With torrents from the steep
Mountains of Wales and small
Hillocks of no degree—
Streams jostling to the sea;
(Wrangling yet brotherly).
Blue June has altered all—
The river makes its fall
With murmurous still sound,
Past Pridings faëry ground,
And steep-down Newnham cliff....
O Boys in trenches, if
You could see what any may
(Escaping town for the day),
Strong Severn all aglow,
But tideless, running slow:
Far Cotswolds all a-shimmer,
Blue Bredon leagues away—
Huge Malverns, farther, dimmer ...
Then you would feel the fire
Of the First Days inspire
You, when, despising all
Save England’s, honour’s call,
You dared the worst for her:
Faced all things without fear,
So she might stand alway
A free Mother of men;
High Queen as on this day.
There would flood through you again
The old faith, the old pride
Wherein our fathers died,
Whereby our land was builded and dignified.