Poems | Page 2

if he had drained?Spring, Summer, and Autumn at a draught?And smiled quietly. But 'twas not Winter--?Rather a season of bliss unchangeable?Awakened from farm and church where it had lain?Safe under tile and thatch for ages since?This England, Old already, was called Merry.
THE OWL
DOWNHILL I came, hungry, and yet not starved;?Cold, yet had heat within me that was proof?Against the North wind; tired, yet so that rest?Had 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 except?An 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 escaped?And 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 voice?Speaking for all who lay under the stars,?Soldiers and poor, unable to rejoice.
SWEDES
THEY have taken the gable from the roof of clay?On the long swede pile. They have let in the sun?To the white and gold and purple of curled fronds?Unsunned. It is a sight more tender-gorgeous?At the wood-corner where Winter moans and drips?Than when, in the Valley of the Tombs of Kings,?A boy crawls down into a Pharaoh's tomb?And, 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 come??Will you ride?So late?At my side??O, will you come?
Will you come??Will you come?If the night?Has a moon,?Full and bright??O, will you come?
Would you come??Would you come?If the noon?Gave light,?Not the moon??Beautiful, would you come?
Would you have come??Would you have come?Without scorning,?Had it been?Still morning??Beloved, would you have come?
If you come?Haste and come.?Owls have cried:?It grows dark?To ride.?Beloved, beautiful, come.
AS THE TEAM'S HEAD-BRASS
As the team's head-brass flashed out on the turn?The lovers disappeared into the wood.?I sat among the boughs of the fallen elm?That strewed an angle of the fallow, and?Watched the plough narrowing a yellow square?Of charlock. Every time the horses turned?Instead of treading me down, the ploughman leaned?Upon 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 flashed?Once more.
The blizzard felled the elm whose crest?I 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 want?to, perhaps?"?"If I could only come back again, I should.?I could spare an arm. I shouldn't want to lose?A leg. If I should lose my head, why, so,?I should want nothing more. . . . Have many gone?From here?" "Yes." "Many lost?" "Yes:
good few.?Only two teams work on the farm this year.?One of my mates is dead. The second day?In France they killed him. It was back in March,?The very night of the blizzard, too. Now if?He had stayed here we should have moved the tree."?"And I should not have sat here. Everything?Would have been different. For it would have been?Another world." "Ay, and a better, though?If we could see all all might seem good." Then?The lovers came out of the wood again:?The horses started and for the last time?I watched the clods crumble and topple over?After the ploughshare and the stumbling team.
THAW
OVER the land freckled with snow half-thawed?The speculating rooks at their nests cawed?And saw from elm-tops, delicate as flower of grass,?What we below could not see, Winter pass.
INTERVAL
GONE the wild day:?A wilder night?Coming makes way?For brief twilight.
Where the firm soaked road?Mounts and is lost?In the high beech-wood?It shines almost.
The beeches keep?A stormy rest,?Breathing deep?Of wind from the west.
The wood is black,?With a misty steam.?Above, the cloud pack?Breaks for one gleam.
But the woodman's cot?By the ivied trees?Awakens not?To light or breeze.
It smokes aloft?Unwavering:?It hunches soft?Under storm's wing.
It has no care?For gleam or gloom:?It stays there?While I shall roam,
Die, and forget?The hill of trees,?The gleam, the wet,?This roaring peace.
LIKE THE TOUCH OF RAIN
LIKE the touch of rain she was?On a man's flesh and hair and eyes?When the joy of walking thus?Has taken him by surprise:
With the love of the storm he burns,?He sings, he laughs, well I know how,?But forgets when he returns?As I shall not forget her "Go now."
Those two words shut a door?Between me and the blessed rain?That was never shut before?And will not open again.
THE PATH
RUNNING along a bank, a parapet?That saves from the precipitous wood below?The level road, there is a path. It serves?Children for looking down the long smooth steep,?Between the legs of beech and yew, to where?A fallen tree checks the sight: while men and women?Content themselves with the