Poems

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Title: Poems
Author: Edward Thomas
Release Date: August 29, 2007 [EBook #22423]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
? START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POEMS ***
Produced by Lewis Jones
Edward Thomas (1917) _Poems_
POEMS BY EDWARD THOMAS
POEMS
BY
EDWARD THOMAS
("EDWARD EASTAWAY")
LONDON?SELWYN & BLOUNT
1917
First printed, Oct., 1917.?Reprinted, Nov., 1917.
" Dec., 1917.
TO
ROBERT FROST
CONTENTS
THE TRUMPET?THE SIGN-POST?TEARS?TWO PEWITS?THE MANOR FARM?THE OWL?SWEDES?WILL YOU COME??As THE TEAM'S HEAD-BRASS?THAW?INTERVAL?LIKE THE TOUCH OF RAIN?THE PATH?THE COMBE?IF I SHOULD EVER BY CHANCE?WHAT SHALL I GIVE??IF I WERE TO OWN?AND YOU, HELEN?WHEN FIRST?HEAD AND BOTTLE?AFTER YOU SPEAK?SOWING?WHEN WE TWO WALKED?IN MEMORIAM?FIFTY FAGGOTS?WOMEN HE LIKED?EARLY ONE MORNING?CHERRY TREES?IT RAINS?THE HUXTER?A GENTLEMAN?THE BRIDGE?LOB?BRIGHT CLOUDS?THE CLOUDS THAT ARE SO LIGHT?SOME EYES CONDEMN?MAY 23?THE GLORY?MELANCHOLY?ADLESTROP?THE GREEN ROADS?THE MILL-POND?IT WAS UPON?TALL NETTLES?HAYMAKING?HOW AT ONCE?GONE, GONE AGAIN?THE SUN USED TO SHINE?OCTOBER?THE LONG SMALL ROOM?LIBERTY?NOVEMBER?THE SHEILING?THE GALLOWS?BIRDS' NESTS?RAIN?"HOME"?THERE'S NOTHING LIKE THE SUN?WHEN HE SHOULD LAUGH?AN OLD SONG?THE PENNY WHISTLE?LIGHTS OUT?COCK-CROW?WORDS
THE TRUMPET
RISE up, rise up,?And, as the trumpet blowing?Chases the dreams of men,?As the dawn glowing?The stars that left unlit?The land and water,?Rise up and scatter?The dew that covers?The print of last night's lovers--?Scatter it, scatter it!
While you are listening?To the clear horn,?Forget, men, everything?On this earth newborn,?Except that it is lovelier?Than any mysteries.?Open your eyes to the air?That has washed the eyes of the stars?Through all the dewy night:?Up with the light,?To the old wars;?Arise, arise!
THE SIGN-POST
THE dim sea glints chill. The white sun is shy.?And the skeleton weeds and the never-dry,?Rough, long grasses keep white with frost?At the hilltop by the finger-post;?The smoke of the traveller's-joy is puffed?Over hawthorn berry and hazel tuft.
I read the sign. Which way shall I go??A voice says: You would not have doubted so?At twenty. Another voice gentle with scorn?Says: At twenty you wished you had never been born.
One hazel lost a leaf of gold?From a tuft at the tip, when the first voice told?The other he wished to know what 'twould be?To 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 all?Regrets and wishes shall freely be given;?And if there be a flaw in that heaven?'Twill be freedom to wish, and your wish may be?To 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 air?Wondering where he shall journey, O where?"
TEARS
IT seems I have no tears left. They should have fallen--?Their ghosts, if tears have ghosts, did fall--that day?When twenty hounds streamed by me, not yet combed
out?But still all equals in their rage of gladness?Upon the scent, made one, like a great dragon?In Blooming Meadow that bends towards the sun?And once bore hops: and on that other day?When I stepped out from the double-shadowed Tower?Into an April morning, stirring and sweet?And warm. Strange solitude was there and silence.?A mightier charm than any in the Tower?Possessed the courtyard. They were changing guard?Soldiers in line, young English countrymen,?Fair-haired and ruddy, in white tunics. Drums?And fifes were playing "The British Grenadiers".?The men, the music piercing that solitude?And silence, told me truths I had not dreamed?And have forgotten since their beauty passed.
TWO PEWITS
UNDER the after-sunset sky?Two pewits sport and cry,?More white than is the moon on high?Riding the dark surge silently;?More black than earth. Their cry?Is the one sound under the sky.?They alone move, now low, now high,?And merrily they cry?To the mischievous Spring sky,?Plunging earthward, tossing high,?Over the ghost who wonders why?So merrily they cry and fly,?Nor choose 'twixt earth and sky,?While the moon's quarter silently?Rides, and earth rests as silently.
THE MANOR FARM
THE rock-like mud unfroze a little and rills?Ran and sparkled down each side of the road?Under the catkins wagging in the hedge.?But earth would have her sleep out, spite of the sun;?Nor did I value that thin gilding beam?More than a pretty February thing?Till I came down to the old Manor Farm,?And church and yew-tree opposite, in age?Its equals and in size. The church and yew?And farmhouse slept in a Sunday silentness.?The air raised not a straw. The steep farm roof,?With tiles duskily glowing, entertained?The mid-day sun; and up and down the roof?White pigeons nestled. There was no sound but one.?Three cart-horses were looking over a gate?Drowsily through their forelocks, swishing their tails?Against a fly, a solitary fly.
The Winter's cheek flushed as