Poems by Edward Thomas — Poems by Edward Thomas Section 2
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
