Poems by Edward Thomas — Poems by Edward Thomas Section 9

TALL NETTLES

TALL nettles cover up, as they have done These many springs, the rusty harrow, the plough Long worn out, and the roller made of stone: Only the elm butt tops the nettles now.

This corner of the farmyard I like most: As well as any bloom upon a flower I like the dust on the nettles, never lost Except to prove the sweetness of a shower.

HAYMAKING

AFTER night's thunder far away had rolled The fiery day had a kernel sweet of cold, And in the perfect blue the clouds uncurled, Like the first gods before they made the world And misery, swimming the stormless sea In beauty and in divine gaiety.

The smooth white empty road was lightly strewn With leaves--the holly's Autumn falls in June-- And fir cones standing stiff up in the heat.

The mill-foot water tumbled white and lit With tossing crystals, happier than any crowd Of children pouring out of school aloud.

And in the little thickets where a sleeper For ever might lie lost, the nettle-creeper And garden warbler sang unceasingly;

While over them shrill shrieked in his fierce glee The swift with wings and tail as sharp and narrow As if the bow had flown off with the arrow.

Only the scent of woodbine and hay new-mown Travelled the road.

In the field sloping down, Park-like, to where its willows showed the brook, Haymakers rested.

The tosser lay forsook Out in the sun; and the long waggon stood Without its team, it seemed it never would Move from the shadow of that single yew.

The team, as still, until their task was due, Beside the labourers enjoyed the shade That three squat oaks mid-field together made Upon a circle of grass and weed uncut, And on the hollow, once a chalk-pit, but Now brimmed with nut and elder-flower so clean.

The men leaned on their rakes, about to begin, But still.

And all were silent.

All was old, This morning time, with a great age untold, Older than Clare and Cobbett, Morland and Crome, Than, at the field's far edge, the farmer's home, A white house crouched at the foot of a great tree.

Under the heavens that know not what years be The men, the beasts, the trees, the implements Uttered even what they will in times far hence-- All of us gone out of the reach of change-- Immortal in a picture of an old grange.

HOW AT ONCE

How at once should I know, When stretched in the harvest blue I saw the swift's black bow, That I would not have that view Another day Until next May Again it is due?

The same year after year-- But with the swift alone.

With other things I but fear That they will be over and done Suddenly And I only see Them to know them gone.

GONE, GONE AGAIN

GONE, gone again, May, June, July, And August gone, Again gone by, Not memorable Save that I saw them go, As past the empty quays The rivers flow.

And now again, In the harvest rain, The Blenheim oranges Fall grubby from the trees, As when I was young-- And when the lost one was here-- And when the war began To turn young men to dung.

Look at the old house, Outmoded, dignified, Dark and untenanted, With grass growing instead Of the footsteps of life, The friendliness, the strife;

In its beds have lain Youth, love, age and pain: I am something like that;

Only I am not dead, Still breathing and interested In the house that is not dark:-- I am something like that: Not one pane to reflect the sun, For the schoolboys to throw at-- They have broken every one.

THE SUN USED TO SHINE

THE sun used to shine while we two walked Slowly together, paused and started Again, and sometimes mused, sometimes talked As either pleased, and cheerfully parted Each night.

We never disagreed Which gate to rest on.

The to be And the late past we gave small heed.

We turned from men or poetry To rumours of the war remote Only till both stood disinclined For aught but the yellow flavorous coat Of an apple wasps had undermined;

Or a sentry of dark betonies, The stateliest of small flowers on earth, At the forest verge; or crocuses Pale purple as if they had their birth In sunless Hades fields.

The war Came back to mind with the moonrise Which soldiers in the east afar Beheld then.

Nevertheless, our eyes Could as well imagine the Crusades Or Caesar's battles.

Everything To faintness like those rumours fades-- Like the brook's water glittering Under the moonlight--like those walks Now--like us two that took them, and The fallen apples, all the talks And silences--like memory's sand When the tide covers it late or soon, And other men through other flowers In those fields under the same moon Go talking and have easy hours.

OCTOBER

THE green elm with the one great bough of gold Lets leaves into the grass slip, one by one,-- The short hill grass, the mushrooms small milk-white, Harebell and scabious and tormentil, That blackberry and gorse, in dew and sun, Bow down to; and the wind travels too light To shake the fallen birch leaves from the fern;

The gossamers wander at their own will.

At heavier steps than birds' the squirrels scold.

The rich scene has grown fresh again and new As Spring and to the touch is not more cool Than it is warm to the gaze; and now I might As happy be as earth is beautiful, Were I some other or with earth could turn In alternation of violet and rose, Harebell and snowdrop, at their season due, And gorse that has no time not to be gay.

But if this be not happiness,--who knows?

Some day I shall think this a happy day, And this mood by the name of melancholy Shall no more blackened and obscured be.

THE LONG SMALL ROOM

THE long small room that showed willows in the west Narrowed up to the end the fireplace filled, Although not wide.

I liked it.

No one guessed What need or accident made them so build.

Only the moon, the mouse and the sparrow peeped In from the ivy round the casement thick.

Of all they saw and heard there they shall keep The tale for the old ivy and older brick.

When I look back I am like moon, sparrow and mouse That witnessed what they could never understand Or alter or prevent in the dark house.

One thing remains the same--this my right hand Crawling crab-like over the clean white page, Resting awhile each morning on the pillow, Then once more starting to crawl on towards age.

The hundred last leaves stream upon the willow.