Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Edward Thomas (Illustrated) E-Book

Edward Thomas

• Herausgeber: Delphi Classics
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Serie: Delphi Poets Series
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Seitenzahl: 982

Beschreibung

The Delphi Poets Series offers readers the works of literature's finest poets, with superior formatting. This volume presents the complete poetical works of Edward Thomas, with beautiful illustrations, rare texts and the usual Delphi bonus material. (Version 1)

* Beautifully illustrated with images relating to Thomas' life and works
* Concise introduction to the life of Edward Thomas
* Excellent formatting of the poems
* Special chronological and alphabetical contents tables for the poetry
* Easily locate the poems you want to read
* Even includes the poet's autobiographical novella THE HAPPY-GO-LUCKY MORGANS
* Includes Thomas' letters - spend hours exploring the poet's personal correspondence
* Features Thomas' autobiographies, appearing here for the first time in digital print - discover Thomas' literary life
* Scholarly ordering of texts into chronological order and literary genres

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CONTENTS:

The Poetry of Edward Thomas
BRIEF INTRODUCTION: EDWARD THOMAS

The Poems
LIST OF POEMS IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER
LIST OF POEMS IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER

The Novella
THE HAPPY-GO-LUCKY MORGANS

The Letters
THE LETTERS OF EDWARD THOMAS
INDEX OF LETTERS

The Autobiographies
HOW I BEGAN
THE CHILDHOOD OF EDWARD THOMAS

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Leseprobe

EDWARD THOMAS

(1878–1917)

Contents

The Poetry of Edward Thomas

BRIEF INTRODUCTION: EDWARD THOMAS

The Poems

LIST OF POEMS IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER

LIST OF POEMS IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER

The Novella

THE HAPPY-GO-LUCKY MORGANS

The Letters

THE LETTERS OF EDWARD THOMAS

INDEX OF LETTERS

The Autobiographies

HOW I BEGAN

THE CHILDHOOD OF EDWARD THOMAS

© Delphi Classics 2013

Version 1

EDWARD THOMAS

By Delphi Classics, 2013

NOTE

When reading poetry on an eReader, it is advisable to use a small font size, which will allow the lines of poetry to display correctly.

Also available:

The Complete Works of Wilfred Owen

For the first time in publishing history, readers can explore all the poems, rare fragments and Owen’s letters.

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The Poetry of Edward Thomas

Edward Thomas was born on 3 March, 1878, in 10 Upper Lansdowne Road North, now 14 Lansdowne Gardens, Lambeth, London.

The plaque commemorating the poet’s birth

BRIEF INTRODUCTION: EDWARD THOMAS

Edward Thomas was born of Welsh descent, in Lambeth, London in 1878. He was educated at St Paul’s College and then Lincoln College at Oxford University, where he studied history. He married while still an undergraduate and determined to embark on a literary career, beginning as a book reviewer, reviewing up to fifteen books every week. In time, Thomas was a prolific writer of prose, completing biographies on Richard Jefferies, Swinburne and Keats, as well as working as a moderately successful journalist, whose work concentrated on the image of England and its countryside.

Thomas worked as literary critic for the Daily Chronicle in London and became a close friend of Welsh tramp poet W. H. Davies, whose career he almost single-handedly launched. From 1905, Thomas lived with his wife Helen and their family at Elses Farm near Sevenoaks, Kent. He rented to Davies a tiny cottage nearby, and nurtured his writing as best he could. On one occasion, Thomas even had to arrange for the manufacture, by a local wheelwright, of a makeshift wooden leg for Davies.

Thomas often suffered from severe bouts of depression and recurrent psychological breakdowns, feeling creatively repressed by the endless reviews and ill-paid commissions he had to undergo to support himself and his family. Although happier with his writings on countryside that mixed observation, information, literary criticism, self-reflection and portraiture, Thomas still felt that his style was not original enough to merit recognition and so he struggled to find a form that suited him.

Even though Thomas believed that poetry was the highest form of literature and regularly reviewed it, he only became a poet himself at the end of 1914, when living at Steep, East Hampshire. Following a meeting with the American poet Robert Frost, Thomas devoted himself fully to the writing of poetry. From the beginning of his poetic writings, the First World War became a shifting presence in Thomas’ poetry, acting to concentrate his mind on a war-torn vision of England. 

His poetry, so he said, acted as the ‘metaphysical counterpart’ to his decision to join the army. After ‘the natural culmination of a long series of moods and thoughts’ he enlisted in 1915 with the Artists’ Rifles as a private. Thomas was sent to Hare Hall Camp at Romford, Essex, where he worked as a map-reading instructor and was promoted to lance-corporal, then full corporal. Given his age, Thomas could have honourably remained in this post throughout the War; however, in September 1916 he began training in the Royal Garrison Artillery and when he was commissioned second lieutenant in November he volunteered for service overseas. Thomas left England for France in January 1917 and served with No. 244 siege battery. On the 9th April Thomas was killed by a shell blast in the first hour of the Battle of Arras at an observation post whilst directing fire.

Thomas wrote no poetry that we know of during his time in France, however his small pocket diary reveals him to be a changed man, an efficient officer and a prolific writer. The poet is buried in Agny military cemetery on the outskirts of Arras. He was survived by his wife Helen and three children, Bronwen, Merfyn and Myfanwy. Thomas did not live to see Poems (1917), published under his pseudonym, Edward Eastaway. Although only functioning as a poet for little over two years, Thomas had created a body of over 140 poems, which have since been recognised as some of the greatest poetic achievements of his era. Thomas’ poems are celebrated for their attention to the English countryside and his telltale colloquial style.

Thomas with his son, 1900

Thomas, 1904

Thomas in 1914, the year when he began to write poetry seriously

An illustration of Thomas enlisting

Thomas in uniform, 1916

UP IN THE WIND

‘I could wring the old thing’s neck that put it here!A public-house! It may be public for birds,Squirrels and such-like, ghosts of charcoal-burnersAnd highwaymen.’ The wild girl laughed. ‘But IHate it since I came back from Kennington.   5I gave up a good place.’ Her Cockney accentMade her and the house seem wilder by calling up –Only to be subdued at once by wildness –The idea of London, there in that forest parlour,Low and small among the towering beeches   10And the one bulging butt that’s like a font.

Her eyes flashed up; she shook her hair awayFrom eyes and mouth, as if to shriek again;Then sighed back to her scrubbing. While I drankI might have mused of coaches and highwaymen,   15Charcoal-burners and life that loves the wild.For who now used these roads except myself,A market waggon every other Wednesday,A solitary tramp, some very fresh oneIgnorant of these eleven houseless miles,   20A motorist from a distance slowing downTo taste whatever luxury he canIn having North Downs clear behind, South clear before,And being midway between two railway linesFar out of sight or sound of them? There are   25Some houses – down the by-lanes; and a fewAre visible – when their damsons are in bloom.But the land is wild, and there’s a spirit of wildnessMuch older, crying when the stone-curlew yodelsHis sea and mountain cry, high up in Spring.   30He nests in fields where still the gorse is free asWhen all was open and common. Common ‘tis namedAnd calls itself, because the bracken and gorseStill hold the hedge where plough and scythe have chased them.Once on a time ‘tis plain that ‘The White Horse’   35Stood merely on the border of a wasteWhere horse or cart picked its own course afresh.On all sides then, as now, paths ran to the inn;And now a farm-track takes you from a gate.Two roads cross, and not a house in sight   40Except ‘The White Horse’ in this clump of beeches.It hides from either road, a field’s breadth back;And it’s the trees you see, and not the house,Both near and far, when the clump’s the highest thingAnd homely, too, upon a far horizon   45To one that knows there is an inn within.

‘‘Twould have been different’ the wild girl shrieked, ‘supposeThat widow had married another blacksmith andKept on the business. This parlour was the smithy.If she had done, there might never have been an inn;   50And I, in that case, might never have been born.Years ago, when this was all a woodAnd the smith had charcoal-burners for company,A man from a beech-country in the shiresCame with an engine and a little boy   55(To feed the engine) to cut up timber here.It all happened years ago. The smithHad died, his widow had set up an alehouse –I could wring the old thing’s neck for thinking of it.Well, I suppose they fell in love, the widow   60And my great-uncle that sawed up the timber:Leastways they married. The little boy stayed on.He was my father.’ She thought she’d scrub again –‘I draw the ale and he grows fat’ she muttered –But only studied the hollows in the bricks   65And chose among her thoughts in stirring silence.The clock ticked, and the big saucepan lidHeaved as the cabbage bubbled, and the girlQuestioned the fire and spoke: ‘My father, heTook to the land. A mile of it is worth   70A guinea; for by that time all the treesExcept these few about the house were gone:That’s all that’s left of the forest unless you countThe bottoms of the charcoal-burners’ fires –We plough one up at times. Did you ever see   75Our signboard?’ No. The post and empty frameI knew. Without them I should not have guessedThe low grey house and its one stack under treesWas a public-house and not a hermitage.‘But can that empty frame be any use?   80Now I should like to see a good white horseSwing there, a really beautiful white horse,Galloping one side, being painted on the other.’‘But would you like to hear it swing all nightAnd all day? All I ever had to thank   85The wind for was for blowing the sign down.Time after time it blew down and I could sleep.At last they fixed it, and it took a thiefTo move it, and we’ve never had another:It’s lying at the bottom of the pond.   90But no one’s moved the wood from off the hillThere at the back, although it makes a noiseWhen the wind blows, as if a train were runningThe other side, a train that never stopsOr ends. And the linen crackles on the line   95Like a wood fire rising.’ ‘But if you had the signYou might draw company. What about Kennington?’She bent down to her scrubbing with ‘Not me:Not back to Kennington. Here I was born,And I’ve a notion on these windy nights   100Here I shall die. Perhaps I want to die here.I reckon I shall stay. But I do wishThe road was nearer and the wind farther off,Or once now and then quite still, though when I dieI’d have it blowing that I might go with it   105Somewhere distant, where there are trees no moreAnd I could wake and not know where I wasNor even wonder if they would roar again.Look at those calves.’

                 Between the open doorAnd the trees two calves were wading in the pond,   110Grazing the water here and there and thinking,Sipping and thinking, both happily, neither long.The water wrinkled, but they sipped and thought,As careless of the wind as it of us.‘Look at those calves. Hark at the trees again.’   115

List of poems in chronological order

List of poems in alphabetical order

NOVEMBER

November’s days are thirty:November’s earth is dirty,Those thirty days, from first to last;And the prettiest things on ground are the pathsWith morning and evening hobnails dinted,   5With foot and wing-tip overprintedOr separately charactered,Of little beast and little bird.The fields are mashed by sheep, the roadsMake the worst going, the best the woods   10Where dead leaves upward and downward scatter.Few care for the mixture of earth and water,Twig, leaf, flint, thorn,Straw, feather, all that men scorn,Pounded up and sodden by flood,   15Condemned as mud.

But of all the months when earth is greenerNot one has clean skies that are cleaner.Clean and clear and sweet and cold,They shine above the earth so old,   20While the after-tempest cloudSails over in silence though winds are loud,Till the full moon in the eastLooks at the planet in the westAnd earth is silent as it is black,   25Yet not unhappy for its lack.Up from the dirty earth men stare:One imagines a refuge thereAbove the mud, in the pure brightOf the cloudless heavenly light:   30Another loves earth and November more dearlyBecause without them, he sees clearly,The sky would be nothing more to his eyeThan he, in any case, is to the sky;He loves even the mud whose dyes   35Renounce all brightness to the skies.

List of poems in chronological order

MARCH

Now I know that Spring will come again,Perhaps tomorrow: however late I’ve patienceAfter this night following on such a day.

While still my temples ached from the cold burningOf hail and wind, and still the primroses   5Torn by the hail were covered up in it,The sun filled earth and heaven with a great lightAnd a tenderness, almost warmth, where the hail dripped,As if the mighty sun wept tears of joy.But ‘twas too late for warmth. The sunset piled   10Mountains on mountains of snow and ice in the west:Somewhere among their folds the wind was lost,And yet ‘twas cold, and though I knew that SpringWould come again, I knew it had not come,That it was lost too in those mountains chill.   15

What did the thrushes know? Rain, snow, sleet, hail,Had kept them quiet as the primroses.They had but an hour to sing. On boughs they sang,On gates, on ground; they sang while they changed perchesAnd while they fought, if they remembered to fight:   20So earnest were they to pack into that hourTheir unwilling hoard of song before the moonGrew brighter than the clouds. Then ‘twas no timeFor singing merely. So they could keep off silenceAnd night, they cared not what they sang or screamed;   25Whether ‘twas hoarse or sweet or fierce or soft;And to me all was sweet: they could do no wrong.Something they knew – I also, while they sangAnd after. Not till night had half its starsAnd never a cloud, was I aware of silence   30Stained with all that hour’s songs, a silenceSaying that Spring returns, perhaps tomorrow.

List of poems in chronological order

List of poems in alphabetical order

OLD MAN

Old Man, or Lad’s-love, – in the name there’s nothingTo one that knows not Lad’s-love, or Old Man,The hoar-green feathery herb, almost a tree,Growing with rosemary and lavender.Even to one that knows it well, the names   5Half decorate, half perplex, the thing it is:At least, what that is clings not to the namesIn spite of time. And yet I like the names.

The herb itself I like not, but for certainI love it, as some day the child will love it   10Who plucks a feather from the door-side bushWhenever she goes in or out of the house.Often she waits there, snipping the tips and shrivellingThe shreds at last on to the path, perhapsThinking, perhaps of nothing, till she sniffs   15Her fingers and runs off. The bush is stillBut half as tall as she, though it is as old;So well she clips it. Not a word she says;And I can only wonder how much hereafterShe will remember, with that bitter scent,   20Of garden rows, and ancient damson-treesTopping a hedge, a bent path to a door,A low thick bush beside the door, and meForbidding her to pick.

                 As for myself,Where first I met the bitter scent is lost.   25I, too, often shrivel the grey shreds,Sniff them and think and sniff again and tryOnce more to think what it is I am remembering,Always in vain. I cannot like the scent,Yet I would rather give up others more sweet,   30With no meaning, than this bitter one.

I have mislaid the key. I sniff the sprayAnd think of nothing; I see and I hear nothing;Yet seem, too, to be listening, lying in waitFor what I should, yet never can, remember:   35No garden appears, no path, no hoar-green bushOf Lad’s-love, or Old Man, no child beside,Neither father nor mother, nor any playmate;Only an avenue, dark, nameless, without end.

List of poems in chronological order

List of poems in alphabetical order

THE SIGNPOST

The dim sea glints chill. The white sun is shy,And the skeleton weeds and the never-dry,Rough, long grasses keep white with frostAt the hilltop by the finger-post;The smoke of the traveller’s-joy is puffed   5Over hawthorn berry and hazel tuft.

I read the sign. Which way shall I go?A voice says: You would not have doubted soAt twenty. Another voice gentle with scornSays: At twenty you wished you had never been born.   10

One hazel lost a leaf of goldFrom a tuft at the tip, when the first voice toldThe other he wished to know what ‘twould beTo be sixty by this same post. ‘You shall see,’He laughed – and I had to join his laughter –   15‘You shall see; but either before or after,Whatever happens, it must befall,A mouthful of earth to remedy allRegrets and wishes shall freely be given;And if there be a flaw in that heaven   20‘Twill be freedom to wish, and your wish may beTo 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,   25The 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 airWondering where he shall journey, O where?’   30

List of poems in chronological order

List of poems in alphabetical order

AFTER RAIN

The rain of a night and a day and a nightStops at the lightOf this pale choked day. The peering sunSees what has been done.The road under the trees has a border new   5Of purple hueInside the border of bright thin grass:For all that hasBeen left by November of leaves is tornFrom hazel and thorn   10And the greater trees. Throughout the copseNo dead leaf dropsOn grey grass, green moss, burnt-orange fern,At the wind’s return:The leaflets out of the ash-tree shed   15Are thinly spreadIn the road, like little black fish, inlaid,As if they played.What hangs from the myriad branches down thereSo hard and bare   20Is twelve yellow apples lovely to seeOn one crab-tree,And on each twig of every tree in the dellUncountableCrystals both dark and bright of the rain   25That begins again.

List of poems in chronological order

List of poems in alphabetical order

INTERVAL

Gone the wild day:A wilder nightComing makes wayFor brief twilight.

Where the firm soaked road   5Mounts and is lostIn the high beech-woodIt shines almost.

The beeches keepA stormy rest,   10Breathing deepOf wind from the west.

The wood is black,With a misty steam.Above, the cloud pack   15Breaks for one gleam.

But the woodman’s cotBy the ivied treesAwakens notTo light or breeze.   20

It smokes aloftUnwavering:It hunches softUnder storm’s wing.

It has no care   25For gleam or gloom:It stays thereWhile I shall roam,

Die, and forgetThe hill of trees,   30The gleam, the wet,This roaring peace.

List of poems in chronological order

THE OTHER

The forest ended. Glad I wasTo feel the light, and hear the humOf bees, and smell the drying grassAnd the sweet mint, because I had comeTo an end of forest, and because   5Here was both road and inn, the sumOf what’s not forest. But ‘twas hereThey asked me if I did not passYesterday this way? ‘Not you? Queer.’‘Who then? and slept here?’ I felt fear.   10

I learnt his road and, ere they wereSure I was I, left the dark woodBehind, kestrel and woodpecker,The inn in the sun, the happy moodWhen first I tasted sunlight there.   15I travelled fast, in hopes I shouldOutrun that other. What to doWhen caught, I planned not. I pursuedTo prove the likeness, and, if true,To watch until myself I knew.   20

I tried the inns that eveningOf a long gabled high-street grey,Of courts and outskirts, travellingAn eager but a weary way,In vain. He was not there. Nothing   25Told me that ever till that dayHad one like me entered those doors,Save once. That time I dared: ‘You mayRecall’ – but never-foamless shoresMake better friends than those dull boors.   30

Many and many a day like thisAimed at the unseen moving goalAnd nothing found but remediesFor all desire. These made not whole;They sowed a new desire, to kiss   35Desire’s self beyond control,Desire of desire. And yetLife stayed on within my soul.One night in sheltering from the wetI quite forgot I could forget.   40

A customer, then the landladyStared at me. With a kind of smileThey hesitated awkwardly:Their silence gave me time for guile.Had anyone called there like me,   45I asked. It was quite plain the wileSucceeded. For they poured out all.And that was naught. Less than a mileBeyond the inn, I could recallHe was like me in general.   50

He had pleased them, but I less.I was more eager than beforeTo find him out and to confess,To bore him and to let him bore.I could not wait: children might guess   55I had a purpose, something moreThat made an answer indiscreet.One girl’s caution made me sore,Too indignant even to greetThat other had we chanced to meet.   60

I sought then in solitude.The wind had fallen with the night; as stillThe roads lay as the ploughland rude,Dark and naked, on the hill.Had there been ever any feud   65‘Twixt earth and sky, a mighty willClosed it: the crocketed dark trees,A dark house, dark impossibleCloud-towers, one star, one lamp, one peaceHeld on an everlasting lease:   70

And all was earth’s, or all was sky’s;No difference endured betweenThe two. A dog barked on a hidden rise;A marshbird whistled high unseen;The latest waking blackbird’s cries   75Perished upon the silence keen.The last light filled a narrow firthAmong the clouds. I stood serene,And with a solemn quiet mirth,An old inhabitant of earth.   80

Once the name I gave to hoursLike this was melancholy, whenIt was not happiness and powersComing like exiles home again,And weaknesses quitting their bowers,   85Smiled and enjoyed, far off from men,Moments of everlastingness.And fortunate my search was thenWhile what I sought, nevertheless,That I was seeking, I did not guess.   90

That time was brief: once more at innAnd upon road I sought my manTill once amid a tap-room’s dinLoudly he asked for me, beganTo speak, as if it had been a sin,   95Of how I thought and dreamed and ranAfter him thus, day after day:He lived as one under a banFor this: what had I got to say?I said nothing. I slipped away.   100

And now I dare not follow afterToo close. I try to keep in sight,Dreading his frown and worse his laughter.I steal out of the wood to light;I see the swift shoot from the rafter   105By the inn door: ere I alightI wait and hear the starlings wheezeAnd nibble like ducks: I wait his flight.He goes: I follow: no releaseUntil he ceases. Then I also shall cease.   110

List of poems in chronological order

List of poems in alphabetical order

THE MOUNTAIN CHAPEL

Chapel and gravestones, old and few,Are shrouded by a mountain foldFrom sound and viewOf life. The loss of the brook’s voiceFalls like a shadow. All they hear is   5The eternal noiseOf wind whistling in grass more shrillThan aught as human as a sword,And saying still:‘‘Tis but a moment since man’s birth   10And in another moment moreMan lies in earthFor ever; but I am the sameNow, and shall be, even as I wasBefore he came;   15Till there is nothing I shall be.’Yet there the sun shines after noonSo cheerfullyThe place almost seems peopled, norLacks cottage chimney, cottage hearth:   20It is not moreIn size than is a cottage, lessThan any other empty homeIn homeliness.It has a garden of wild flowers   25And finest grass and gravestones warmIn sunshine hoursThe year through. Men behind the glassStand once a week, singing, and drownThe whistling grass   30Their ponies munch. And yet somewhere,Near or far off, there’s a man couldBe happy here,Or one of the gods perhaps, were theyNot of inhuman stature dire,   35As poets sayWho have not seen them clearly; ifAt sound of any wind of the worldIn grass-blades stiffThey would not startle and shudder cold   40Under the sun. When gods were youngThis wind was old.

List of poems in chronological order

List of poems in alphabetical order

BIRDS’ NESTS

The summer nests uncovered by autumn wind,Some torn, others dislodged, all dark,Everyone sees them: low or high in tree,Or hedge, or single bush, they hang like a mark.

Since there’s no need of eyes to see them with   5I cannot help a little shameThat I missed most, even at eye’s level, tillThe leaves blew off and made the seeing no game.

‘Tis a light pang. I like to see the nestsStill in their places, now first known,   10At home and by far roads. Boys knew them not,Whatever jays and squirrels may have done.

And most I like the winter nest deep-hidThat leaves and berries fell into:Once a dormouse dined there on hazel-nuts,   15And grass and goose-grass seeds found soil and grew.

List of poems in chronological order

List of poems in alphabetical order

THE MANOR FARM

The rock-like mud unfroze a little and rillsRan and sparkled down each side of the roadUnder 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   5More than a pretty February thingTill I came down to the old Manor Farm,And church and yew-tree opposite, in ageIts equals and in size. The church and yewAnd farmhouse slept in a Sunday silentness.   10The air raised not a straw. The steep farm roof,With tiles duskily glowing, entertainedThe midday sun; and up and down the roofWhite pigeons nestled. There was no sound but one.Three cart-horses were looking over a gate   15Drowsily through their forelocks, swishing their tailsAgainst a fly, a solitary fly.

The Winter’s cheek flushed as if he had drainedSpring, Summer, and Autumn at a draughtAnd smiled quietly. But ‘twas not Winter –   20Rather a season of bliss unchangeableAwakened from farm and church where it had lainSafe under tile and thatch for ages sinceThis England, Old already, was called Merry.

List of poems in chronological order

List of poems in alphabetical order

AN OLD SONG I

I was not apprenticed nor ever dwelt in famous Lincolnshire;I’ve served one master ill and well much more than seven year;And never took up to poaching as you shall quickly find;   But ‘tis my delight of a shiny night in the season of the year.

I roamed where nobody had a right but keepers and squires, and there   5I sought for nests, wild flowers, oak sticks, and moles, both far and near,And had to run from farmers, and learnt the Lincolnshire song:   ‘Oh, ‘tis my delight of a shiny night in the season of the year.’

I took those walks years after, talking with friend or dear,Or solitary musing; but when the moon shone clear   10I had no joy or sorrow that could not be expressed   By ‘‘Tis my delight of a shiny night in the season of the year.’

Since then I’ve thrown away a chance to fight a gamekeeper;And I less often trespass, and what I see or hearIs mostly from the road or path by day: yet still I sing:   15   ‘Oh, ‘tis my delight of a shiny night in the season of the year.’

For if I am contented, at home or anywhere,Or if I sigh for I know not what, or my heart beats with some fear,It is a strange kind of delight to sing or whistle just:   ‘Oh, ‘tis my delight of a shiny night in the season of the year.’   20

And with this melody on my lips and no one by to care,Indoors, or out on shiny nights or dark in open air,I am for a moment made a man that sings out of his heart:   ‘Oh, ‘tis my delight of a shiny night in the season of the year.’

List of poems in chronological order

List of poems in alphabetical order

AN OLD SONG II

The sun set, the wind fell, the seaWas like a mirror shaking:The one small wave that clapped the landA mile-long snake of foam was makingWhere tide had smoothed and wind had dried   5The vacant sand.

A light divided the swollen cloudsAnd lay most perfectlyLike a straight narrow footbridge brightThat crossed over the sea to me;   10And no one else in the whole worldSaw that same sight.

I walked elate, my bridge alwaysJust one step from my feet:A robin sang, a shade in shade:   15And all I did was to repeat:    ‘I’ll go no more a-roving    With you, fair maid.’

The sailors’ song of merry lovingWith dusk and sea-gull’s mewing   20Mixed sweet, the lewdness far outweighedBy the wild charm the chorus played:    ‘I’ll go no more a-roving    With you, fair maid:    A-roving, a-roving, since roving’s been my ruin,   25    I’ll go no more a-roving with you, fair maid.’

In Amsterdam there dwelt a maid –Mark well what I do say –In Amsterdam there dwelt a maidAnd she was a mistress of her trade:   30I’ll go no more a-rovingWith you, fair maid:A-roving, a-roving, since roving’s been my ruin,I’ll go no more a-roving with you, fair maid.

List of poems in chronological order

List of poems in alphabetical order

THE COMBE

The Combe was ever dark, ancient and dark.Its mouth is stopped with bramble, thorn, and briar;And no one scrambles over the sliding chalkBy beech and yew and perishing juniperDown the half precipices of its sides, with roots   5And rabbit holes for steps. The sun of Winter,The moon of Summer, and all the singing birdsExcept the missel-thrush that loves juniper,Are quite shut out. But far more ancient and darkThe Combe looks since they killed the badger there,   10Dug him out and gave him to the hounds,That most ancient Briton of English beasts.

List of poems in chronological order

THE NEW YEAR

He was the one man I met up in the woodsThat stormy New Year’s morning; and at first sight,Fifty yards off, I could not tell how muchOf the strange tripod was a man. His body,Bowed horizontal, was supported equally   5By legs at one end, by a rake at the other:Thus he rested, far less like a man thanHis wheel-barrow in profile was like a pig.But when I saw it was an old man bent,At the same moment came into my mind   10The games at which boys bend thus, High-cockolorum,Or Fly-the-garter, and Leap-frog. At the soundOf footsteps he began to straighten himself;His head rolled under his cape like a tortoise’s;He took an unlit pipe out of his mouth   15Politely ere I wished him ‘A Happy New Year’,And with his head cast upward sideways muttered –So far as I could hear through the trees’ roar –‘Happy New Year, and may it come fastish, too,’While I strode by and he turned to raking leaves.   20

List of poems in chronological order

List of poems in alphabetical order

THE HOLLOW WOOD

Out in the sun the goldfinch flitsAlong the thistle-tops, flits and twitsAbove the hollow woodWhere birds swim like fish –Fish that laugh and shriek –   5To and fro, far belowIn the pale hollow wood.

Lichen, ivy, and mossKeep evergreen the treesThat stand half-flayed and dying,   10And the dead trees on their kneesIn dog’s-mercury and moss:And the bright twit of the goldfinch dropsDown there as he flits on thistle-tops.

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THE SOURCE

All day the air triumphs with its two voicesOf wind and rain:As loud as if in anger it rejoices,Drowning the sound of earthThat gulps and gulps in choked endeavour vain   5To swallow the rain.

Half the night, too, only the wild air speaksWith wind and rain,Till forth the dumb source of the river breaksAnd drowns the rain and wind,   10Bellows like a giant bathing in mighty mirthThe triumph of earth.

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THE PENNY WHISTLE

The new moon hangs like an ivory bugleIn the naked frosty blue;And the ghylls of the forest, already blackenedBy Winter, are blackened anew.

The brooks that cut up and increase the forest,   5As if they had never knownThe sun, are roaring with black hollow voicesBetwixt rage and a moan.

But still the caravan-hut by the holliesLike a kingfisher gleams between:   10Round the mossed old hearths of the charcoal-burnersFirst primroses ask to be seen.

The charcoal-burners are black, but their linenBlows white on the line;And white the letter the girl is reading   15Under that crescent fine;

And her brother who hides apart in a thicket,Slowly and surely playingOn a whistle an olden nursery melody,Says far more than I am saying.   20

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A PRIVATE

This ploughman dead in battle slept out of doorsMany a frosty night, and merrilyAnswered staid drinkers, good bedmen, and all bores:‘At Mrs Greenland’s Hawthorn Bush,’ said he,‘I slept.’ None knew which bush. Above the town,   5Beyond ‘The Drover’, a hundred spot the downIn Wiltshire. And where now at last he sleepsMore sound in France – that, too, he secret keeps.

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SNOW

In the gloom of whiteness,In the great silence of snow,A child was sighingAnd bitterly saying: ‘Oh,   5They have killed a white bird up there on her nest,The down is fluttering from her breast.’And still it fell through that dusky brightnessOn the child crying for the bird of the snow.

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ADLESTROP

Yes. I remember Adlestrop –The name, because one afternoonOf heat the express-train drew up thereUnwontedly. It was late June.

The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat.   5No one left and no one cameOn the bare platform. What I sawWas Adlestrop – only the name

And willows, willow-herb, and grass,And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry,   10No whit less still and lonely fairThan the high cloudlets in the sky.

And for that minute a blackbird sangClose by, and round him, mistier,Farther and farther, all the birds   15Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.

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TEARS

It seems I have no tears left. They should have fallen –Their ghosts, if tears have ghosts, did fall – that dayWhen twenty hounds streamed by me, not yet combed outBut still all equals in their rage of gladnessUpon the scent, made one, like a great dragon   5In Blooming Meadow that bends towards the sunAnd once bore hops: and on that other dayWhen I stepped out from the double-shadowed TowerInto an April morning, stirring and sweetAnd warm. Strange solitude was there and silence.   10A mightier charm than any in the TowerPossessed the courtyard. They were changing guard,Soldiers in line, young English countrymen,Fair-haired and ruddy, in white tunics. DrumsAnd fifes were playing ‘The British Grenadiers’.   15The men, the music piercing that solitudeAnd silence, told me truths I had not dreamed,And have forgotten since their beauty passed.

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OVER THE HILLS

Often and often it came back againTo mind, the day I passed the horizon ridgeTo a new country, the path I had to findBy half-gaps that were stiles once in the hedge,The pack of scarlet clouds running across   5The harvest evening that seemed endless thenAnd after, and the inn where all were kind,All were strangers. I did not know my lossTill one day twelve months later suddenlyI leaned upon my spade and saw it all,   10Though far beyond the sky-line. It becameAlmost a habit through the year for meTo lean and see it and think to do the sameAgain for two days and a night. RecallWas vain: no more could the restless brook   15Ever turn back and climb the waterfallTo the lake that rests and stirs not in its nook,As in the hollow of the collar-boneUnder the mountain’s head of rush and stone.

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THE LOFTY SKY

Today I want the sky,The tops of the high hills,Above the last man’s house,His hedges, and his cows,Where, if I will, I look   5Down even on sheep and rook,And of all things that moveSee buzzards only above: –Past all trees, past furzeAnd thorn, where naught deters   10The desire of the eyeFor sky, nothing but sky.I sicken of the woodsAnd all the multitudesOf hedge-trees. They are no more   15Than weeds upon this floorOf the river of airLeagues deep, leagues wide, whereI am like a fish that livesIn weeds and mud and gives   20What’s above him no thought.I might be a tench for aughtThat I can do todayDown on the wealden clay.Even the tench has days   25When he floats up and playsAmong the lily leavesAnd sees the sky, or grievesNot if he nothing sees:While I, I know that trees   30Under that lofty skyAre weeds, fields mud, and IWould arise and go farTo where the lilies are.

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THE CUCKOO

That’s the cuckoo, you say. I cannot hear it.When last I heard it I cannot recall; but I knowToo well the year when first I failed to hear it –It was drowned by my man groaning out to his sheep ‘Ho! Ho!’

Ten times with an angry voice he shouted   5‘Ho! Ho!’ but not in anger, for that was his way.He died that Summer, and that is how I rememberThe cuckoo calling, the children listening, and me saying, ‘Nay.’

And now, as you said, ‘There it is!’ I was hearingNot the cuckoo at all, but my man’s ‘Ho! Ho!’ instead.   10And I think that even if I could lose my deafnessThe cuckoo’s note would be drowned by the voice of my dead.

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SWEDES

They have taken the gable from the roof of clayOn the long swede pile. They have let in the sunTo the white and gold and purple of curled frondsUnsunned. It is a sight more tender-gorgeousAt the wood-corner where Winter moans and drips   5Than when, in the Valley of the Tombs of Kings,A boy crawls down into a Pharaoh’s tombAnd, first of Christian men, beholds the mummy,God and monkey, chariot and throne and vase,Blue pottery, alabaster, and gold.   10

But dreamless long-dead Amen-hotep lies.This is a dream of Winter, sweet as Spring.

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THE UNKNOWN BIRD

Three lovely notes he whistled, too soft to be heardIf others sang; but others never sangIn the great beech-wood all that May and June.No one saw him: I alone could hear himThough many listened. Was it but four years   5Ago? or five? He never came again.

Oftenest when I heard him I was alone,Nor could I ever make another hear.La-la-la! he called, seeming far-off –As if a cock crowed past the edge of the world,   10As if the bird or I were in a dream.Yet that he travelled through the trees and sometimesNeared me, was plain, though somehow distant stillHe sounded. All the proof is – I told menWhat I had heard.

        I never knew a voice,   15Man, beast, or bird, better than this. I toldThe naturalists; but neither had they heardAnything like the notes that did so haunt me,I had them clear by heart and have them still.Four years, or five, have made no difference. Then   20As now that La-la-la! was bodiless sweet:Sad more than joyful it was, if I must sayThat it was one or other, but if sad‘Twas sad only with joy too, too far offFor me to taste it. But I cannot tell   25If truly never anything but fairThe days were when he sang, as now they seem.This surely I know, that I who listened then,Happy sometimes, sometimes sufferingA heavy body and a heavy heart,   30Now straightway, if I think of it, becomeLight as that bird wandering beyond my shore.

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BEAUTY

What does it mean? Tired, angry, and ill at ease,No man, woman, or child alive could pleaseMe now. And yet I almost dare to laughBecause I sit and frame an epitaph –‘Here lies all that no one loved of him   5And that loved no one.’ Then in a trice that whimHas wearied. But, though I am like a riverAt fall of evening while it seems that neverHas the sun lighted it or warmed it, whileCross breezes cut the surface to a file,   10This heart, some fraction of me, happilyFloats through the window even now to a treeDown in the misting, dim-lit, quiet vale,Not like a pewit that returns to wailFor something it has lost, but like a dove   15That slants unswerving to its home and love.There I find my rest, and through the dusk airFlies what yet lives in me. Beauty is there.

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THE MILL-POND

The sun blazed while the thunder yetAdded a boom:A wagtail flickered bright overThe mill-pond’s gloom:

Less than the cooing in the alder   5Isles of the poolSounded the thunder through that plungeOf waters cool.

Scared starlings on the aspen tipPast the black mill   10Outchattered the stream and the next roarFar on the hill.

As my feet dangling teased the foamThat slid belowA girl came out. ‘Take care!’ she said –   15Ages ago.

She startled me, standing quite closeDressed all in white:Ages ago I was angry tillShe passed from sight.   20

Then the storm burst, and as I crouchedTo shelter, howBeautiful and kind, too, she seemed,As she does now!

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MAN AND DOG

‘‘Twill take some getting.’ ‘Sir, I think ‘twill so.’The old man stared up at the mistletoeThat hung too high in the poplar’s crest for plunderOf any climber, though not for kissing under:Then he went on against the north-east wind –   5Straight but lame, leaning on a staff new-skinned,Carrying a brolly, flag-basket, and old coat, –Towards Alton, ten miles off. And he had notDone less from Chilgrove where he pulled up docks.‘Twere best, if he had had ‘a money-box’,   10To have waited there till the sheep cleared a fieldFor what a half-week’s flint-picking would yield.His mind was running on the work he had doneSince he left Christchurch in the New Forest, oneSpring in the ‘seventies, – navvying on dock and line   15From Southampton to Newcastle-on-Tyne, –In ‘seventy-four a year of soldieringWith the Berkshires, – hoeing and harvestingIn half the shires where corn and couch will grow.His sons, three sons, were fighting, but the hoe   20And reap-hook he liked, or anything to do with trees.He fell once from a poplar tall as these:The Flying Man they called him in hospital.‘If I flew now, to another world I’d fall.’He laughed and whistled to the small brown bitch   25With spots of blue that hunted in the ditch.Her foxy Welsh grandfather must have pairedBeneath him. He kept sheep in Wales and scaredStrangers, I will warrant, with his pearl eyeAnd trick of shrinking off as he were shy,   30Then following close in silence for – for what?‘No rabbit, never fear, she ever got,Yet always hunts. Today she nearly had one:She would and she wouldn’t. ‘Twas like that. The bad one!She’s not much use, but still she’s company,   35Though I’m not. She goes everywhere with me.So Alton I must reach tonight somehow:I’ll get no shakedown with that bedfellowFrom farmers. Many a man sleeps worse tonightThan I shall.’ ‘In the trenches.’ ‘Yes, that’s right.   40But they’ll be out of that – I hope they be –This weather, marching after the enemy.’‘And so I hope. Good luck.’ And there I nodded‘Good-night. You keep straight on.’ Stiffly he plodded;And at his heels the crisp leaves scurried fast,   45And the leaf-coloured robin watched. They passed,The robin till next day, the man for good,Together in the twilight of the wood.

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THE GYPSY

A fortnight before Christmas Gypsies were everywhere:Vans were drawn up on wastes, women trailed to the fair.‘My gentleman,’ said one, ‘You’ve got a lucky face.’‘And you’ve a luckier,’ I thought, ‘if such a graceAnd impudence in rags are lucky.’ ‘Give a penny   5For the poor baby’s sake.’ ‘Indeed I have not anyUnless you can give change for a sovereign, my dear.’‘Then just half a pipeful of tobacco can you spare?’I gave it. With that much victory she laughed content.I should have given more, but off and away she went   10With her baby and her pink sham flowers to rejoinThe rest before I could translate to its proper coinGratitude for her grace. And I paid nothing then,As I pay nothing now with the dipping of my penFor her brother’s music when he drummed the tambourine   15And stamped his feet, which made the workmen passing grin,While his mouth-organ changed to a rascally Bacchanal dance‘Over the hills and far away’. This and his glanceOutlasted all the fair, farmer and auctioneer,Cheap-jack, balloon-man, drover with crooked stick, and steer,   20Pig, turkey, goose, and duck, Christmas corpses to be.Not even the kneeling ox had eyes like the Romany.That night he peopled for me the hollow wooded land,More dark and wild than stormiest heavens, that I searched and scannedLike a ghost new-arrived. The gradations of the dark   20Were like an underworld of death, but for the sparkIn the Gypsy boy’s black eyes as he played and stamped his tune,‘Over the hills and far away’, and a crescent moon.

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AMBITION

Unless it was that day I never knewAmbition. After a night of frost, beforeThe March sun brightened and the South-west blew,Jackdaws began to shout and float and soarAlready, and one was racing straight and high   5Alone, shouting like a black warriorChallenges and menaces to the wide sky.With loud long laughter then a woodpeckerRidiculed the sadness of the owl’s last cry.And through the valley where all the folk astir   10Made only plumes of pearly smoke to towerOver dark trees and white meadows happierThan was Elysium in that happy hour,A train that roared along raised after itAnd carried with it a motionless white bower   15Of purest cloud, from end to end close-knit,So fair it touched the roar with silence. TimeWas powerless while that lasted. I could sitAnd think I had made the loveliness of prime,Breathed its life into it and were its lord,   20And no mind lived save this ‘twixt clouds and rime.Omnipotent I was, nor even deploredThat I did nothing. But the end fell like a bell:The bower was scattered; far off the train roared.But if this was ambition I cannot tell.   25What ‘twas ambition for I know not well.

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PARTING

The Past is a strange land, most strange.Wind blows not there, nor does rain fall:If they do, they cannot hurt at all.Men of all kinds as equals range

The soundless fields and streets of it.   5Pleasure and pain there have no sting,The perished self not sufferingThat lacks all blood and nerve and wit,

And is in shadow-land a shade.Remembered joy and misery   10Bring joy to the joyous equally;Both sadden the sad. So memory made

Parting today a double pain:First because it was parting; nextBecause the ill it ended vexed   15And mocked me from the Past again,

Not as what had been remediedHad I gone on, – not that, oh no!But as itself no longer woe;Sighs, angry word and look and deed   20

Being faded: rather a kind of bliss,For there spiritualised it layIn the perpetual yesterdayThat naught can stir or stain like this.

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HOUSE AND MAN

One hour: as dim he and his house now lookAs a reflection in a rippling brook,While I remember him; but first, his house.Empty it sounded. It was dark with forest boughsThat brushed the walls and made the mossy tiles   5Part of the squirrels’ track. In all those milesOf forest silence and forest murmur, onlyOne house – ‘Lonely!’ he said, ‘I wish it were lonely’ –Which the trees looked upon from every side,And that was his.

        He waved good-bye to hide   10A sigh that he converted to a laugh.He seemed to hang rather than stand there, halfGhost-like, half like a beggar’s rag, clean wrungAnd useless on the briar where it has hungLong years a-washing by sun and wind and rain.   15

But why I call back man and house againIs that now on a beech-tree’s tip I seeAs then I saw – I at the gate, and heIn the house darkness, – a magpie veering about,A magpie like a weathercock in doubt.   20

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FIRST KNOWN WHEN LOST

I never had noticed it until‘Twas gone, – the narrow copseWhere now the woodman lopsThe last of the willows with his bill.

It was not more than a hedge overgrown.   5One meadow’s breadth awayI passed it day by day.Now the soil is bare as a bone,

And black betwixt two meadows green,Though fresh-cut faggot ends   10Of hazel make some amendsWith a gleam as if flowers they had been.

Strange it could have hidden so near!And now I see as I lookThat the small winding brook,   15A tributary’s tributary, rises there.

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MAY 23

 There never was a finer day,And never will be while May is May, –The third, and not the last of its kind;But though fair and clear the two behindSeemed pursued by tempests overpast;   5And the morrow with fear that it could not lastWas spoiled. Today ere the stones were warmFive minutes of thunderstormDashed it with rain, as if to secure,By one tear, its beauty the luck to endure.   10

At midday then along the laneOld Jack Noman appeared again,Jaunty and old, crooked and tall,And stopped and grinned at me over the wall,With a cowslip bunch in his button-hole   15And one in his cap. Who could say if his rollCame from flints in the road, the weather, or ale?He was welcome as the nightingale.Not an hour of the sun had been wasted on Jack.‘I’ve got my Indian complexion back’   20Said he. He was tanned like a harvester,Like his short clay pipe, like the leaf and burThat clung to his coat from last night’s bed,Like the ploughland crumbling red.Fairer flowers were none on the earth   25Than his cowslips wet with the dew of their birth,Or fresher leaves than the cress in his basket.‘Where did they come from, Jack?’ ‘Don’t ask it,And you’ll be told no lies.’ ‘Very well:Then I can’t buy.’ ‘I don’t want to sell.   30Take them and these flowers, too, free.Perhaps you have something to give me?Wait till next time. The better the day…The Lord couldn’t make a better, I say;If he could, he never has done.’   35So off went Jack with his roll-walk-run,Leaving his cresses from Oakshott rillAnd his cowslips from Wheatham hill.

‘Twas the first day that the midges bit;But though they bit me, I was glad of it:   40Of the dust in my face, too, I was glad.Spring could do nothing to make me sad.Bluebells hid all the ruts in the copse,The elm seeds lay in the road like hops,That fine day, May the twenty-third,   45The day Jack Noman disappeared.

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THE BARN

They should never have built a barn there, at all –Drip, drip, drip! – under that elm tree,Though then it was young. Now it is oldBut good, not like the barn and me.

Tomorrow they cut it down. They will leave   5The barn, as I shall be left, maybe.What holds it up? ‘Twould not pay to pull down.Well, this place has no other antiquity.

No abbey or castle looks so oldAs this that Job Knight built in ‘54,   10Built to keep corn for rats and men.Now there’s fowls in the roof, pigs on the floor.

What thatch survives is dung for the grass,The best grass on the farm. A pity the roofWill not bear a mower to mow it. But   15Only fowls have foothold enough.

Starlings used to sit there with bubbling throatsMaking a spiky beard as they chatteredAnd whistled and kissed, with heads in air,Till they thought of something else that mattered.   20

But now they cannot find a place,Among all those holes, for a nest any more.It’s the turn of lesser things, I suppose.Once I fancied ‘twas starlings they built it for.

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HOME

Not the end: but there’s nothing more.Sweet Summer and Winter rudeI have loved, and friendship and love,The crowd and solitude:

But I know them: I weary not;   5But all that they mean I know.I would go back again homeNow. Yet how should I go?

This is my grief. That land,My home, I have never seen;   10No traveller tells of it,However far he has been.

And could I discover it,I fear my happiness there,Or my pain, might be dreams of return   15Here, to these things that were.

Remembering ills, though slightYet irremediable,Brings a worse, an impurer pangThan remembering what was well.   20

No: I cannot go back,And would not if I could.Until blindness come, I must waitAnd blink at what is not good.

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THE OWL

Downhill I came, hungry, and yet not starved;Cold, yet had heat within me that was proofAgainst the North wind; tired, yet so that restHad seemed the sweetest thing under a roof.

Then at the inn I had food, fire, and rest,   5Knowing how hungry, cold, and tired was I.All of the night was quite barred out exceptAn owl’s cry, a most melancholy cry

Shaken out long and clear upon the hill,No merry note, nor cause of merriment,   10But one telling me plain what I escapedAnd 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 voiceSpeaking for all who lay under the stars,   15Soldiers and poor, unable to rejoice.

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THE CHILD ON THE CLIFFS

Mother, the root of this little yellow flowerAmong the stones has the taste of quinine.Things are strange today on the cliff. The sun shines so bright,And the grasshopper works at his sewing-machineSo hard. Here’s one on my hand, mother, look;   5I lie so still. There’s one on your book.

But I have something to tell more strange. So leaveYour book to the grasshopper, mother dear, –Like a green knight in a dazzling market-place, –And listen now. Can you hear what I hear   10Far out? Now and then the foam there curlsAnd stretches a white arm out like a girl’s.

Fishes and gulls ring no bells. There cannot beA chapel or church between here and Devon,