Prelude to an Unwritten Masterpiece
You like my bird-sung gardens: wings and flowers; Calm landscapes for emotion; star-lit lawns; And Youth against the sun-rise… ‘Not profound; ‘But such a haunting music in the sound: ‘Do it once more; it
Storm and Sunlight
I In barns we crouch, and under stacks of straw, Harking the storm that rides a hurtling legion Up the arched sky, and speeds quick heels of panic With growling thunder loosed in fork
Enemies
He stood alone in some queer sunless place Where Armageddon ends. Perhaps he longed For days he might have lived; but his young face Gazed forth untroubled: and suddenly there thronged Round him the
A Child's Prayer
For Morn, my dome of blue, For Meadows, green and gay, And Birds who love the twilight of the leaves, Let Jesus keep me joyful when I pray. For the big Bees that hum
Noah
When old Noah stared across the floods, Sky and water melted into one Looking-glass of shifting tides and sun. Mountain-tops were few: the ship was foul: All the morn old Noah marvelled greatly At
The One-Legged Man
Propped on a stick he viewed the August weald; Squat orchard trees and oasts with painted cowls; A homely, tangled hedge, a corn-stalked field, And sound of barking dogs and farmyard fowls. And he’d
A Whispered Tale
I’d heard fool-heroes brag of where they’d been, With stories of the glories that they’d seen. But you, good simple soldier, seasoned well In woods and posts and crater-lines of hell, Who dodge remembered
Butterflies
Frail Travellers, deftly flickering over the flowers; O living flowers against the heedless blue Of summer days, what sends them dancing through This fiery-blossom’d revel of the hours? Theirs are the musing silences between
The Dug-Out
Why do you lie with your legs ungainly huddled, And one arm bent across your sullen, cold, Exhausted face? It hurts my heart to watch you, Deep-shadowed from the candle’s guttering gold; And you
'They'
The Bishop tells us: ‘When the boys come back ‘They will not be the same; for they’ll have fought ‘In a just cause: they lead the last attack ‘On Anti-Christ; their comrades’ blood has
Memory
When I was young my heart and head were light, And I was gay and feckless as a colt Out in the fields, with morning in the may, Wind on the grass, wings in
Fancy Dress
Some Brave, awake in you to-night, Knocked at your heart: an eagle’s flight Stirred in the feather on your head. Your wide-set Indian eyes, alight Above high cheek-bones smeared with red, Unveiled cragg’d centuries,
Picture-Show
And still they come and go: and this is all I know – That from the gloom I watch an endless picture-show, Where wild or listless faces flicker on their way, With glad or
A Mystic As Soldier
I lived my days apart, Dreaming fair songs for God; By the glory in my heart Covered and crowned and shod. Now God is in the strife, And I must seek Him there, Where
Before the Battle
Music of whispering trees Hushed by a broad-winged breeze Where shaken water gleams; And evening radiance falling With reedy bird-notes calling. O bear me safe through dark, you low-voiced streams. I have no need