Across the land a faint blue veil of mist All night the flares go up; the Dragon sings Along the wind-swept platform, pinched and white Anguish of the earth absolves our eyes, The Because the night was falling warm and still Behold these jewelled, merchant Ancestors Bishop tells us: When the boys come back, The Come in this hour to set my spirit free Cry out on Time that he may take away Darkness: the rain sluiced down; the mire was deep Down in the hollow there’s the whole Brigade Evening was in the wood, louring with storm Fall in, that awkward squad, and strike no more For Morn, my dome of blue Give me your hand, my brother, search my face Glorying forest shakes and swings with glancing, The He drowsed and was aware of silence heaped He primmed his loose red mouth and leaned his head Here I’m sitting in the gloom He staggered in from night and frost and fog He stood alone in some queer sunless place He turned to me with his kind, sleepy gaze He woke; the clank and racket of the train His headstrong thoughts that once in eager strife His wet white face and miserable eyes House is crammed: tier beyond tier they grin, The I cannot think that Death will press his claim I’d been on duty from two till four I’d heard fool-heroes brag of where they’d been I heard the farm cocks crowing, loud, and faint, and thin I keep such music in my brain I listen for him through the rain I lived my days apart In barns we crouch, and under stacks of straw In gold and grey, with fleering looks of sin In this meadow starred with spring I’ve listened: and all the sounds I heard I’ve never ceased to curse the day I signed Jack fell as he’d have wished, the Mother said Leave not your bough, my slender song-bird sweet Let my soul, a shining tree Music of whispering trees Old English songs, you bring to me Propped on a stick he viewed the August weald Return to greet me, colours that were my joy Road is thronged with women; soldiers pass, The Shepherds go whistling on their way She triumphs, in the vivid green So Davies wrote: ‘This leaves me in the pink’ Then a wind blew There stood a Poplar, tall and straight They threw me from the gates: my matted hair This is To-day, a child in white and blue Three hours ago he blundered up the trench Through darkness curves a spume of falling flares To these I turn, in these I trust Trudging by Corbie Ridge one winter’s night When half the drowsy world’s a-bed When I’m among a blaze of lights When in your sober mood my body have ye laid When meadows are grey with the morn When old Noah stared across the floods When roaring gloom surged inward and you cried When Watkin shifts the burden of his cares When Wisdom tells me that the world’s a speck Where sunshine flecks the green Where have you been, South Wind, this May-day morning Ye hooded witches, baleful shapes that moan Young Croesus went to pay his call
