THERE seemed a smell of autumn in the air | |
At the bleak end of night; he shivered there | |
In a dank, musty dug-out where he lay, | |
Legs wrapped in sand-bags,lumps of chalk and clay | |
Spattering his face. Dry-mouthed, he thought, To-day | 5 |
We start the damned attack; and, Lord knows why, | |
Zeros at nine; how bloody if Im done in | |
Under the freedom of that morning sky! | |
And then he coughed and dozed, cursing the din. | |
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Was it the ghost of autumn in that smell | 10 |
Of underground, or Gods blank heart grown kind, | |
That sent a happy dream to him in hell? | |
Where men are crushed like clods, and crawl to find | |
Some crater for their wretchedness; who lie | |
In outcast immolation, doomed to die | 15 |
Far from clean things or any hope of cheer, | |
Cowed anger in their eyes, till darkness brims | |
And roars into their heads, and they can hear | |
Old childish talk, and tags of foolish hymns. | |
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He sniffs the chilly air; (his dreaming starts), | 20 |
Hes riding in a dusty Sussex lane | |
In quiet September; slowly night departs; | |
And hes a living soul, absolved from pain. | |
Beyond the brambled fences where he goes | |
Are glimmering fields with harvest piled in sheaves, | 25 |
And tree-tops dark against the stars grown pale; | |
Then, clear and shrill, a distant farm-cock crows; | |
And theres a wall of mist along the vale | |
Where willows shake their watery-sounding leaves, | |
He gazes on it all, and scarce believes | 30 |
That earth is telling its old peaceful tale; | |
He thanks the blessed world that he was born... | |
Then, far away, a lonely note of the horn. | |
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Theyre drawing the Big Wood! Unlatch the gate, | |
And set Golumpus going on the grass; | 35 |
He knows the corner where its best to wait | |
And hear the crashing woodland chorus pass; | |
The corner where old foxes make their track | |
To the Long Spinney; thats the place to be. | |
The bracken shakes below an ivied tree, | 40 |
And then a cub looks out; and Tally-o-back! | |
He bawls, and swings his thong with volleying crack, | |
All the clean thrill of autumn in his blood, | |
And hunting surging through him like a flood | |
In joyous welcome from the untroubled past; | 45 |
While the war drifts away, forgotten at last. | |
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Now a red, sleepy sun above the rim | |
Of twilight stares along the quiet weald, | |
And the kind, simple country shines revealed | |
In solitudes of peace, no longer dim. | 50 |
The old horse lifts his face and thanks the light, | |
Then stretches down his head to crop the green. | |
All things that he has loved are in his sight; | |
The places where his happiness has been | |
Are in his eyes, his heart, and they are good. . . . . | 55 |
Hark! theres the horn: theyre drawing the Big Wood. | |