Laurence Housman (1865–1959)

HOW green the earth, how blue the sky,

How pleasant all the days that pass,

Here where the British settlers lie

Beneath their cloaks of grass!

Here ancient peace resumes her round,

And rich from toil stand hill and plain;

Men reap and store; but they sleep sound,

The men who sow’d the grain.

Hard to the plough their hands they put,

And wheresoe’er the soil had need

The furrow drave, and underfoot

They sow’d themselves for seed.

Ah! not like him whose hand made yield

The brazen kine with fiery breath,

And over all the Colchian field

Strew’d far the seeds of death;

Till, as day sank, awoke to war

The seedlings of the dragon’s teeth,

And death ran multiplied once more

Across the hideous heath.

But rich in flocks be all these farms,

And fruitful be the fields which hide

Brave eyes that loved the light, and arms

That never clasp’d a bride!

O willing hearts turn’d quick to clay,

Glad lovers holding death in scorn,

Out of the lives ye cast away

The coming race is born.