At the Wars

Now that I am ta'en away

And may not see another day

What is it to my eye appears?

What sound rings in my stricken ears?

Not even the voice of any friend

Or eyes beloved-world-without-end,

But scenes and sounds of the country-side

In far England across the tide:

An upland field when spring's begun,

Mellow beneath the evening sun….

A circle of loose and lichened wall

Over which seven red pines fall….

An orchard of wizen blossoming trees

Wherein the nesting chaffinches

Begin again the self-same song

All the late April day-time long….

Paths that lead a shelving course

Between the chalk scarp and the gorse

By English downs; and oh! too well

I hear the hidden, clanking bell

Of wandering sheep…. I see the brown

Twilight of the huge, empty down

Soon blotted out! for now a lane

Glitters with warmth of May-time rain.

And on a shooting briar I see

A yellow bird who sings to me.

O yellow-hammer, once I heard

Thy yaffle when no other bird

Could to my sunk heart comfort bring;

But now I could not have thee sing

So sharp thy note is with the pain

Of England I may not see again!

Yet sing thy song: there answereth

Deep in me a voice which saith:

"The gorse upon the twilit down,The English loam so sunset brown,The bowed pines and the sheep-bells' clamour,The wet, lit lane and the yellow-hammer,The orchard and the chaffinch songOnly to the Brave belong.And he shall lose their joy for ayeIf their price he cannot pay.Who shall find them dearer farEnriched by blood alter long war.

"