Works

Cherries of the night are riper
Than the cherries pluckt at noon
Gather to your fairy piper
When he pipes his magic tune:
Merry, merry,
Take a cherry;
Mine are sounder,
Mine are rounder,...

Back from the line one night in June,
I gave a dinner at Bethune,
Seven courses, the most gorgeous meal
Money could buy or batman steal.
Five hungry lads welcomed the fish...

And what of home, how goes it, boys,
While we die here in stench and noise?
"The hill stands up and hedges wind
Over the crest and drop behind;
Here swallows dip and wild things go...

An ancient saga tells us how
In the beginning the First Cow
(For nothing living yet had birth
But Elemental Cow on earth)
Began to lick cold stones and mud:
Under her warm tongue flesh and blood...

Mother

Oh, what a heavy sigh!
Dicky, are you ailing?

Dicky

Even by this fireside, mother,
My heart is failing.

To-night across the down,
Whistling and jolly,...

Double red daisies, they're my flowers,
Which nobody else may grow.
In a big quarrelsome house like ours
They try it sometimes, but no,
I root them up because they're my flowers,...

(August 6, 1916., Officer previously reported died of wounds, now reported wounded: Graves, Captain R., Royal Welch Fusiliers.)


... But I was dead, an hour or more.
I woke when I'd already passed the door...

Here down this very way,
Here only yesterday
King Faun went leaping.
He sang, with careless shout
Hurling his name about;
He sang, with oaken stock
His steps from rock to rock...

Feet and faces tingle
In that frore land:
Legs wobble and go wingle,
You scarce can stand.

The skies are jewelled all around,
The ploughshare snaps in the iron ground,...

Take now a country mood,
Resolve, distil it:
Nine Acre swaying alive,
June flowers that fill it,

Spicy sweet-briar bush,
The uneasy wren
Fluttering from ash to birch
And back again....

I now delight
In spite
Of the might
And the right
Of classic tradition,
In writing
And reciting
Straight ahead,
Without let or omission,
Just any little rhyme
In any little time...

"Come, surly fellow, come! A song!"
What, madmen? Sing to you?
Choose from the clouded tales of wrong
And terror I bring to you.

Of a night so torn with cries,
Honest men sleeping...

"Give us Rain, Rain," said the bean and the pea,
"Not so much Sun,
Not so much Sun."
But the Sun smiles bravely and encouragingly,
And no rain falls and no waters run.
...

(FOR D.C.T., KILLED AT FRICOURT, MARCH, 1916)


Yet once an earlier David took
Smooth pebbles from the brook:
Out between the lines he went
To that one-sided tournament,...

Kill if you must, but never hate:
Man is but grass and hate is blight,
The sun will scorch you soon or late,
Die wholesome then, since you must fight.

Hate is a fear, and fear is rot...

Gulp down your wine, old friends of mine,
Roar through the darkness, stamp and sing
And lay ghost hands on everything,
But leave the noonday's warm sunshine
To living lads for mirth and wine.
...

Where is the landlord of old Hawk and Buckle,
And what of Master Straddler this hot summer weather?
He's along in the tap-room with broad cheeks a-chuckle,
And ten bold companions all drinking together.
...

Here they lie who once learned here
All that is taught of hurt or fear;
Dead, but by free will they died:
They were true men, they had pride.

Children born of fairy stock
Never need for shirt or frock,
Never want for food or fire,
Always get their heart's desire:
Jingle pockets full of gold,
Marry when they're seven years old....

Christ of His gentleness
Thirsting and hungering,
Walked in the wilderness;
Soft words of grace He spoke
Unto lost desert-folk
That listened wondering.
He heard the bitterns call...