Works

This is a wild land, country of my choice,
With harsh craggy mountain, moor ample and bare.
Seldom in these acres is heard any voice
But voice of cold water that runs here and there...

BOY
Most venerable and learned sir,
Tall and true Philosopher,
These rings of smoke you blow all day
With such deep thought, what sense have they?

PHILOSOPHER...

Small gnats that fly
In hot July
And lodge in sleeping ears,
Can rouse therein
A trumpet's din
With Day-of-Judgement fears.

Small mice at night
Can wake more fright...

When outside the icy rain
Comes leaping helter-skelter,
Shall I tie my restive brain
Snugly under shelter?

Shall I make a gentle song
Here in my firelit study,...

(The Little Saucepan)

Four collier lads from Ebbw Vale
Took shelter from a shower of hail,
And there beneath a spreading tree
Attuned their mouths to harmony.

With smiling joy on every face...

'Are you awake, Gemelli,
This frosty night?'
'We'll be awake till reveill',
Which is Sunrise,' say the Gemelli,
'It's no good trying to go to sleep:
If there's wine to be got we'll drink it deep,...

"What do you think
The bravest drink
Under the sky?"
"Strong beer," said I.

"There's a place for everything,
Everything, anything,
There's a place for everything
Where it ought to be:...

Love, do not count your labour lost
Though I turn sullen, grim, retired
Even at your side; my thought is crossed
With fancies by old longings fired.

And when I answer you, some days...

One moonlit night a ship drove in,
A ghost ship from the west,
Drifting with bare mast and lone tiller,
Like a mermaid drest
In long green weed and barnacles:
She beached and came to rest.
...

Down in the mud I lay,
Tired out by my long day
Of five damned days and nights,
Five sleepless days and nights, ...
Dream-snatched, and set me where
The dungeon of Despair
Looms over Desolate Sea,...

The silent shepherdess,
She of my vows,
Here with me exchanging love
Under dim boughs.

Shines on our mysteries
A sudden spark,
"Dout the candle, glow-worm,
Let all be dark.
...

An Idyll

Back from the Somme two Fusiliers
Limped painfully home; the elder said,
S. "Robert, I've lived three thousand years
This Summer, and I'm nine parts dead."...

As Jesus and his followers
Upon a Sabbath morn
Were walking by a wheat field
They plucked the ears of corn.

They plucked it, they rubbed it,
They blew the husks away,...

Under this loop of honeysuckle,
A creeping, coloured caterpillar,
I gnaw the fresh green hawthorn spray,
I nibble it leaf by leaf away.

Down beneath grow dandelions,...

Here in turn succeed and rule
Carter, smith, and village fool,
Then again the place is known
As tavern, shop, and Sunday-school;
Now somehow it's come to me
To light the fire and hold the key,...

The cruel Moon hangs out of reach
Up above the shadowy beech.
Her face is stupid, but her eye
Is small and sharp and very sly.
Nurse says the Moon can drive you mad?
No, that's a silly story, lad!...

Mother

What's in that cupboard, Mary?

Mary

Which cupboard, mother dear?

Mother

The cupboard of red mahogany
With handles shining clear.

Mary
...

He fell in victory's fierce pursuit,
Holed through and through with shot,
A sabre sweep had hacked him deep
Twixt neck and shoulderknot....

The potman cannot well recall,
The ostler never knew,...

Now I begin to know at last,
These nights when I sit down to rhyme,
The form and measure of that vast
God we call Poetry, he who stoops
And leaps me through his paper hoops
A little higher every time....

Why do you break upon this old, cool peace,
This painted peace of ours,
With harsh dress hissing like a flock of geese,
With garish flowers?
Why do you churn smooth waters rough again,...