Complete Poetical Works of Edward Thomas Read online

  Yet I would rather give up others more sweet, 30

  With no meaning, than this bitter one.

  I have mislaid the key. I sniff the spray

  And think of nothing; I see and I hear nothing;

  Yet seem, too, to be listening, lying in wait

  For what I should, yet never can, remember: 35

  No garden appears, no path, no hoar-green bush

  Of Lad’s-love, or Old Man, no child beside,

  Neither father nor mother, nor any playmate;

  Only an avenue, dark, nameless, without end.

  List of poems in chronological order

  List of poems in alphabetical order

  THE SIGNPOST

  The dim sea glints chill. The white sun is shy,

  And the skeleton weeds and the never-dry,

  Rough, long grasses keep white with frost

  At the hilltop by the finger-post;

  The smoke of the traveller’s-joy is puffed 5

  Over hawthorn berry and hazel tuft.

  I read the sign. Which way shall I go?

  A voice says: You would not have doubted so

  At twenty. Another voice gentle with scorn

  Says: At twenty you wished you had never been born. 10

  One hazel lost a leaf of gold

  From a tuft at the tip, when the first voice told

  The other he wished to know what ‘twould be

  To be sixty by this same post. ‘You shall see,’

  He laughed – and I had to join his laughter – 15

  ‘You shall see; but either before or after,

  Whatever happens, it must befall,

  A mouthful of earth to remedy all

  Regrets and wishes shall freely be given;

  And if there be a flaw in that heaven 20

  ‘Twill be freedom to wish, and your wish may be

  To be here or anywhere talking to me,

  No matter what the weather, on earth,

  At any age between death and birth, –

  To see what day or night can be, 25

  The sun and the frost, the land and the sea,

  Summer, Autumn, Winter, Spring, –

  With a poor man of any sort, down to a king,

  Standing upright out in the air

  Wondering where he shall journey, O where?’ 30

  List of poems in chronological order

  List of poems in alphabetical order

  AFTER RAIN

  The rain of a night and a day and a night

  Stops at the light

  Of this pale choked day. The peering sun

  Sees what has been done.

  The road under the trees has a border new 5

  Of purple hue

  Inside the border of bright thin grass:

  For all that has

  Been left by November of leaves is torn

  From hazel and thorn 10

  And the greater trees. Throughout the copse

  No dead leaf drops

  On grey grass, green moss, burnt-orange fern,

  At the wind’s return:

  The leaflets out of the ash-tree shed 15

  Are thinly spread

  In the road, like little black fish, inlaid,

  As if they played.

  What hangs from the myriad branches down there

  So hard and bare 20

  Is twelve yellow apples lovely to see

  On one crab-tree,

  And on each twig of every tree in the dell

  Uncountable

  Crystals both dark and bright of the rain 25

  That begins again.

  List of poems in chronological order

  List of poems in alphabetical order

  INTERVAL

  Gone the wild day:

  A wilder night

  Coming makes way

  For brief twilight.

  Where the firm soaked road 5

  Mounts and is lost

  In the high beech-wood

  It shines almost.

  The beeches keep

  A stormy rest, 10

  Breathing deep

  Of wind from the west.

  The wood is black,

  With a misty steam.

  Above, the cloud pack 15

  Breaks for one gleam.

  But the woodman’s cot

  By the ivied trees

  Awakens not

  To light or breeze. 20

  It smokes aloft

  Unwavering:

  It hunches soft

  Under storm’s wing.

  It has no care 25

  For gleam or gloom:

  It stays there

  While I shall roam,

  Die, and forget

  The hill of trees, 30

  The gleam, the wet,

  This roaring peace.

  List of poems in chronological order

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  THE OTHER

  The forest ended. Glad I was

  To feel the light, and hear the hum

  Of bees, and smell the drying grass

  And the sweet mint, because I had come

  To an end of forest, and because 5

  Here was both road and inn, the sum

  Of what’s not forest. But ‘twas here

  They asked me if I did not pass

  Yesterday this way? ‘Not you? Queer.’

  ‘Who then? and slept here?’ I felt fear. 10

  I learnt his road and, ere they were

  Sure I was I, left the dark wood

  Behind, kestrel and woodpecker,

  The inn in the sun, the happy mood

  When first I tasted sunlight there. 15

  I travelled fast, in hopes I should

  Outrun that other. What to do

  When caught, I planned not. I pursued

  To prove the likeness, and, if true,

  To watch until myself I knew. 20

  I tried the inns that evening

  Of a long gabled high-street grey,

  Of courts and outskirts, travelling

  An eager but a weary way,

  In vain. He was not there. Nothing 25

  Told me that ever till that day

  Had one like me entered those doors,

  Save once. That time I dared: ‘You may

  Recall’ – but never-foamless shores

  Make better friends than those dull boors. 30

  Many and many a day like this

  Aimed at the unseen moving goal

  And nothing found but remedies

  For all desire. These made not whole;

  They sowed a new desire, to kiss 35

  Desire’s self beyond control,

  Desire of desire. And yet

  Life stayed on within my soul.

  One night in sheltering from the wet

  I quite forgot I could forget. 40

  A customer, then the landlady

  Stared at me. With a kind of smile

  They hesitated awkwardly:

  Their silence gave me time for guile.

  Had anyone called there like me, 45

  I asked. It was quite plain the wile

  Succeeded. For they poured out all.

  And that was naught. Less than a mile

  Beyond the inn, I could recall

  He was like me in general. 50

  He had pleased them, but I less.

  I was more eager than before

  To find him out and to confess,

  To bore him and to let him bore.

  I could not wait: children might guess 55

  I had a purpose, something more

  That made an answer indiscreet.

  One girl’s caution made me sore,

  Too indignant even to greet

  That other had we chanced to meet. 60

  I sought then in solitude.

  The wind had fallen with the night; as still

  The roads lay as the ploughland rude,

  Dark and naked, on the hi
ll.

  Had there been ever any feud 65

  ‘Twixt earth and sky, a mighty will

  Closed it: the crocketed dark trees,

  A dark house, dark impossible

  Cloud-towers, one star, one lamp, one peace

  Held on an everlasting lease: 70

  And all was earth’s, or all was sky’s;

  No difference endured between

  The two. A dog barked on a hidden rise;

  A marshbird whistled high unseen;

  The latest waking blackbird’s cries 75

  Perished upon the silence keen.

  The last light filled a narrow firth

  Among the clouds. I stood serene,

  And with a solemn quiet mirth,

  An old inhabitant of earth. 80

  Once the name I gave to hours

  Like this was melancholy, when

  It was not happiness and powers

  Coming like exiles home again,

  And weaknesses quitting their bowers, 85

  Smiled and enjoyed, far off from men,

  Moments of everlastingness.

  And fortunate my search was then

  While what I sought, nevertheless,

  That I was seeking, I did not guess. 90

  That time was brief: once more at inn

  And upon road I sought my man

  Till once amid a tap-room’s din

  Loudly he asked for me, began

  To speak, as if it had been a sin, 95

  Of how I thought and dreamed and ran

  After him thus, day after day:

  He lived as one under a ban

  For this: what had I got to say?

  I said nothing. I slipped away. 100

  And now I dare not follow after

  Too close. I try to keep in sight,

  Dreading his frown and worse his laughter.

  I steal out of the wood to light;

  I see the swift shoot from the rafter 105

  By the inn door: ere I alight

  I wait and hear the starlings wheeze

  And nibble like ducks: I wait his flight.

  He goes: I follow: no release

  Until he ceases. Then I also shall cease. 110

  List of poems in chronological order

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  THE MOUNTAIN CHAPEL

  Chapel and gravestones, old and few,

  Are shrouded by a mountain fold

  From sound and view

  Of life. The loss of the brook’s voice

  Falls like a shadow. All they hear is 5

  The eternal noise

  Of wind whistling in grass more shrill

  Than aught as human as a sword,

  And saying still:

  ‘‘Tis but a moment since man’s birth 10

  And in another moment more

  Man lies in earth

  For ever; but I am the same

  Now, and shall be, even as I was

  Before he came; 15

  Till there is nothing I shall be.’

  Yet there the sun shines after noon

  So cheerfully

  The place almost seems peopled, nor

  Lacks cottage chimney, cottage hearth: 20

  It is not more

  In size than is a cottage, less

  Than any other empty home

  In homeliness.

  It has a garden of wild flowers 25

  And finest grass and gravestones warm

  In sunshine hours

  The year through. Men behind the glass

  Stand once a week, singing, and drown

  The whistling grass 30

  Their ponies munch. And yet somewhere,

  Near or far off, there’s a man could

  Be happy here,

  Or one of the gods perhaps, were they

  Not of inhuman stature dire, 35

  As poets say

  Who have not seen them clearly; if

  At sound of any wind of the world

  In grass-blades stiff

  They would not startle and shudder cold 40

  Under the sun. When gods were young

  This wind was old.

  List of poems in chronological order

  List of poems in alphabetical order

  BIRDS’ NESTS

  The summer nests uncovered by autumn wind,

  Some torn, others dislodged, all dark,

  Everyone sees them: low or high in tree,

  Or hedge, or single bush, they hang like a mark.

  Since there’s no need of eyes to see them with 5

  I cannot help a little shame

  That I missed most, even at eye’s level, till

  The leaves blew off and made the seeing no game.

  ‘Tis a light pang. I like to see the nests

  Still in their places, now first known, 10

  At home and by far roads. Boys knew them not,

  Whatever jays and squirrels may have done.

  And most I like the winter nest deep-hid

  That leaves and berries fell into:

  Once a dormouse dined there on hazel-nuts, 15

  And grass and goose-grass seeds found soil and grew.

  List of poems in chronological order

  List of poems in alphabetical order

  THE MANOR FARM

  The rock-like mud unfroze a little and rills

  Ran and sparkled down each side of the road

  Under the catkins wagging in the hedge.

  But earth would have her sleep out, spite of the sun;

  Nor did I value that thin gilding beam 5

  More than a pretty February thing

  Till I came down to the old Manor Farm,

  And church and yew-tree opposite, in age

  Its equals and in size. The church and yew

  And farmhouse slept in a Sunday silentness. 10

  The air raised not a straw. The steep farm roof,

  With tiles duskily glowing, entertained

  The midday sun; and up and down the roof

  White pigeons nestled. There was no sound but one.

  Three cart-horses were looking over a gate 15

  Drowsily through their forelocks, swishing their tails

  Against a fly, a solitary fly.

  The Winter’s cheek flushed as if he had drained

  Spring, Summer, and Autumn at a draught

  And smiled quietly. But ‘twas not Winter – 20

  Rather a season of bliss unchangeable

  Awakened from farm and church where it had lain

  Safe under tile and thatch for ages since

  This England, Old already, was called Merry.

  List of poems in chronological order

  List of poems in alphabetical order

  AN OLD SONG I

  I was not apprenticed nor ever dwelt in famous Lincolnshire;

  I’ve served one master ill and well much more than seven year;

  And never took up to poaching as you shall quickly find;

  But ‘tis my delight of a shiny night in the season of the year.

  I roamed where nobody had a right but keepers and squires, and there 5

  I sought for nests, wild flowers, oak sticks, and moles, both far and near,

  And had to run from farmers, and learnt the Lincolnshire song:

  ‘Oh, ‘tis my delight of a shiny night in the season of the year.’

  I took those walks years after, talking with friend or dear,

  Or solitary musing; but when the moon shone clear 10

  I had no joy or sorrow that could not be expressed

  By ‘‘Tis my delight of a shiny night in the season of the year.’

  Since then I’ve thrown away a chance to fight a gamekeeper;

  And I less often trespass, and what I see or hear

  Is mostly from the road or path by day: yet still I sing: 15

  ‘Oh, ‘tis my delight of a shiny night in the season of the year.’

  For if I am contente
d, at home or anywhere,

  Or if I sigh for I know not what, or my heart beats with some fear,

  It is a strange kind of delight to sing or whistle just:

  ‘Oh, ‘tis my delight of a shiny night in the season of the year.’ 20

  And with this melody on my lips and no one by to care,

  Indoors, or out on shiny nights or dark in open air,

  I am for a moment made a man that sings out of his heart:

  ‘Oh, ‘tis my delight of a shiny night in the season of the year.’

  List of poems in chronological order

  List of poems in alphabetical order

  AN OLD SONG II

  The sun set, the wind fell, the sea

  Was like a mirror shaking:

  The one small wave that clapped the land

  A mile-long snake of foam was making

  Where tide had smoothed and wind had dried 5

  The vacant sand.

  A light divided the swollen clouds

  And lay most perfectly

  Like a straight narrow footbridge bright

  That crossed over the sea to me; 10

  And no one else in the whole world

  Saw that same sight.

  I walked elate, my bridge always

  Just one step from my feet:

  A robin sang, a shade in shade: 15

  And all I did was to repeat:

  ‘I’ll go no more a-roving

  With you, fair maid.’

  The sailors’ song of merry loving

  With dusk and sea-gull’s mewing 20

  Mixed sweet, the lewdness far outweighed

  By the wild charm the chorus played:

  ‘I’ll go no more a-roving

  With you, fair maid:

  A-roving, a-roving, since roving’s been my ruin, 25

  I’ll go no more a-roving with you, fair maid.’

  In Amsterdam there dwelt a maid –

  Mark well what I do say –

  In Amsterdam there dwelt a maid

  And she was a mistress of her trade: 30

  I’ll go no more a-roving