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I think how, when our seasons all are sealed,

Shall come the unchanging harvest from

the field.

I see the barns and comely manors planned By men who somehow moved in comely thought,

Who, with a simple shippon to their hand, As men upon some godlike business wrought;

I see the little cottages that keep

Their beauty still where since Plantagenet

Have come the shepherds happily to sleep, Finding the loaves and cups of cider set; I see the twisted shepherds, brown and old,

Driving at dusk their glimmering sheep to fold.

And now the valleys that upon the sun Broke from their opal veils are veiled again,

And the last light upon the wolds is done, And silence falls on flocks and fields and

men;

And black upon the night I watch my hill, And the stars shine, and there an owly

wing

Brushes the night, and all again is still, And, from this land of worship that I sing,

I turn to sleep, content that from my sires I draw the blood of England's midmost shires.

CLOUDS

BECAUSE a million voices call

Across the earth distractedly, Because the thrones of reason fall

And beautiful battalions die, My mind is like a madrigal

Played on a lute long since put by.

In common use my mind is still

Eager for every lovely thing The solitudes of tarn and hill,

Bright birds with honesty to sing, Bluebells and primroses that spill Cascades of colour on the spring.

But now my mind that gave to these Gesture and shape, colour and song, Goes hesitant and ill at ease,

And the old touch is truant long, Because the continents and seas Are loud with lamentable wrong.

JAMES ELROY FLECKER THE OLD SHIPS

I HAVE seen old ships sail like swans asleep
Beyond the village which men still call
Tyre,

With leaden age o'ercargoed, dipping deep
For Famagusta and the hidden sun
That rings black Cyprus with a lake of fire;
And all those ships were certainly so old
Who knows how oft with squat and noisy
gun,

Questing brown slaves or Syrian oranges,
The pirate Genoese

Hell raked them till they rolled

Blood, water, fruit, and corpses up the hold. But now through friendly seas they softly run,

Painted the mid-sea blue or the shore-sea green,

Still patterned with the vine and grapes in gold.

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TENEBRIS INTERLUCENTEM

A LINNET Who had lost her way
Sang on a blackened bough in Hell,
Till all the ghosts remembered well
The trees, the wind, the golden day.

At last they knew that they had died When they heard music in that land, And some one there stole forth a hand To draw a brother to his side.

TO A POET A THOUSAND YEARS
HENCE

I WHO am dead a thousand years,
And wrote this sweet archaic song,
Send you my words for messengers
The way I shall not pass along.

I care not if you bridge the seas,
Or ride secure the cruel sky,
Or build consummate palaces
Of metal or of masonry.

But have you wine and music still, And statues and a bright-eyed love, And foolish thoughts of good and ill, And prayers to them who sit above?

How shall we conquer? Like a wind That falls at eve our fancies blow, And old Mæonides the blind

Said it three thousand years ago.

O friend unseen, unborn, unknown,
Student of our sweet English tongue,
Read out my words at night, alone:
I was a poet, I was young.

Since I can never see your face,

And never shake you by the hand, I send my soul through time and space To greet you. You will understand.

WILFRID WILSON GIBSON

FLANNAN ISLE

"THOUGH three men dwell on Flannan Isle To keep the lamp alight,

As we steer'd under the lee, we caught
No glimmer through the night!"

A passing ship at dawn had brought
The news; and quickly we set sail,
To find out what strange thing might ail
The keepers of the deep-sea light.

The winter day broke blue and bright,
With glancing sun and glancing spray,
As o'er the swell our boat made way,
As gallant as a gull in flight.

But, as we near'd the lonely Isle ;
And look'd up at the naked height;
And saw the lighthouse towering white,
With blinded lantern, that all night
Had never shot a spark

Of comfort through the dark,
So ghostly in the cold sunlight

It seem'd, that we were struck the while
With wonder all too dread for words.

And, as into the tiny creek

We stole beneath the hanging crag, We saw three queer, black, ugly birds Too big, by far, in my belief,

For guillemot or shag

Like seamen sitting bolt-upright
Upon a half-tide reef:

But, as we near'd, they plunged from sight,
Without a sound, or spurt of white.
And still too mazed to speak,

We landed; and made fast the boat;
And climb'd the track in single file,
Each wishing he was safe afloat,
On any sea, however far,

So it be far from Flannan Isle:
And still we seem'd to climb, and climb,
As though we'd lost all count of time,
And so must climb for evermore.

Yet, all too soon, we reached the door -
The black, sun-blister'd lighthouse-door,
That gaped for us ajar.

As, on the threshold, for a spell,

We paused, we seem'd to breathe the smell Of limewash and of tar,

Familiar as our daily breath,

As though 'twere some strange scent of death:

And so, yet wondering, side by side,
We stood a moment, still tongue-tied:
And each with black foreboding eyed
The door, ere we should fling it wide,

To leave the sunlight for the gloom: Till, plucking courage up, at last, Hard on each other's heels we pass'd Into the living-room.

Yet, as we crowded through the door, We only saw a table, spread

For dinner, meat and cheese and bread;
But all untouch'd; and no one there:
As though, when they sat down to eat,
Ere they could even taste,

Alarm had come; and they in haste
Had risen and left the bread and meat:
For at the table-head a chair
Lay tumbled on the floor.

We listen'd; but we only heard
The feeble cheeping of a bird
That starved upon its perch:

And, listening still, without a word,
We set about our hopeless search.

We hunted high, we hunted low,
And soon ransack'd the empty house;
Then o'er the Island, to and fro,
We ranged, to listen and to look
In every cranny, cleft or nook
That might have hid a bird or mouse:
But, though we search'd from shore to shore,
We found no sign in any place:
And soon again stood face to face
Before the gaping door:

And stole into the room once more
As frighten'd children steal.

Aye: though we hunted high and low,
And hunted everywhere,

Of the three men's fate we found no trace
Of any kind in any place,

But a door ajar, and an untouch'd meal, And an overtoppled chair.

And, as we listen'd in the gloom
Of that forsaken living-room
A chill clutch on our breath

We thought how ill-chance came to all
Who kept the Flannan Light:

And how the rock had been the death
Of many a likely lad:

How six had come to a sudden end
And three had gone stark mad:

And one whom we'd all known as friend
Had leapt from the lantern one still night,

And fallen dead by the lighthouse wall: And long we thought

On the three we sought,

And of what might yet befall.

Like curs a glance has brought to heel,
We listen'd, flinching there:

And look'd, and look'd, on the untouch'd meal

And the overtoppled chair.

We seem'd to stand for an endless while,
Though still no word was said,
Three men alive on Flannan Isle,
Who thought on three men dead.

RAINING

THE night I left my father said:

"You'll go and do some stupid thing You've no more sense in that fat head Than Silly Billy Witterling.

"Not sense to come in when it rains

Not sense enough for that, you've got. You'll get a bullet through your brains, Before you know, as like as not."

And now I'm lying in the trench

And shells and bullets through the night Are raining in a steady drench, I'm thinking the old man was right.

IN THE MEADOW

THE smell of wet hay in the heat
All morning steaming round him rose,
As, in a kind of nodding doze,

Perched on the hard and jolting seat,
He drove the rattling jangling rake
Round and around the Five Oaks Mead.
With that old mare he scarcely need
To drive at all or keep awake.
Gazing with half-shut eyes
At her white flanks and grizzled tail
That flicked and flicked without avail,
To drive away the cloud of flies
That hovered, closing and unclosing,
A shimmering hum and humming shimmer,
Dwindling dim and ever dimmer

In his dazzled sight, till, dozing,

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