Edmund Blunden

At Quincey's moat the squandering village ends,
And there in the almshouse dwell the dearest friends
Of all the village, two old dames that cling
As close as any trueloves in the spring.
Long, long ago they passed threescore-and-ten,
And in this doll's house lived together then;
All things they have in common, being so poor,
And their one fear, Death's shadow at the door.
Each sundown makes them mournful, each sunrise
Brings back the brightness in their failing eyes.

How happy go the rich fair-weather days
When on the roadside folk stare in amaze
At such a honeycomb of fruit and flowers
As mellows round their threshold; what long hours
They gloat upon their steepling hollyhocks,
Bee's balsams, feathery southernwood, and stocks,
Fiery dragon's-mouths, gre...

Friend whom I never saw, yet dearest friend,
    Be with me travelling on the byeway now
In April's month and mood: our steps shall bend
    By the shut smithy with its penthouse brow
    Armed round with many a felly and crackt plough:
And we will mark in his white smock the mill
    Standing aloof, long numbed to any wind,
That in his crannies mourns, and craves him still;
    But now there is not any grain to grind,
    And even the master lies too deep for winds to find.

Grieve not at these: for there are mills amain
    With lusty sails that leap and drop away
On further knolls, and lads to fetch the grain.
    The ash-spit wickets on the green betray
    New games begun and old ones put away.
Let us fare on, dead friend, O deathless friend,
    Whe...

On the far hill the cloud of thunder grew
And sunlight blurred below; but sultry blue
Burned yet on the valley water where it hoards
Behind the miller's elmen floodgate boards,
And there the wasps, that lodge them ill-concealed
In the vole's empty house, still drove afield
To plunder touchwood from old crippled trees
And build their young ones their hutched nurseries;
Still creaked the grasshoppers' rasping unison
Nor had the whisper through the tansies run
Nor weather-wisest bird gone home.
                How then
Should wry eels in the pebbled shallows ken
Lightning coming? troubled up they stole
To the deep-shadowed sullen water-hole,
Among whose warty snags the quaint perch lair.
As cunning stole the boy to angle there,
Muffling least tread, with no ...

I came to the churchyard where pretty Joy lies
    On a morning in April, a rare sunny day;
Such bloom rose around, and so many birds' cries
    That I sang for delight as I followed the way.

I sang for delight in the ripening of spring,
    For dandelions even were suns come to earth;
Not a moment went by but a new lark took wing
    To wait on the season with melody's mirth.

Love-making birds were my mates all the road,
    And who would wish surer delight for the eye
Than to see pairing goldfinches gleaming abroad
    Or yellowhammers sunning on paling and sty?

And stocks in the almswomen's garden were blown,
    With rich Easter roses each side of the door;
The lazy white owls in the glade cool and lone
    Paid calls on their cousins in the e...

From what sad star I know not, but I found
    Myself new-born below the coppice rail,
No bigger than the dewdrops and as round,
    In a soft sward, no cattle might assail.

And so I gathered mightiness and grew
    With this one dream kindling in me, that I
Should never cease from conquering light and dew
    Till my white splendour touched the trembling sky.

A century of blue and stilly light
    Bowed down before me, the dew came again,
The moon my sibyl worshipped through the night,
    The sun returned and long abode; but then

Hoarse drooping darkness hung me with a shroud
    And switched at me with shrivelled leaves in scorn.
Red morning stole beneath a grinning cloud,
    And suddenly clambering over dike and thorn

A half-moon h...

Already fallen plum-bloom stars the green
    And apple-boughs as knarred as old toads' backs
Wear their small roses ere a rose is seen;
    The building thrush watches old Job who stacks
The bright-peeled osiers on the sunny fence,
    The pent sow grunts to hear him stumping by,
And tries to push the bolt and scamper thence,
    But her ringed snout still keeps her to the sty.

Then out he lets her run; away she snorts
    In bundling gallop for the cottage door,
With hungry hubbub begging crusts and orts,
    Then like the whirlwind bumping round once more;
Nuzzling the dog, making the pullets run,
    And sulky as a child when her play's done.