Page:Poems (Edward Thomas, 1917).djvu/54

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.

In sunless Hades fields. The war
Came back to mind with the moonrise
Which soldiers in the east afar
Beheld then. Nevertheless, our eyes


Could as well imagine the Crusades
Or Cæsar's battles. Everything
To faintness like those rumours fades—
Like the brook's water glittering


Under the moonlight—like those walks
Now—like us two that took them, and
The fallen apples, all the talks
And silences—like memory's sand


When the tide covers it late or soon,
And other men through other flowers
In those fields under the same moon
Go talking and have easy hours.


OCTOBER

The green elm with the one great bough of gold
Lets leaves into the grass slip, one by one,—
The short hill grass, the mushrooms small milk-white,
Harebell and scabious and tormentil,
That blackberry and gorse, in dew and sun,
Bow down to; and the wind travels too light
To shake the fallen birch leaves from the fern;
The gossamers wander at their own will.
At heavier steps than birds' the squirrels scold.

48