Classic Poem

And now in the afternoon,
When the children are at their school,
Three meadows away,
Hidden by hedges and a row of Lombardy poplars,
And their mother is teaching them and their playmates,
I sit dreaming on the verandah in the shade.
The warm sun falls on the crowfeet and buttercups
In the field before me;
The golden flowers nod and wave and kiss
As a light, warm wind passes over them.
The leaves are singing;
And faintly behind their monotone,
I hear the singing of children.
Mournfully, a cuckoo calls, " Cuck-ooo! "
A blackbird scuttles from a spinney;
And I sit in a dream
And drink my coffee
And smoke my cigarette.
But the gate of the garden in front of the house
Swings open and crashes back;
A well-known footstep comes up the path,
A well-known voice calls my name:
" Franky, come out, you stodge! "
" Is that you, Dicky? Sit down, will you?
Take a cigarette, and try to live as you were meant to.
Don't be vigorous after lunch! "
" Cinaede Franky! "
" Fatue bos , Dicky! "
" Sale turc! "
" Etalon impuissant que nargue la jument! "
" Coglione! "
" O poetaccio! "
We laugh at each other.
" Come down by Vale Water to the cliff-walk
Round to Westhaven and back by the riverside. "
" Good! I'm with you. I'll get my stick,
And meet you at the gate. "

We swing out into the road bare-headed;
Three ash-trees in flower
And a laburnum raining with gold greet us.
Over the hill we go, and down
Into the valley by the side of the river,
That roars like the sea over its stones.
The silver oaks climb up the hill from the water's edge,
And are lost high up in a mist of grey silver,
Of trunk and twig and bud,
And along the banks the primroses never leave us.
Oh, the strides and the breaths we take,
The jests we make, and our laughter!
Our silence is even a greater joy than these,
And our thoughts then wear the mask
That our eyes put on them, —
Hedge of ivy and cottage-garden,
Brown roads and woods around and above it;
But our thoughts are deeper because of the mask
And our silence.

A brook crosses the road: we stride through it.
Everywhere there are primroses:
Along the river, under the hedge, in the garden,
Up the slopes in the clearings,
Under the first oak-trees,
In a small meadow between the road and river,
Where the road turns to go to the sea,
And our path to the cliff begins.

Up by the pinewood; our feet crunch on the gravel;
Our breathing becomes hard,
And we stab at the path before us with our sticks.
Higher and higher we climb,
Till we reach the path round the cliff.
Oh, the golden glory of the gorse,
And the golden brown of last year's bracken,
Which holds in its heart the green curl of the new!
And then as we round a corner
The blue glory of the sea!

I have not the heart to go on.
Is my friend at my side,
Crying his joy of the seagulls, descrying a cormorant?
Do we climb down these cliffs,
Catching at the grass for hold,
Slipping on the granite outcrop,
Starting a rabbit, rousing the seagulls
To wheel and squeal round their eyries far below?
Are these the woods of twisted oak-saplings,
Fantastic and silvern,
Through which the path winds?
Is the blue that curtains the spaces
Between the branches
The sea?
And more than these,
Am I aware of the noble heart beating near me?
Do I see the laughing, generous, truthful eyes?
Do I hear the voice that sometimes mocks, then jests,
Then speaks of a poem?

My friend said to me as I marched by his side in the night
Through the mud of Waterloo Road,
" This is the finest draft that has ever left England,
Picked men, all non-commissioned officers, held back for months. "
And the head of the column, out of sight away in the darkness,
Roared out a marching chorus,
Taken up and humorously turned by the men in the rear.
Windows opened, and women's voices cheered on the soldiers,
Who answered with jests and offered to kiss them
(And the kiss was taken, but not in a way they knew).
Through the mud, through the mud they went.
And at the bends of the road the lamp of the column-leader
Burned the blackness with red for a moment.
Four-deep they went, strong young men,
Jesting and singing and laughing,
With broad backs bearing their packs,
And broad chests breathing great breaths of the cold, damp air, —
Life at its cleanest,
Moving swiftly through the half-dead evil
And the filth of the sleeping city.
And when they arrived at London Bridge,
And stood in the gas-lit, frowsy station,
The sweat was on their face, and the hall was filled
With the smell of healthy men.
What was my friend doing there,
The singer of beautiful things, the beautiful singer?
What was any man of that company —
Clerk, shopkeeper, labourer, poet —
Doing each with the other,
Clothed and loaded alike and marching together,
With the thought of each man's heart and brain written off,
And their common manhood
Trained to move in one direction and to fit one shape?
What is war? ... What are nations?
My friend has gone from me; I could not have even him;
And yet in those men
There was so much kindliness, so much humour,
And so little desire to kill.