The Owl

DOWNHILL I came, hungry, and yet not starved,

Cold, yet had heat within me that was proof

Against the north wind; tired, yet so that rest

Had seemed the sweetest thing under a roof.

Then at the inn I had food, fire, and rest,

Knowing how hungry, cold, and tired was I.

All of the night was quite barred out except

An owl's cry, a most melancholy cry.

Shaken out long and clear upon the hill

No merry note, nor cause of merriment,

But one telling me plain what I escaped

And others could not, that night, as in I went.

And salted was my food, and my repose,

Salted and sobered too, by the bird's voice

Speaking for all who lay under the stars,

Soldiers and poor, unable to rejoice.

Edward Thomas

The Path

RUNNING along a bank, a parapet

That saves from the precipitous wood below

The level road, there is a path. It serves

Children for looking down the long smooth steep,

Between the legs of beech and yew, to where

A fallen tree checks the sight: while men and women

Content themselves with the road and what they see

Over the bank, and what the children tell.

The path, winding like silver, trickles on,

Bordered and even invaded by thinnest moss

That tries to cover roots and crumbling chalk

With gold, olive, and emerald, but in vain.

The children wear it. They have flattened the bank

On top, and silvered it between the moss

With the current of their feet, year after year.

But the road is houseless, and leads not to school.

To see a child is rare there, and the eye

Has but the road, the wood that overhangs

And underyawns it, and the path that looks

As if it led on to some legendary

Or fancied place where men have wished to go

And stay; till, sudden, it ends where the wood ends.

Edward Thomas

Lights Out

I HAVE come to the borders of sleep,

The unfathomable deep

Forest where all must lose

Their way, however straight,

Or winding, soon or late;

They cannot choose.

Many a road and track

That, since the dawn's first crack,

Up to the forest brink,

Deceived the travellers,

Suddenly now blurs,

And in they sink.

Here love ends,

Despair, ambition ends,

All pleasure and all trouble,

Although most sweet or bitter,

Here ends in sleep that is sweeter

Than tasks most noble.

There is not any book

Or face of dearest look

That I would not turn from now

To go into the unknown

I must enter and leave alone

I know not how.

The tall forest towers;

Its cloudy foliage lowers

Ahead, shelf above shelf;

Its silence I hear and obey

That I may lose my way

And myself.

Edward Thomas

The New House

NOW first, as I shut the door,

I was alone

In the new house; and the wind

Began to moan.

Old at once was the house,

And I was old;

My ears were teased with the dread

Of what was foretold,

Nights of storm, days of mist, without end;

Sad days when the sun

Shone in vain: old griefs and griefs

Not yest begun.

All was foretold me; naught

Could I foresee;

But I learnt how the wind would sound

After these things should be

Edward Thomas

The Long Small Room

THE long small room that showed willows in the west

Narrowed up to the end the fireplace filled,

Although not wide. I liked it. No one guessed

What need or accident made them so build.

Only the moon, the mouse, and the sparrow peeped

In from the ivy round the casement thick.

Of all they saw and heard there they shall keep

The tale for the old ivy and older brick.

When I look back I am like moon, sparrow, and mouse

That witnessed what they could never understand

Or alter or prevent in the dark house.

One thing remains the same--this is my right hand

Crawling crab-like over the clean white page,

Resting awhile each morning on the pillow,

Then once more starting to crawl on towards age.

The hundred last leaves stream upon the willow.

Edward Thomas

Tall Nettles

TALL nettles cover up, as they have done

These many springs, the rusty harrow, the plough

Long worn out, and the roller made of stone:

Only the elm butt tops the nettles now.

This corner of the farmyard I like most:

As well as any bloom upon a flower

I like the dust on the nettles, never lost

Except to prove the sweetness of a shower.

Edward Thomas

Sowing

IT was a perfect day

For sowing; just

As sweet and dry was the ground

As tobacco-dust.

I tasted deep the hour

Between the far

Owl's chuckling first soft cry

And the first star.

A long stretched hour it was;

Nothing undone

Remained; the early seeds

All safely sown.

And now, hark at the rain,

Windless and light,

Half a kiss, half a tear,

Saying good-night.

Edward Thomas

When First I Came Here

WHEN first I came here I had hope,

Hope for I knew not what. Fast beat

My heart at the sight of the tall slope

Or grass and yews, as if my feet

Only by scaling its steps of chalk

Would see something no other hill

Ever disclosed. And now I walk

Down it the last time. Never will

My heart beat so again at sight

Of any hill although as fair

And loftier. For infinite

The change, late unperceived, this year,

The twelfth, suddenly, shows me plain.

Hope now,--not health nor cheerfulness,

Since they can come and go again,

As often one brief hour witnesses,--

Just hope has gone forever. Perhaps

I may love other hills yet more

Than this: the future and the maps

Hide something I was waiting for.

One thing I know, that love with chance

And use and time and necessity

Will grow, and louder the heart's dance

At parting than at meeting be.

Edward Thomas

If I Should Ever by Chance

IF I should ever by chance grow rich

I'll buy Codham, Cockridden, and Childerditch,

Roses, Pyrgo, and Lapwater,

And let them all to my eldest daughter.

The rent I shall ask of her will be only

Each year's first violets, white and lonely,

The first primroses and orchises--

She must find them before I do, that is.

But if she finds a blossom on furze

Without rent they shall all forever be hers,

Codham, Cockridden, and Childerditch,

Roses, Pyrgo, and Lapwater,--

I shall give them all to my elder daughter.

Edward Thomas

Cock-Crow

OUT of the wood of thoughts that grows by night

To be cut down by the sharp ax of light,--

Out of the night, two cocks together crow,

Cleaving the darkness with a silver blow:

And brought before my eyes twin trumpeters stand,

Heralds of splendor, one at either hand,

Each facing each as in a coat of arms:--

The milkers lace their boots up at the farms.

Edward Thomas

Thaw

OVER the land half freckled with snow half-thawed

The speculating rooks at their nests cawed,

And saw from elm-tops, delicate as a flower of grass,

What we below could not see, Winter pass.

Edward Thomas

Adlestrop

YES, I remember Adlestrop--

The name--because one afternoon

Of heat the express-train drew up there

Unwontedly. It was late June.

The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat.

No one left and no one came

On the bare platform. What I saw

Was Adlestrop--only the name--

And willows, willow-herb, and grass,

And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry;

No whit less still and lonely fair

Than the high cloudlets in the sky.

And for that minute a blackbird sang

Close by, and round him, mistier,

Farther and farther, all the birds

Of Oxfordshire and Gloustershire.

Edward Thomas

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 gliding beam

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.

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

With tiles duskily glowing, entertained

The mid-day sun; and up and down the roof

White pigeons nestled. There was no sound but one.

Three cart horses were looking over a gate

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--

Rather a season of bliss unchangeable,

Awakened from farm and church where it had lain

Safe under tile and latch for ages since

This England, Old already, was called Merry.

Edward Thomas

Beauty

WHAT does it mean? Tired, angry, and ill at ease,

No man, woman, or child alive could please

Me now. And yet I almost dare to laugh

Because I sit and frame an epitaph--

"Here lies all that no one loved of him

And that loved no one." Then in a trice that whim

Has wearied. But, though I am like a river

At fall of evening when it seems that never

Has the sun lighted it or warmed it, while

Cross breezes cut the surface to a file,

This heart, some fraction of me, hapily

Floats through a window even now to a tree

Down in the misting, dim-lit, quiet vale;

Not like a pewit that returns to wail

For something it has lost, but like a dove

That slants unanswering to its home and love.

There I find my rest, and through the dusk air

Flies what yet lives in me. Beauty is there

Edward Thomas