EDMUND BLUNDEN (QUEEN’S)

WHEN on the green the rag-tag game had stopt, And red the lights through alehouse curtains glowed, The clambering brake drove out and took the road. Then on the stern moors all the babble dropt Among those merry men, who felt the dew Sweet to the soul and saw the southern blue Thronged with heat lightning leagues and leagues abroad, Working and whickering; snake-like; winged and clawed; Or like old carp lazily rising and shouldering, Long the slate cloud flank shook with the death-white smouldering; Yet not a voice. The night drooped oven-hot; Then where the turnpike pierced the black wood plot, Tongues wagged again and each man felt the grim Destiny of the hour speaking through him: And then tales came of dwarfs on Starling Hill, And those young swimmers drowned at the roller mill, Where on the drowsiest noon the undertow Famishing for life boiled like a pot below: And how two higglers at the “Walnut Tree” Had curst the Lord in thunderstorm and He Had struck them into soot with lightning then— It left the pitchers whole, it killed the men. Many a lad and many a lass was named Who once stept bold and proud—but death had tamed Their revel on the eve of May: cut short The primrosing and promise of good sport, Shut up the score book, laid the ribbands by. Such bodings mustered from the fevered sky; But now the spring well through the honeycomb Of scored stone rumbling tokened them near home, The whip lash clacked, the jog-trot sharpened, all Sang “Farmer’s Boy” as loud as they could bawl, Till at the “Walnut Tree” the homeward brake Stopt for hoarse ribaldry to brag and slake. The weary wildfire faded from the dark While this one damned the parson, that the clerk; And anger’s balefire forked from the unbared blade At word of notches missed or stakes not paid: While Joe the driver stooped with oath to find A young jack rabbit in the roadway, blind Or dazzled by the lamps, as stiff as steel With fear. Joe beat its brain out on the wheel.

HERE they went with smock and crook, Toiled in the sun, lolled in the shade, Here they mudded out the brook And here their hatchet cleared the glade: Harvest-supper woke their wit, Huntsman’s moon their wooings lit. From this church they led their brides; From this church themselves were led Shoulder-high; on these waysides Sat to take their beer and bread: Names are gone—what men they were These their cottages declare. Names are vanished, save the few In the old brown Bible scrawled, These were men of pith and thew, Whom the city never called; Scarce could read or hold a quill: Built the barn, the forge, the mill. On the green they watched their sons Playing till too dark to see, As their fathers watched them once, As my father once watched me; While the bat and beetle flew On the warm air webbed with dew. Unrecorded, unrenowned, Men from whom my ways begin, Here I know you by your ground, But I know you not within— All is mist, and there survives Not one moment of your lives. Like the bee that now is blown Honey-heavy on my hand From the toppling tansy-throne In the green tempestuous land,— I’m a-Maying now, nor know Who made honey long ago.