Ivor Gurney - Sonnets 1917 -  4 - Homesickness
Channel: PoetryProse Project
Date: 2015-04-03

4. HOME-SICKNESS 

When we go wandering the wide air's blue spaces, 
Bare, unhappy, exiled souls of men ; 
How will our thoughts over and over again 
Return to Earth's familiar lovely places, 
Where light with shadow ever interlaces — 
No blanks of blue, nor ways beyond man's ken — 
Where birds are, and flowers, as violet, and wren, 
Blackbird, bluebell, hedge-sparrow, tiny daisies. 

O tiny things, but very stuff of soul 
To us . . . so frail. . . . Remember what we are ; 
Set us not on some strange outlandish star, 
But one caring for Love. Give us a Home. 
There we may wait while the long ages roll 
Content, unfrightened by vast Time-to-come.