New-York tribune., 1918-07-28
August 1914
By John Masefeld

BY John Masefeld
II " OW still this quiet c0rnfeId Is to-night!
AE BY an infenser glow the evening falls,
bringing, not darkness, but deeper light;
Among the stalks partridge covey calls
The windows glitter on the distant hill;
Beyond the hedge the sheep bells in the fold
Stumble on sudden music and are still;
The forIorn pinewo0ds dr0op above the void.
An endless quiet valley reaches out
Past the blue hills into the evening sky:
Over the stubbIe, Cawing, goes a rouf
vi rocks from harvest, tagging they fly.
So beautiful it is, never saw
So great beauty these English fields
Touched by the fwiighfs coming into ave.
Ripe TO the soul and rich with summers Yields
lneSe hOn7eS this valley spread below me here
The rocks, the tilted stacks, the beasts i'm pen
nave been the heartfelt things past speaking dear
TO unknown generations of dead men,
Who, century after century, held these farms,
And, looking out to watch the changing sky,
Heard as we hear, the runours and the alarms
vi war at hand and danger pressing nigh.
And Knew as we know, that the message meant
The breaking off of ties, the loss of friends
Death, like miser getting i'm his rent
Ana no new stones laid where the frackway ends.
The harvest not yet won, the empty bin
The friendly horses taken from the STALLS
The fail0W the hill not yet brought in
The cracks upholstered in the leaking wallis
Yet heard the news, and went discouraged home
Ana brooded by the fire with heavy mind
With such dumb loving of the Berkshire loan
AS breaks the dumb hearts of the EnoIish kind
Then sadly rose and left the weIl-Ioved Downs
And so by ship to sea, and knew no more
The fields of home, the byres the market towns
Nor the dear outline of the EnqIish Shore
But knew the misery of the soaking trench.
The freezing in the rigging, the despair
In the revolving second of the wrench
When the blind soul is flung upon the air.
And died (uncoufhly, mosD in foreign lands
For some idea but dinIy understood
OF an English city built by hands
Which love of England prompted and made good.
u .:
If there be any life beyond the grave,
1t must be near the and things we love-
Some power of quick suggestion how to save
Touching the living soul from above.
An influence from the Earth from those dead hearts
So passionate once, deep, so truly kind,
That in the living child the spirit starts,
Feeling C0npaniOned still, not left behind
Surely above these fields spirit broods
A sense OF many watchers n7uftering
Of the lone Downland with the forIorn woods
Loved to the death, inesfimably dear.
A n'ufferin9 from beyond the wells of Death
from long dead men, to whom this quiet scene
Came among binding tears with the last BREATH
The dying soldiers vision of his queen
All the unspoken worship of those lives
Spent i'm forgotten wars at other calls
GIin7n1ers upon these fields where evenino drives
Beauty like breath, SO gently darkness falls
Darkness that makes the meadows h0Iier sfiH
The elm trees sadden in the hedge, a sigh
Moves in the beech clump the haunted hiH
The rising planets deepen in the sky
And silence br00ds like spirit on the brae
A glin7n1ering moon begins, the u1Ooniiuhf runs
over the grasses of the ancient way
Ruffed this morning by the passing guns
From "Phuip ondOth therP Poems
Copyright, II. Macnilu Companv
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