 Section 1 of poems by Edward Thomas. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Zhu. The trumpet rise up rise up and as the trumpet blowing chases the dreams of men as the dawn glowing the stars that left unlit the land and water rise up and scatter the dew that covers the print of last night's lovers scatter it scatter it while you are listening to the clear horn forget men everything on this earth newborn except that it is lovelier than any mysteries open your eyes to the air that has washed the eyes of the stars through all the dewy night up with the light to the old wars arise arise the signpost the dim sea glints chill the white sun is shy and the skeleton weeds and the never dry rough long grasses keep white with frost at the hilltop by the finger post the smoke of the traveller's joy is puffed over Hawthorne Berry and hazel tuft I read the sign which way shall I go a voice says you would not have doubted so at 20 another voice gentle with scorn says at 20 you wished you had never been born one hazel lost a leaf of gold from a tuft at the tip when the first voice told the other he wished to know what would be to be 60 by this same post you shall see he laughed and I had to join his laughter you shall see but either before or after whatever happens it must befall a mouthful of earth to remedy all regrets and wishes shall freely be given and if there be a flaw in that heaven to be freedom to wish and your wish may be to be here or anywhere talking to me no matter what the weather on earth at any age between death and birth to see what day or night can be the sun and the frost the land and the sea summer autumn winter spring with a poor man of any sort down to a king standing upright out in the air wondering where he shall journey oh where tears it seems I have no tears left they should have fallen their ghosts if tears have ghosts did fall that day when 20 hounds streamed by me not yet combed out but still all equals in their rage of gladness upon the scent made one like a great dragon in blooming meadow that bends towards the sun and once bore hops and on that other day when I stepped out from the double shadowed tower into an April morning stirring and sweet and warm strange solitude was there and silence a mightier charm than any in the tower possessed the courtyard they were changing guard soldiers in line young English countrymen fair-haired and ruddy in white tunics drums and fiefs were playing the British grenadiers the men the music piercing that solitude and silence told me truths I had not dreamed and have forgotten since their beauty passed two pee wits under the after sunset sky two pee wits sport and cry more white than is the moon on high riding the dark surge silently more black than earth their cry is the one sound under the sky they alone move now low now high and merrily they cry to the mischievous spring sky plunging earthward tossing high over the ghost who wonders why so merrily they cry and fly nor choose twixed earth and sky while the moon's quarter silently rides and earth rests as silently the manna 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 gilding beam more than a pretty February thing till I came down to the old manna farm and church and you tree opposite in age it's equals and in size the church and you and farmhouse slept in a Sunday silentness the air raised not a straw the steep farm roof with tiles duskily glowing entertained the midday 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 for locks 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 draft and smiled quietly but was not winter rather a season of bliss unchangeable awakened from farm and church where it had lain safe under tile and thatch for ages since this England old already was called Mary end of section one poems by Edward Thomas read for LibriVox.org by Zhu section two the owl down hill 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 to by the birds voice speaking for all who lay under the stars soldiers and poor unable to rejoice Swedes they have taken the gable from the roof of clay on the long swede pile they have let in the sun to the white and gold and purple of curled fronds unsunned it is a sight more tender gorgeous at the wood corner where winter moans and drips than when in the valley of the tombs of Kings a boy crawls down into a Pharaoh's tomb and first of Christian men beholds the mummy God and monkey chariot and throne and vase blue pottery alabaster and gold but dreamless long dead our men hotette lies this is a dream of winter sweet a spring will you come will you come will you come will you ride so late at my side oh will you come will you come will you come if the night has a moon full and bright oh will you come would you come would you come if the noon gave light not the moon beautiful would you come would you have come would you have come without scorning had it been still morning beloved would you have come if you come hastened come owls have cried it grows dark to ride beloved beautiful come as the teams head brass as the teams head brassed flashed out on the turn the lovers disappeared into the wood I sat among the bows of the fallen elm that strewed an angle of the fallow and watched the plow narrowing a yellow square of charlotte every time the horses turned instead of treading me down the plowmen leaned upon the handles to say or ask a word about the weather next about the war scraping the chair he faced towards the wood and screwed along the furrow till the brass flashed once more the blizzard fell the elm whose crest I sat in by woodpeckers round hole the plowmen said when will they take it away when the war's over so the talk began one minute and an interval of 10 a minute more and the same interval have you been out no and don't want to perhaps if I could only come back again I should I could spare an arm I shouldn't want to lose a leg if I should lose my head why so I should want nothing more have many gone from here yes many lost yes good few only two teams work on the farm this year one of my mates is dead the second day in France they killed him it was back in March the very night of the blizzard too now if he had stayed here we should have moved the tree and I should not have sat here everything would have been different for it would have been another world by and a better though if we could see all all might seem good then the lovers came out of the wood again the horses started and for the last time I watched the clods crumble and topple over after the plowshare and the stumbling team thaw over the land freckled with snow half thawed the speculating rooks that their nests cored and saw from the elm tops delicate as flower of grass what we below could not see winter pass end of section two poems by Edward Thomas read for Libra vox.org by ju section three interval gone the wild day a wilder night coming makes way for brief twilight where the firm soaked road mounts and is lost in the high beachwood it shines almost the beaches keep a stormy rest breathing deep of wind from the west the wood is black with a misty steam above the cloud pack breaks for one gleam but the woodman's cot by the ivy trees awakens not to light or breeze it smokes aloft unwavering it hunches soft under storms wing it has no care for gleam or gloom it stays there while I shall roam die and forget the hill of trees the gleam the wet this roaring peace like the touch of rain like the touch of rain she was on a man's flesh and hair and eyes when the joy of walking thus has taken him by surprise with the love of the storm he burns he sings he laughs well I know how but forgets when he returns as I shall not forget her go now those two words shut a door between me and the blessed rain that was never shut before and will not open again 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 beach and you to wear a fallen tree checks the site 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 under yawns it and the path that looks as if it led onto some legendary or fancied place where men have wished to go and stay till sudden it ends where the wood ends the coom the coom was ever dark ancient and dark its mouth is stopped with bramble thorn and briar and no one scrambles over the sliding chalk by beach and you and perishing juniper down the half precipices of its sides with roots and rabbit holes for steps the sun of winter the moon of summer and all the singing birds except the missile thrush that loves juniper are quite shut out but far more ancient and dark the coom looks since they killed the badger there dug him out and gave him to the hounds that most ancient Britain of English beasts if I should ever by chance if I should ever by chance grow rich I'll buy codom cock ridden and childed itch roses pergo and lap water and let them all to my elder daughter the rent I shall ask of her will be only each year's first violets white and lonely the first prim roses and or kisses she must find them before I do that is but if she finds a blossom on furs without rent they shall all forever be hers codom cock ridden and childed itch roses pergo and lap water I shall give them all to my elder daughter what shall I give what shall I give my daughter the younger more than will keep her from cold and hunger I shall not give her anything if she shared Southwild and Havering their acres the two brooks running between Painsbrook and Wealdbrook with Piewit woodpecker swan and rook she would be no richer than the Queen who once on a time sat in Havering Bower alone with the shadows pleasures and power she could do no more with summercanned or the mountains of a mountain land and its far white house above cottages like Venus above the Pleiades her small hands I would not cumber with so many acres and their lumber but leave her steep and her own world and her spectacle self with hair uncurled wanting a thousand little things that time without contentment brings end of section 3 poems by Edward Thomas read for LibriVox.org by Xu section 4 if I were to own if I were to own this countryside as far as a man in a day could ride and the ties were mine for giving or letting wingel tie and margariting tie and screens goose haze and cocker eels shallow rochets bandish and picker eels Marlins lamkins and lily-puts their copses ponds roads and ruts fields where plow horses steam and plovers fling and whimper hedges that lovers love and orchards shrubberies walls where the sun untroubled by north wind falls and single trees where the thrush sings well his proverbs untranslatable I would give them all to my son if he would let me any one for a song a blackbird song at dawn he should have no more till on my lawn never a one was left because I had shot them to put them into a pie his Essex blackbirds every one when I was left old and alone then unless I could pay for rent a song as sweet as a blackbirds and as long no more he should have the house not I margariting or wingel tie or it might be screens goose haze or cocker eels shallow rochets bandish or picker eels Martins lamkins or lily-puts should be his till the cart tracks had no rots and you Helen and you Helen what should I give you so many things I would give you had I an infinite great store offered me and I stood before to choose I would give you youth all kinds of loveliness and truth a clear eye as good as mine lands waters flowers wine as many children as your heart might wish for a far better art than mine can be all you have lost upon the traveling waters tossed or given to me if I could choose freely in that great treasure house anything from any shelf I would give you back yourself and power to discriminate what you want and want it not too late many fair days free from care and heart to enjoy both foul and fair and myself too if I could find where it lay hidden and it proved kind when first when first I came here I had hope hope for I knew not what fast beat my heart at sight of the tall slope or grass and use 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 12th 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 hearts dance at parting than at meeting be head and a bottle the downs will lose the sun white Allison lose the bees hum but head and a bottle tilted back in the cart will never part till I am cold as midnight and all my hours are beelers flowers he neither sees nor hears nor smells nor thinks but only drinks quiet in the yard where tree trunks do not lie more quietly after you speak after you speak and what you meant is plain my eyes meet yours that mean with your cheeks and hair something more wise more dark and far different even so the lark loves dust and nestles in it the minute before he must soar in lone flight so far like a black star he seems a moat of singing dust afloat above that dreams and sheds no light I know your lust is love end of section for poems by Edward Thomas read for LibriVox.org by Jew section 5 sewing it was a perfect day for sewing just as sweet and dry was the ground as tobacco dust I tasted deep the hour between the far owls 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 when we two walked when we two walked in Lent we imagined that happiness was something different and this was something less but happy were we to hide our happiness not as they were who acted in their pride Juno and Jupiter for the gods in their jealousy murdered that wife and man and we that wise live free to recall our happiness then in memoriam Easter 1915 the flowers left thick at nightfall in the wood this Easter tide call into mind the men now far from home who with their sweethearts should have gathered them and will never do again 50 faggots there they stand on their ends the 50 faggots that once were underwood of hazel and ash in Jenny pinks cops now by the hedge close-packed they make a thicket fancy alone can creep through with the mouse and Ren next spring a blackbird or a Robin will nest there accustomed to them thinking they will remain whatever is forever to a bird this spring is too late the swift has come it was a hot day for carrying them up better they will never warm me though they must light several winter's fires before they are done the war will have ended many other things have ended maybe that I can no more foresee or more control than Robin and Ren women he liked women he liked did shovel bearded Bob old farmer Hayward of the Heath but he loved horses he himself was like a cob and leather coloured also he loved a tree for the life in them he loved most living things but a tree chiefly all along the lane he planted elms where now the stormcock sings that travelers hear from the slow climbing train till then the track had never had a name for all its thicket and the nightingales that should have earned it no one was to blame to name a thing beloved man sometimes fails many years since Bob Hayward died and now nonpasses there because the mist and the rain out of the elms has turned the lane to slaw and gloom the name alone survives Bob's Lane end of section 5 poems by Edward Thomas read for LibriVox.org by Zhu section 6 early one morning early one morning in May I set out and nobody I knew was about I'm bound away forever away somewhere away forever there was no wind to trouble the weather cocks I had burnt my letters and darned my socks no one knew I was going away I thought myself I should come back someday I heard the brook through the town gardens run oh sweet was the mud turned to dust by the Sun a gate banged in a fence and banged in my head a fine morning sir a shepherd said I could not return from my liberty to my youth and my love and my misery the past is the only thing that smells sweet the only sweet thing that is not also fleet I'm bound away forever away somewhere away forever the cherry trees the cherry trees bend over and are shedding on the old road where all that past are dead their petals screwing the grass is for a wedding this early may mourn when there is none to wed it rains it rains and nothing stirs within the fence anywhere through the orchards untrodden dense forest of parsley the great diamonds of rain on the grass blades there is none to break or the fallen petals further down to shake and I am nearly as happy as possible to search the wilderness in vain though well to think of two walking kissing there drenched yet forgetting the kisses of the rain sad too to think that never never again unless alone so happy shall I walk in the rain when I turn away on its fine stalk twilight has fined to nought the parsley flower figures suspended still and ghostly white the past hovering as it revisits the light the huckster he has a hump like an ape on his back he has of money a plentiful lack and but for a gay coat of double his girth there is not a plain a thing on the earth this fine May morning but the huckster has a bottle of beer he drives a cart and his wife sits near who does not heed his lack or his hump and they laugh as down the lane they bump this fine May morning a gentleman he has robbed two clubs the judge at Salisbury can't give him more than he undoubtedly deserves the scoundrel look at his photograph a lady killer hangings too good by half for such as he so said the stranger one with crimes yet undiscovered or undone but at the inn the gypsy dame began now he was what I call a gentleman he went along with Carrie and when she had a baby he paid up so readily his half a crown just like him a crown had a bit more like him for I never knew him mean oh but he was such a nice gentleman oh last time we met he said if me and Joe was anywhere near we must be sure and call he put his arms around our Amos all as if he were his own son I pray God save him from justice nicer man never trod end of section six section seven of poems by Edward Thomas read for Libra Fox dot org by shoe the bridge I have come a long way today on a strange bridge alone remembering friends old friends I rest without smile or moan as they remember me without smile or moan all are behind the kind and the unkind to no more tonight than a dream the stream runs softly yet drowns the past the dark lit stream has drowned the future and the past no traveler has rest more blessed than this moment brief between two lives when the night's first lights and shade hide what has never been things goodlier lovelier dearer than will be or have been lob at Hawthorne time in Wiltshire traveling in search of something chance would never bring an old man's face by life and weather cut and coloured rough brown sweet as any nut a landface sea blue eyed hung in my mind when I had left him many a mile behind all he said was nobody can't stop me it's a footpath right enough you see those bits of mounds that's where they opened up the barrows 60 years since while I was scaring sparrows they thought as there was something to find there but they couldn't find it by digging anywhere to turn back then and seek him where was the use there were three Manningford's Abbot's Bowen and Bruce and whether Alton not Manningford it was my memory could not decide because there was both Alton Barnes and Alton Priors all had their churches graveyards farms and buyers lurking to one side up the paths and lanes seldom well seen except by aeroplanes and when bells rang or pigs squealed or cocks crowed then only heard ages ago the road approached the people stood and looked and turned nor asked it to come nearer nor yet learned to move out there and dwell in all men's dust and yet with all they shot the weathercock just because it was he crowed out of tune they said so now the copper weathercock is dead if they had reaped their dandelions and sold them fairly they could have afforded gold many years passed and I went back again among those villagers and looked for men who might have known my ancient he himself had long been dead or laid upon the shelf I thought one man I asked about him roared at my description tizzle bottles for D means Bill but another said of course it was Jack button up at the White Horse he's dead sir these three years this lasted till a girl proposed Walker of Walker's Hill old Adam Walker Adam's point you'll see marked on the maps that was her roguery the next man said he was a squire's son who loved wild bird and beast and dog and gun for killing them he had loved them from his birth one with another as he loved the earth the man maybe like button or Walker or like bottles for that you want but far more he sounds like one I saw when I was a child I could almost swear to him the man was wild and wandered his home was where he was free everybody has met one such man as he does he keep clear old paths that no one uses but once a lifetime when he loves some users he is English as this gate these flowers this Maya and when at eight years old lob lie by the fire came in my books this was the man I saw he has been in England as long as dove and door calling the wild cherry tree the Mary tree the Rose Campion Bridget in her bravery and in a tender mood he as I guess christened one flower love in idleness and while he walked from Exeter to Leeds one April called all cuckoo flowers milk maids from him old herbal Gerard learnt as a boy to name wild clematis the traveller's joy our blackbird sang no English till his ear told him they called his Jan toy pretty dear she was Jan toy the lucky who having lost a shilling and found a penny loaf rejoiced for reasons of his own to him the Ren is Jenny puta before all other men twas he first called the hogsback the hogsback that mother dunches buttocks should not lack their name was his care he too could explain totterage and totter down and juggler's lane he knows if anyone why tumbling bay inland in Kent is called so he might say but little he says compared with what he does if ever a sage troubles him he will buzz like a beehive to conclude the tedious fray and the sage who knows all languages runs away yet lob has 1300 names for a fool and though he never could spare time for school to unteach what the fox so well expressed on biting the cocks head off quietness is best he can talk quite as well as anyone after his thinking is forgot and done he first of all told someone else's wife for a farthing she'd skin a flint and spoil a knife worth sixpence skinning it she heard him speak she had a face as long as a wet week said he telling the tale in after years with blue smock and with gold rings in his ears sometimes he is a peddler not too poor to keep his wit this is tall Tom that bore the logs in and with Shakespeare in the hall once talked when icicles hung by the wall as her and the hunter he has known hard times on sleepless nights he made up weather rimes which others spoiled and hob being then his name he kept the hog that thought the butcher came to bring his breakfast you thought wrong said hob when there were kings in Kent this very lob whose sheep grew fat and he himself grew Mary wedded the king's daughter of Canterbury for he alone unlike squire Lord and King watched a night by her without slumbering he kept both waking when he was but a lad he won a rich man's heiress deaf dumb and sad by rousing her to laugh at him he carried his donkey on his back so they were married and while he was a little cobbler's boy he tricked the giant coming to destroy Shrewsbury by flood and how far is it yet the giant asked in passing I forget but see these shoes I've worn out on the road and we're not there yet he emptied out his load of shoes for mending the giant let fall from his spade the earth for damning seven and thus made the reekin hill and little Urkel hill rose where the giant scraped his boots while still so young our Jack was chief of Gotham sages but long before he could have been wise ages earlier than this while he grew thick and strong and at his bacon or at times sang a song and merely smelt it as Jack the giant killer he made a name he too ground up the miller the Yorkshire man who ground men's bones for flower do you believe Jack dead before his hour or that his name is Walker or bottlesford or Button a mere clown or squire or Lord the man you saw lob lie by the fire Jack Cade Jack Smith Jack Moon poor Jack of every trade young Jack or old Jack or Jack what do you call Jack in the hedge or Robin run by the wall Robin Hood ragged Robin lazy Bob one of the lords of no man's land good lob although he was seen dying at Waterloo Hastings Agincourt and Sedgemore to lives yet he never will admit he's dead till millers cease to grind men's bones for bread nor till our weather cock crows once again and I remove my house out of the lane onto the road with this he disappeared in hazel and thorn tangled with old man's beard but one glimpse of his back as there he stood choosing his way proved him of old Jack's blood young Jack perhaps and now a Wiltshire man as he has oft been since his days began bright clouds bright clouds of May shade half the pond beyond all but one bay of emerald tall reeds like crisscross bayonets where a bird once called lies bright as the sun no one heeds the light wind frets and drifts the scum of may blossom till the more hen calls again noughts to be done by birds or men still the may falls the clouds that are so light the clouds that are so light beautiful swift and bright cast shadows on field and park of the earth that is so dark and even so now light one beautiful swift and bright one you let fall on a heart that was dark unillumined a deeper mark but clouds would have without earth to shadow far less worth away from your shadow on me your beauty less would be and if it still be treasured an age hence it shall be measured by this small dark spot without which it were not some eyes condemn some eyes condemn the earth they gaze upon some wait patiently till they know far more than earth can tell them some laugh at the whole as folly of another's making one I knew that laughed because he saw from core to rind not one thing worth the love his soul had ready at waking some eyes have begun with laughing some stand startled at the door others too I have seen rest question roll dance shoot and many I have loved watching some I could not take my eyes from till they turned and loving died I had not found my goal but thinking of your eyes dear I became dumb for they flamed and it was me they burned May the 23rd there never was a finer day and never will be while may is may the third and not the last of its kind but though fair and clear the two behind seem pursued by tempests over past and the morrow with fear that it could not last was spoiled today air the stones were warm five minutes of thunderstorms dust it with rain as if to secure by one tear its beauty the luck to endure at midday then along the lane old Jack Norman appeared again jaunty and old crooked and tall and stopped and grinned at me over the wall with a cow slip bunch in his buttonhole and one in his cap who could say if his role came from flints in the road the weather or ale he was welcome as the nightingale not an hour of the sun had been wasted on Jack I've got my Indian complexion back said he he was tanned like a harvester like his short clay pipe like the leaf and bur that clung to his coat from last night's bed like the plowland crumbling red fairer flowers were none on the earth than his cow slips wet with the dew of their birth or fresher leaves than the crests in his basket where did they come from Jack don't ask it and you'll be told no lies very well then I can't buy I don't want to sell take them and these flowers too free perhaps you have something to give me wait till next time the better the day the Lord couldn't make a better I say if he could he never has done so off went Jack with his roll walk run leaving his crests from oak shot real and his cow slips from Wheatham Hill it was the first day that the midges bit but though they bit me I was glad of it of the dust in my face too I was glad spring could do nothing to make me sad blue bells hid all the ruts in the cops the elm seeds lay in the road like hops that fine day May the 23rd the day Jack Norman disappeared end of section 7 section 8 of poems by Edward Thomas read for LibriVox.org by shoe the glory the glory of the beauty of the morning the cuckoo crying over the untouched dew the blackbird that has found it and the dove that tempts me on to something sweeter than love white clouds ranged even and fair as new moon hey the heat the stir the sublime vacancy of sky and meadow and forest and my own heart the glory invites me yet it leaves me scorning all I can ever do all I can be beside the lovely motion shape and hue the happiness I fancy fit to dwell in beauty's presence shall I now this day begin to seek as far as heaven as hell wisdom or strength to match this beauty start and tread the pale dust pitted with small dark drops in hope to find whatever it is I seek hearkening to short-lived happy seeming things that we know not of in the hazel cops or must I be content with discontent as locks and swallows are perhaps with wings and shall I ask at the day's end once more what beauty is and what I can have meant by happiness and shall I let all go glad weary or both or shall I perhaps know that I was happy oft and oft before a while forgetting how I am fast pent how dreary swift with naught to travel to this time or shall I perhaps know that I was happy oft and oft before a while forgetting how I am fast pent how dreary swift with naught to travel to is time I cannot bite the day to the core melancholy the rain and wind the rain and wind raved endlessly on me the summer storm and fever and melancholy wrought magic so that if I feared the solitude far more I feared all company too sharp too rude had been the wisest or the dearest human voice what I desired I knew not but whatever my choice vain it must be I knew yet not did my despair but sweetened the strange sweetness while through the wild air all day long I heard a distant cuckoo calling and soft as dulcimer's sounds of near water falling and softer and remote as if in history rumors of what had touched my friends my foes or me Adelstrop yes I remember Adelstrop 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 bear platform what I saw was Adelstrop only the name and willows willow herb and grass and meadow sweet and hay cocks dry no wit less still and lonely fair than the high cloudlets in the sky and for that minute a black bird sang close by and around him misty a father and father all the birds of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire the green roads the green roads that end in the forest are strewn with white goose feathers this June like marks left behind by someone gone to the forest to show his track but he has never come back down each green road a cottage looks at the forest round one the nettle towers two are bathed in flowers an old man along the green road to the forest strays from one from another a child alone in the thicket bordering the forest all day long a thrush twiddles his song it is old but the trees are young in the forest all but one like a castle keep in the middle deep that oak saw the ages pass in the forest they were a host but their memories are lost for the tree is dead all things forget the forest accepting perhaps me when now I see the old man the child the goose feathers at the edge of the forest and here all day long the thrush repeat his song the millpond the sun blazed while the thunder yet added a boom a wagtail flickered bright over the millponds gloom less than the cooing in the older aisles of the pool sounded the thunder through that plunge of waters cool scared starlings on the aspen tip past the black mill out chattered the stream and the next raw far on the hill as my feet dangling teased the foam that slid below a girl came out take care she said ages ago she startled me standing quite close dressed all in white ages ago I was angry till she passed from sight then the storm burst and as I crouched to shelter how beautiful and kind to she seemed as she does now it was upon it was upon the July evening at a style I stood looking along a path over the country by a second spring drenched perfect green again the latter math will be a fine one so the stranger said a wandering man albeit I stood at rest flushed with desire I was the earth outspread like meadows of the future I possessed and as an unaccomplished prophecy the stranger's words after the interval of a score years when those fields are by me never to be recrossed now I recall this July Eve and question wondering what of the latter math to this whore spring end of section 8 section 9 of poems by Edward Thomas read for LibriVox.org by Jew tall nettles tall nettles cover up as they have done these many springs the rusty harrow the plow long worn out and the roller made of stone only the elm but tops the nettles now this corner of the farm yard 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 hay making after night's thunder far away had rolled the fiery day had a kernel sweet of cold and in the perfect blue the clouds uncurled like the first gods before they made the world and misery swimming the stormless sea in beauty and in divine gaiety the smooth white empty road was lightly strewn with leaves the holly's autumn falls in June and fur cones standing stiff up in the heat the mill foot water tumbled white and lit with tossing crystals happier than any crowd of children pouring out of school allowed and in the little thickets where a sleeper forever might lie lost the nettle creeper and garden warbler sang unceasingly while over them shrill shrieked in his fierce glee the swift with wings and tail a sharp and narrow as if a bow had flown off with the arrow only the scent of woodbine and hay new moan traveled the road in the field sloping down park like to where its willows showed the brook haymakers rested the tosser lay for sook out in the sun and the long wagon stirred without its team it seemed it never would move from the shadow of that single you the team are still until their task was due beside the laborers enjoyed the shade that three squat oaks midfield together made upon a circle of grass and weed uncut and on the hollow once a chalk pit but now brimmed with nut and elderflower so clean the men leaned on their rakes about to begin but still and all was silent all was old this morning time with a great age untold older than claire and cobbitt moorland and chrome then at the fields far edge the farmers home a white house crouched at the foot of a great tree under the heavens that know not what years be the men the beasts the trees the implements uttered even what they will in times far hence all of us gone out of the reach of change immortal in a picture of an old grange how at once how at once should I know when stretched in the harvest blue I saw the swift's black bow that I would not have that view another day until next May again it is due the same year after year but with the swift alone with other things I but fear that they will be over and done suddenly and I only see them to know them gone gone gone again gone gone again May June July and August gone again gone by not memorable save that I saw them go as past the empty keys the rivers flow and now again in the harvest rain the blenheim oranges fall grubby from the trees as when I was young and when the lost one was here and when the war began to turn young men to dung look at the old house outmoded dignified dark and untenanted with grass growing instead of the footsteps of life the friendliness the strife in its beds have lain youth love age and pain I am something like that only I am not dead still breathing and interested in the house that is not dark I am something like that not one pain to reflect the Sun for the schoolboys to throw at they have broken everyone the Sun used to shine the Sun used to shine while we too walked slowly together paused and started again and sometimes mused sometimes talked as either pleased and cheerfully parted each night we never disagreed which gate to rest on the to be and the late past we gave small heed we turned from men or poetry to rumors of the war remote only till both stood disinclined for ought but the yellow flavorous coat of an apple wasps had undermined or a century of dark betonese the stateliest of small flowers on earth at the forest verge or crocuses pale purple as if they had their birth in sunless Hades fields the war came back to mind with the moonrise which soldiers in the east afar beheld then nevertheless our eyes could as well imagine the crusades or caesars battles everything to faintness like those rumors fades like the brooks water glittering under the moonlight like those walks now like us too that took them and the fallen apples all the talks and silences like memories sand when the tide covers it late or soon and other men through other flowers in those fields under the same moon go talking and have easy hours october the green elm with the one great bow of gold lets leaves into the grass slip one by one the short hill grass the mushroom small milk white hair bell and scabious and torment till that blackberry and gorse in dew and sun bow down to and the wind travels too light to shake the fallen birch leaves from the fern the gossipers wander at their own will at heavier steps than birds the squirrels gold the rich scene has grown fresh again and new a spring and to the touch is not more cool than it is warm to the gaze and now i might as happy be as earth is beautiful were i some other or with earth could turn in alternation of violet and rose hair bell and snow drop at their seasoned dew and gorse that has no time not to be gay but if this be not happiness who knows someday i shall think this a happy day and this mood by the name of melancholy shall no more blackened and obscured be 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 tail 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 my right hand crawling crab like over the clean white page resting a while each morning on the pillow then once more starting to crawl on towards age the hundred last leaves stream upon the willow end of section nine section ten of poems by edward thomas read for libravox.org by jew liberty the last light has gone out of the world except the moonlight lying on the grass like frost beyond the brink of the tall elm's shadow it is as if everything else had slept many an age unforgotten and lost the men that were the things done long ago all i have thought and but the moon and i live yet and here stand idle over the grave where all is buried both have liberty to dream what we could do if we were free to do something we had desired long the moon and i there's none less free than who does nothing and has nothing else to do being free only for what is not to his mind and nothing is to his mind if every hour like this one passing that i have spent among the wiser others when i have forgot to wonder whether i was free or not were piled before me and not lost behind and i could take and carry them away i should be rich or if i had the power to wipe out everyone and not again regret i should be rich to be so poor and yet i still am half in love with pain with what is imperfect with both tears and mirth with things that have an end with life and earth and this moon that leaves me dark within the door november november's days are 30 november's earth is dirty those 30 days from first to last and the prettiest things on ground are the paths with morning and evening hobnails dinted with foot and wingtip overprinted or separately character of little beast and little bird the fields are mashed by sheep the roads make the worst going the best the woods where dead leaves upward and downward scatter few care for the mixture of earth and water twig leaf flint thorn straw feather all that men scorn pounded up and sodden by flood condemned as mud but of all the months when earth is greener not one has clean skies that are cleaner clean and clear and sweet and cold they shine above the earth so old while the after tempest cloud sails over in silence though winds are loud till the full moon in the east looks at the planet in the west and earth is silent as it is black yet not unhappy for its lack up from the dirty earth men stare one imagines a refuge there above the mud in the pure bright of the cloudless heavenly light another loves earth and november more dearly because without them he sees clearly the sky would be nothing more to his eye than he in any case is to the sky he loves even the mud whose dies renounce all brightness to the skies the shelling it stands alone up in a land of stone all worn like ancient stairs a land of rocks and trees nourished on wind and stone and all within long delicate has been by arts and kindliness coloured sweetened and warmed for many years has been safe resting there men here in the traveling air but music pictures see in the same daily land painted by the wild air one maker's mind made both and the house is kind to the land that gave it peace and the stone has taken the house to its cold heart and is kind the gallows there was a weasel lived in the sun with all his family till a keeper shot him with his gun and hung him up on a tree where he swings in the wind and rain in the sun and in the snow without pleasure without pain on the dead oak tree bow there was a crow who was no sleeper but a thief and a murderer till a very late hour and this keeper made him one of the things that were to hang and flap in rain and wind in the sun and in the snow there are no more sins to be sinned on the dead oak tree bow there was a magpie too had a long tongue and a long tail he could both talk and do but what did that avail he too flaps in the wind and rain alongside weasel and crow without pleasure without pain on the dead oak tree bow and many other beasts and birds skin bone and feather have been taken from their feasts and hung up there together to swing and have endless leisure in the sun and in the snow without pain without pleasure on the dead oak tree bow birds nests the summer nests uncovered by autumn wind some torn others dislodged all dark everyone sees them low or high in tree or hedge or single bush they hang like a mark since there's no need of eyes to see them with I cannot help a little shame that I missed most even at eyes level till the leaves blew off and made the seeing no game it is a light pang I like to see the nests still in their places now first known at home and by far roads boys knew them not whatever jays and squirrels may have done and most I like the winter nests deep hid that leaves and berries fell into once a door mouse dined there on hazelnuts and grass and goose grass seeds found soil and grew end of section 10 section 11 of poems by Edward Thomas read for LibriVox.org by Zhu rain rain midnight rain nothing but the wild rain on this bleak hut and solitude and me remembering again that I shall die and neither hear the rain nor give it thanks for washing me cleaner than I have been since I was born into this solitude blessed are the dead that the rain rains upon but here I pray that none whom once I loved is dying tonight or lying still awake solitary listening to the rain either in pain or thus in sympathy helpless among the living and the dead like a cold water among broken reeds myriads of broken reeds all still and stiff like me who have no love which this wild rain has not dissolved except the love of death if love it be towards what is perfect and cannot the tempest tells me disappoint home fair was the morning fair our tempers and we had seen nothing fairer than that land though strange and the untrodden snow that made wild of the tame casting out all that was not wild and rustic and old and we were glad fair too was afternoon and first to pass were we that league of snow next the north wind there was nothing to return for except need and yet we sang nor ever stopped for speed as we did often with the start behind faster still strode we when we came in sight of the cold roofs where we must spend the night happy we had not been there nor could be though we had tasted sleep and food and fellowship together long how quick to someone's lips the word came will the beaten horse run home home the word home raised a smile in us all three and one repeated it smiling just so that all knew what he meant and none would say between three counties far apart that lay we were divided and look strangely each at the other and we knew we were not friends but fellows in a union that ends with the necessity for it as it ought never a word was spoken not a thought was thought of what the look meant with the word home as we walked and watched the sunset blurred and then to me the word only the word homesick as it were playfully occurred no more if I should evermore admit than the mere word I could not endure it for a day longer this captivity must somehow come to an end else I should be another man as often now I seem or this life be only an evil dream there's nothing like the sun there's nothing like the sun as the year dies kind as it can be this world being made so to stones and men and beasts and birds and flies to all things that it touches except snow whether on mountainside or street of town the south wall warms me November has begun yet never shone the sun as fair as now while the sweet last left damsons from the bow with spangles of the morning storm drop down because the starling shakes it whistling what once swallows sang but I have not forgot that there is nothing too like marches sun like aprils or julys or junes or mays or januaries or february's great days and august september october and december have equal days all different from november no day of any month but I have said or if I could live long enough should say there's nothing like the sun that shines today there's nothing like the sun till we are dead when he should laugh when he should laugh the wise man knows full well for he knows what is truly laughable but wiser is the man who laughs also or holds his laughter when the foolish do an old song the sunset the wind fell the sea was like a mirror shaking the one small wave that clapped the land a mile long snake of foam was making where tide has smoothed and wind had dried the vacant sand a light divided the swollen clouds and lay most perfectly like a straight narrow footbridge bright that crossed over the sea to me and no one else in the whole world saw that same sight I walked elate my bridge always just one step from my feet a robin sang a shade in shade and all I did was to repeat I'll go no more roving with you fair maid the sailor song of merry loving with dusk and seagulls mewing mixed sweet the lewdness far outweighed by the wild charm the chorus played I'll go no more a roving with you fair maid a roving a roving since roving's been my ruin I'll go no more a roving with you fair maid in amsterdam they're dwelter maid mark well what I do say in amsterdam they're dwelter maid and she was a mistress of her trade I'll go no more a roving with you fair maid a roving a roving since roving's been my ruin I'll go no more a roving with you fair maid in amsterdam they're dwelter maid mark well what I do say in amsterdam they're dwelter maid and she was a mistress of her trade I'll go no more a roving with you fair maid a roving since roving's been my ruin I'll go no more a roving end of section 11 section 12 of poems by Edward Thomas red for LibriVox.org by Zhu the penny whistle the new moon hangs like an ivory bugle in the naked frosty blue and the gills of the forest already blackened by winter are blackened anew the brooks that cut up and increase the forest as if they had never known the sun a roaring with black hollow voices betwixt rage and a moan but still the caravan hut by the hollies like a kingfisher gleams between round the most old hearths of the charcoal burners first primrosers ask to be seen the charcoal burners are black but their linen blows white on the line and white the letter the girl is reading under that crescent fine and her brother who hides apart in a thicket slowly and surely playing on a whistle an olden nursery melody says far more than I am saying 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 travelers 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 lours ahead shelf above shelf its silence I hear and obey that I may lose my way and myself cock crow out of the wood of thoughts that grows by night to be cut down by the sharp axe of light out of the night two cocks together crow cleaving the darkness with a silver blow and bright before my eyes twin trumpeters stand heralds of splendour one at either hand each facing each as in a coat of arms the milkers lace their boots up at the farms words out of us all that make rhymes will you choose sometimes as the winds use a crack in a wall or a drain their joy or their pain to whistle through choose me you English words I know you you are light as dreams tough as oak precious as gold as poppies and corn or an old cloak sweet as our birds to the ear as the burnet rose in the heat of midsummer strange as the races of dead and unborn strange and sweet equally and familiar to the eye as the dearest faces that a man knows and as lost homes are but though older far than oldest you as our hills are old worn new again and again young as our streams after rain and as dear as the earth which you prove that we love make me content with some sweetness from whales whose nightingales have no wings from Wiltshire and Kent and Herefordshire and the villagers there from the names and the things no less let me sometimes dance with you or climb and stand perchance in ecstasy fixed and free in a rhyme as poets do end of section 12 end of poems by Edward Thomas