Ivor Gurney’s “Interval” describes a brief escape into the English countryside, where the speaker leans on a hoe and takes in the gentle August air, wandering clouds, silver-lit woods, and drowsing hills. At first the mood is one of quiet relief—he welcomes the chance to straighten his back and feels the landscape’s peace. But the calm does not last. A low, insistent droning fills the air, and the beauty is undercut by the sound of warplanes practising overhead. The speaker calls them “War’s dread birds,” and the final line makes the threat clear: death is hovering just above a dreaming, sun-soaked world. So the poem moves from pastoral contentment to unease, mixing gratitude for the ordinary pleasures of nature with the knowledge that violence is never far away.
Interval — Summary
To straight the back, how good; to see the slow Dispersed cloud-flocks of Heaven wandering blind Without a shepherd, feel caress the kind Sweet August air, soft drifting to and fro Meadow and arable.--Leaning on my hoe I searched for any beauty eyes might find. The tossing wood showed silver in the wind; Green hills drowsed wakeful in the golden glow. Yet all the air was loud with mutterings, Rumours of trouble strange in that rich peace, Where War’s dread birds must practise without cease All that the stoutest pilot-heart might dare. Death over dreaming life managed his wings, Droning dull song in the sun-satiate air.