Most read ▸
Ivor Gurney
God, that I might see
Framilode once again!
Redmarley, all renewed,
Clear shining after rain.
And Cranham, Cranham trees,
And blaze of Autumn hues.
Portway under the moon,
Silvered with freezing dews.
May Hill that Gloster dwellers
’Gainst every sunset see;
And the wide Severn river
Homing again to the sea.
The star of afterglow,
Venus, on western hills;
Dymock in spring: O spring
Of home! O daffodils!
All night we danced upon our windy hill,
Your dress a cloud of tangled midnight hair,
And love was much too much for me to wear
My leaves; the killer roared above his kill,
But you danced on, and when some star would spill
Its red and white upon you whirling there,
I sensed a hidden beauty in the air;
Though you danced on, my heart and I stood still.
But suddenly a bit of morning crept
Along your trembling sides of ebony;
I saw the tears your tired limbs had wept,
And how your breasts heaved high, how languidly
Your dark arms moved; I drew you close to me;
We flung ourselves upon our hill and slept.
In the morning light a line
Stretches forever. There my unlived life
Rises, and I resist,
Clinging to the steps of the throne.
Day lifts the darkness from the hills,
A bright blade cuts the reeds,
And my life, pitilessly demanding,
Rises forever in the morning light.
No, I shall never climb above the hill,
But, wistful, pause halfway and take my fill
Of wondering —
Behind me lies the valley, hot and still,
A roof-scarred thing.
If, like a lagging cloud with slow, white feet,
I should surmount the hill, would I then greet
The spray-wreathed sea?
And would the eager winds blow keen and sweet
Up, up to me?
Halfway, my craven heart shall ever bide.
Content in hoping that the other side
Shines on a silver shore,
Yet fearful lest the high hills only hide
More vale — and nothing more.
Heaven-invading hills are drowned
In wide moving waves of mist,
Phlox before my door are wound
In dripping wreaths of amethyst.
Ten feet away the solid earth
Changes into melting cloud,
There is a hush of pain and mirth,
No bird has heart to speak aloud.
Here in a world without a sky,
Without the ground, without the sea,
The one unchanging thing is I,
Myself remains to comfort me.
They are all gone away,
The House is shut and still,
There is nothing more to say.
Through broken walls and gray
The winds blow bleak and shrill:
They are all gone away.
Nor is there one to-day
To speak them good or ill:
There is nothing more to say.
Why is it then we stray
Around that sunken sill?
They are all gone away,
And our poor fancy-play
For them is wasted skill:
There is nothing more to say.
There is ruin and decay
The cold
With steely clutch
Grips all the land . . . alack,
The little people in the hills
Will die!
the river is my mind
night and day business not yet done
picture a hill
picture a frame for the picture
of my itch
of a life
out of doors and fields
the streets full of full people
out of leaves to speak with
and hills to take posture from
out of parts for God
out of world
dinner in the outback
the land bit off some sun
behind the hill
I give directions
to the wind
I know the top of the hill
in some respects better than it
this vellum
in a cathedral of paper
day lay on a hill
as I walked here and there
in no great haste to go home
looking ought to be
a continued thing
another supper