War's Embers

A creeper-covered house, an orchard near;

A farmyard with tall ricks upstanding clear

In golden sunlight of a late September.——

How little of a whole world to remember!

How slight a thing to keep a spirit free!

Within the house were books,

A piano, dear to me,

And round the house the rooks

Haunted each tall elm tree;

Each sunset crying, calling, clamouring aloud.

And friends lived there of whom the house was proud,

Sheltering with content from wind and storm,

Them loving gathered at the hearthside warm,

(O friendly, happy crowd!)

Caress of firelight gave them, touching hair

And cheeks and hands with sombre gleams of love,

(When day died out behind the lovely bare

Network of twigs, orchard and elms apart;

When rooks lay still in round dark nests above,

And Peace like cool dew comforted the heart.)

The house all strangers welcomed, but as strangers kept

For ever them apart

From its deep heart,

That hidden sanctuary of love close guarded;

Having too great a honey-heap uphoarded

Of children’s play, men’s work, lightly to let

Strangers therein;

Who knew its stubborn pride, and loved the more

The place from webbed slate roof to cellar floor—

Hens clucking, ducks, all casual farmyard din.

How empty the place seemed when Duty called

To harder service its three sons than tending

Brown fruitful good earth there! But all’s God’s sending.

Above the low barn where the oxen were stalled

The old house watched for weeks the road, to see

Nothing but common traffic; nothing its own.

It had grown to them so used, so long had known

Their presences; sheltered and shared sorrow and glee,

No wonder it felt desolate and left alone ...

That must remember, nothing at all forget.

My mind (how often!) turned and returned to it,

When in queer holes of chance, bedraggled, wet,

Lousy I lay; to think how by Severn-side

A house of steadfastness and quiet pride

Kept faith to friends (when hope of mine had died

Almost to ash). And never twilight came

With mystery and peace and points of flame—

Save it must bring sounds of my Severn flowing

Steadily seawards, orange windows glowing

Bright in the dusk, and many a well-known name.