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    Last Poems
    Last Poems
    Last Poems
    Ebook131 pages55 minutes

    Last Poems

    By Edward Thomas

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    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArchive Classics
    Release dateOct 1, 2007
    Last Poems
    Author

    Edward Thomas

    Edward Thomas was born near Uxbridge in 1943 and grew up mainly in Hackney, east London in the 1950s. His teaching career took him to cental Africa and the Middle East. Early retirement from the profession enabled him to concentrate on writing. Along with authorship of half a dozen books, he has contributed regular columns to several journals.

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      Book preview

      Last Poems - Edward Thomas

      The Project Gutenberg EBook of Last Poems, by Edward Thomas

      This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

      Title: Last Poems

      Author: Edward Thomas

      Release Date: September 23, 2007 [EBook #22732]

      Language: English

      *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LAST POEMS ***

      Produced by Lewis Jones

      Edward Thomas (1918) Last Poems

      LAST POEMS

      By

      EDWARD THOMAS

      LONDON: SELWYN & BLOUNT, 12, YORK BUILDINGS, ADELPHI, W.C. 2. 1918.

      CONTENTS

      I never saw that Land before

      The Dark Forest

      Celandine

      The Ash Grove

      Old Man

      The Thrush

      I built myself a House of Glass

      February Afternoon

      Digging

      Two Houses

      The Mill-water

      A Dream

      Sedge-Warblers

      Under the Woods

      What will they do?

      To-night

      A Cat

      The Unknown

      Song

      She dotes

      For These

      March the Third

      The New House

      March

      The Cuckoo

      Over the Hills

      Home

      The Hollow Wood

      Wind and Mist

      The Unknown Bird

      The Lofty Sky

      After Rain

      Digging

      But these things also

      April

      The Barn

      The Barn and the Down

      The Child on the Cliffs

      Good-night

      The Wasp Trap

      July

      A Tale

      Parting

      Lovers

      That Girl's Clear Eyes

      The Child in the Orchard

      The Source

      The Mountain Chapel

      First known when lost

      The Word

      These things that Poets said

      Home

      Aspens

      An Old Song

      There was a Time

      Ambition

      No one cares less than I

      Roads

      This is no case of petty Right or Wrong

      The Chalk-Pit

      Health

      Beauty

      Snow

      The New Year

      The Brook

      The Other

      House and Man

      The Gypsy

      Man and Dog

      A Private

      Out in the Dark

      I NEVER SAW THAT LAND BEFORE

      I NEVER saw that land before,

      And now can never see it again;

      Yet, as if by acquaintance hoar

      Endeared, by gladness and by pain,

      Great was the affection that I bore

      To the valley and the river small,

      The cattle, the grass, the bare ash trees,

      The chickens from the farmsteads, all

      Elm-hidden, and the tributaries

      Descending at equal interval;

      The blackthorns down along the brook

      With wounds yellow as crocuses

      Where yesterday the labourer's hook

      Had sliced them cleanly; and the breeze

      That hinted all and nothing spoke.

      I neither expected anything

      Nor yet remembered: but some goal

      I touched then; and if I could sing

      What would not even whisper my soul

      As I went on my journeying,

      I should use, as the trees and birds did,

      A language not to be betrayed;

      And what was hid should still be hid

      Excepting from those like me made

      Who answer when such whispers bid.

      THE DARK FOREST

      DARK is the forest and deep, and overhead

      Hang stars like seeds of light

      In vain, though not since they were sown was bred

      Anything more bright.

      And evermore mighty multitudes ride

      About, nor enter in;

      Of the other multitudes that dwell inside

      Never yet was one seen.

      The forest foxglove is purple, the marguerite

      Outside is gold and white,

      Nor can those that pluck either blossom greet

      The others, day or night.

      CELANDINE

      THINKING of her had saddened me at first,

      Until I saw the sun on the celandines lie

      Redoubled, and she stood up like a flame,

      A living thing, not what before I nursed,

      The shadow I was growing to love almost,

      The phantom, not the creature with bright eye

      That I had thought never to see, once lost.

      She found the celandines of February

      Always before us all. Her nature and name

      Were like those flowers, and now immediately

      For a short swift eternity back she came,

      Beautiful, happy, simply as when she wore

      Her brightest bloom among the winter hues

      Of all the world; and I was happy too,

      Seeing the blossoms and the maiden who

      Had seen them with me Februarys before,

      Bending to them as in and out she trod

      And laughed, with locks sweeping the mossy sod.

      But this was a dream: the flowers were not true,

      Until I stooped to pluck from the grass there

      One of five petals and I smelt the juice

      Which made me sigh, remembering she was no more,

      Gone like a never perfectly recalled air.

      THE ASH GROVE

      HALF of the grove stood dead, and those that yet

         lived made

      Little more than the dead ones made of shade.

      If they led to a house, long before they had seen

         its fall:

      But they welcomed me; I was glad without cause

         and delayed.

      Scarce a hundred paces under the trees was the Interval— Paces each sweeter than sweetest miles—but nothing at all,

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