BREAK OF DAY

BREAK OF DAY

There seemed a smell of autumn in the air

At the bleak end of night; he shivered there

In a dank, musty dug-out where he lay,

Legs wrapped in sand-bags,—lumps of chalk and clay

Spattering his face. Dry-mouthed, he thought, "To-day

We start the damned attack; and, Lord knows why,

Zero's at nine; how bloody if I'm done in

Under the freedom of that morning sky!"

And then he coughed and dozed, cursing the din.

Was it the ghost of autumn in that smell

Of underground, or God's blank heart grown kind,

That sent a happy dream to him in hell?—

Where men are crushed like clods, and crawl to find

Some crater for their wretchedness; who lie

In outcast immolation, doomed to die

Far from clean things or any hope of cheer,

Cowed anger in their eyes, till darkness brims

And roars into their heads, and they can hear

Old childish talk, and tags of foolish hymns.

He sniffs the chilly air; (his dreaming starts).



He's riding in a dusty Sussex lane

In quiet September; slowly night departs;

And he's a living soul, absolved from pain.

Beyond the brambled fences where he goes

Are glimmering fields with harvest piled in sheaves,

And tree-tops dark against the stars grown pale;

Then, clear and shrill, a distant farm-cock crows;

And there's a wall of mist along the vale

Where willows shake their watery-sounding leaves.

He gazes on it all, and scarce believes

That earth is telling its old peaceful tale;

He thanks the blessed world that he was born….

Then, far away, a lonely note of the horn.

They're drawing the Big Wood! Unlatch the gate,

And set Golumpus going on the grass:

He knows the corner where it's best to wait

And hear the crashing woodland chorus pass;

The corner where old foxes make their track

To the Long Spinney; that's the place to be.

The bracken shakes below an ivied tree,

And then a cub looks out; and "Tally-o-back!"

He bawls, and swings his thong with volleying crack,—

All the clean thrill of autumn in his blood,

And hunting surging through him like a flood

In joyous welcome from the untroubled past;

While the war drifts away, forgotten at last.

Now a red, sleepy sun above the rim

Of twilight stares along the quiet weald,

And the kind, simple country shines revealed

In solitudes of peace, no longer dim.

The old horse lifts his face and thanks the light,

Then stretches down his head to crop the green.

All things that he has loved are in his sight;

The places where his happiness has been

Are in his eyes, his heart, and they are good.

* * * * *

Hark! there's the horn: they're drawing the Big Wood.