So many were there talking that I heard Nothing at first quite plain, as I sat down; Until from this man's gibe and that keen word, Another's chilly smile or peevish frown, I caught their talk--but added none of mine. They said how she still fumbled with her fate, How she had banished visitants divine, How long her sleep had been, her sloth how great, How others had drawn near and passed her by, While she luxuriously had dreamed, dreamed on, She, she her own eternal enemy, And wanting brain, brain, brain would be undone. The glasses tinkled as they talked and laughed, And if the door a moment hung ajar The noises of the street, remotely soft, Crept in as from a world sunken afar. And still they talked, and then well pleased were pleased To talk of other things--another's wife, Money that ministers to a mind diseased, And queer extravagant whims of death and life.... But I rose up, flushed at the careless slander, Heedless what other laughing things were said, And my bruised thoughts began to lift and wander Far off, as from that jargoning I fled. I saw the sharp green hills, the silver clouds At rest upon the hills, the silver streams Creeping between prone shoulders of dark woods. I saw wide marshlands laved with level beams Of the last light; I saw ships on the sea That foamed hard by, stinging the fretful shore; I smelt old ships on the deserted quay That English sailors sailed, and will no more; I thought of men I loved, and of dead men I had longed to know--and each heroic ghost Rose and moved on, and left me alone again Aching for love and splendour glimpsed and lost.
God knows what things I thought when anger broke Her narrow dam and swept my spirit clean. Yet I for very shame not a word spoke, But to my heart's heart caught the things I had seen, And _England, England!_ murmuring, stood and stared, Swept like a lover with sweet influence In brain and bone--and happy that I had spared Her nobleness the indignity of defence.
In thin clear light unshadowed shapes go by Small on green fields beneath the hueless sky. They do not stay for question, do not hear Any old human speech: their tongue and ear Seem only thought, for when I spoke they stirred not And their bright minds conversing my ear heard not. --Until I slept or, musing, on a heap Of warm crisp fern lay between sense and sleep Drowsy, still clinging to a strand of thought Spider-like frail and all unconscious wrought. For thinking of that unforgettable thing, The war, that spreads a loud and shaggy wing On things most peaceful, simple, happy and bright, Until the spirit is blind though the eye is light; Thinking of all that evil, envy, hate, The cruelty most dark, most desolate; Thinking of the English dead--"How can you dead," I muttered, "with your life and young joy shed, How can you but in these new lands of life Relume the fiery passion of old strife-- Just anger, mortal hate, the natural scorn Of men true-born for all things foully born?" For I had thought that not death's touch could still In man's clean spirit the hate of good for ill.