| Here they went with smock and crook, |
| Toiled in the
sun, lolled in the shade, |
| Here they mudded out the brook |
| And here their
hatchet cleared the glade: |
| Harvest supper woke their wit, |
Huntsman’s moon their wooings lit.
|
| From this church they led their brides, |
| From this
church themselves were led |
| Shoulder-high; on these waysides |
| Sat to take
their beer and bread. |
| Names are gone―what men they were |
These their cottages declare.
|
| Names are vanished, save the few |
| In the old
brown Bible scrawled; |
| These were men of pith and thew, |
| Whom the city
never called; |
| Scarce could read or hold a quill, |
Built the barn, the forge, the mill.
|
| On the green they watched their sons |
| Playing till
too dark to see, |
| As their fathers watched them once, |
| As my father
once watched me; |
| While the bat and beetle flew |
On the warm air webbed with dew.
|
| Unrecorded, unrenowned, |
| Men from whom
my ways begin, |
| Here I know you by your ground |
| But I know you
not within― |
| There is silence, there survives |
Not a moment of your lives.
|
| Like the bee that now is blown |
| Honey-heavy on
my hand, |
| From his toppling tansy-throne |
| In the green
tempestuous land |
| I’m in clover now, nor know |
Who made honey long ago.
|
| Edmund
Blunden |
Classic Poems |
| |
|
[ Forefathers ] [ Report on Experience ] [ The Midnight Skaters ] |
| |
| "The Midnight Skaters", "Forefathers", and "Report
on Experience" by Edmund Blunden can be found in his collection
Poems of Many Years (copyright ©Estate of Claire Blunden 1957)
and are reproduced by permission of PFD (www.pfd.co.uk)
on behalf of the Estate of Claire Blunden. |
