Poems List
Explore poems from our collection
Wind in the Beechwood
Wind in the Beechwood
The glorying forest shakes and swings with glancing
Of boughs that dip and strain; young, slanting sprays
Beckon and shift like lissom cr…
What the Captain Said at the Point-to-Point
What the Captain Said at the Point-to-Point
I’ve had a good bump round; my little horse
Refused the brook first time,
Then jumped it prime;
And ran out a…
Twelve Months After
Twelve Months After
Hullo! here’s my platoon, the lot I had last year.
‘The war’ll be over soon.’
‘What ’opes?’
‘No bloody fear!’
Then, ‘Number Sev…
Villon
Villon
They threw me from the gates: my matted hair
Was dank with dungeon wetness; my spent frame
O’erlaid with marish agues: everywhere
Tortured by leap…
Today
Today
This is To-day, a child in white and blue
Running to meet me out of Night who stilled
The ghost of Yester-eve; this is fair Morn
The mother of To-m…
Tree and Sky
Tree and Sky
Let my soul, a shining tree,
Silver branches lift towards thee,
Where on a hallowed winter’s night
The clear-eyed angels may alight.
A…
To My Brother
To My Brother
Give me your hand, my brother, search my face;
Look in these eyes lest I should think of shame;
For we have made an end of all things base.
To His Dead Body
To His Dead Body
When roaring gloom surged inward and you cried,
Groping for friendly hands, and clutched, and died,
Like racing smoke, swift from your lolling…
To a Very Wise Man
To a Very Wise Man
I
Fires in the dark you build; tall quivering flames
In the huge midnight forest of the unknown.
Your soul is full of cities with dead …
Thrushes
Thrushes
Tossed on the glittering air they soar and skim,
Whose voices make the emptiness of light
A windy palace. Quavering from the brim
Of dawn, and b…
Their Frailty
Their Frailty
He's got a Blighty wound. He’s safe; and then
War’s fine and bold and bright.
She can forget the doomed and prisoned men
Who agonize and fi…
The Troops
The Troops
Dim, gradual thinning of the shapeless gloom
Shudders to drizzling daybreak that reveals
Disconsolate men who stamp their sodden boots
And tur…
The Rear-Guard
The Rear-Guard
Groping along the tunnel, step by step,
He winked his prying torch with patching glare
From side to side, and sniffed the unwholesome air.
The Road
The Road
The road is thronged with women; soldiers pass
And halt, but never see them; yet they’re here—
A patient crowd along the sodden grass,
Silent, w…
The One-Legged Man
The One-Legged Man
Propped on a stick he viewed the August weald;
Squat orchard trees and oasts with painted cowls;
A homely, tangled hedge, a corn-stalked fie…
The Last Meeting
The Last Meeting
I
Because the night was falling warm and still
Upon a golden day at April’s end,
I thought; I will go up the hill once more
To find…
The Heritage
The Heritage
Cry out on Time that he may take away
Your cold philosophies that give no hint
Of spirit-quickened flesh; fall down and pray
That Death come…
The Investiture
The Investiture
GOD with a Roll of Honour in His hand
Sits welcoming the heroes who have died,
While sorrowless angels ranked on either side
Stand easy i…
The Fathers
The Fathers
Snug at the club two fathers sat,
Gross, goggle-eyed, and full of chat.
One of them said: ‘My eldest lad
Writes cheery letters from Bagdad. <…
The Goldsmith
The Goldsmith
This job’s the best I’ve done.’ He bent his head
Over the golden vessel that he’d wrought.
A bird was singing. But the craftsman’s thought
…
The Dug-out
The Dug-out
Why do you lie with your legs ungainly huddled,
And one arm bent across your sullen, cold,
Exhausted face? It hurts my heart to watch you,
De…
The Dream
The Dream
I
Moonlight and dew-drenched blossom, and the scent
Of summer gardens; these can bring you all
Those dreams that in the starlit silence fall:
The Death-Bed
The Death-Bed
He drowsed and was aware of silence heaped
Round him, unshaken as the steadfast walls;
Aqueous like floating rays of amber light,
Soaring a…
The Choral Union
The Choral Union
He staggered in from night and frost and fog
And lampless streets: he’d guzzled like a hog
And drunk till he was dazed. And now he came
…