I enjoy these poems because they are short and to the point. The imagery is such that I am in the poem. How many have seen the abandoned roller at the side of the cricket field? Or, stopped at an empty rural railway station?
Tall Nettles
Tall nettles cover up, as they have done
These many springs, the rusty harrow, the plough
Long worn out, and the roller made of stone;
Only the elm butt tops the nettles now.
These many springs, the rusty harrow, the plough
Long worn out, and the roller made of stone;
Only the elm butt tops the nettles now.
This corner of the farmyard I like most;
As well as any bloom upon a flower
I like the dust on the nettles, never lost
Except to prove the sweetness of the shower.
Snow
In the gloom of whiteness.
In the great silence of the snow,
A child was sighing,
And bitterly saying: "oh,
They have killed a white bird up there on her nest,
The down is fluttering from her breast!"
And still it fell through the dusty brightness
On the child crying for the bird of the snow.
Adlestrop
Yes, I remember Adlestrop -
The name, because one afternoon
Of heat the express-train drew up here
Unwontedly. It was late June.
The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat.
No one left and no one came
On the bare platform. What I saw
Was Adlestrop - only the name.
And willows, willow-herb, and grass,
And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry,
No whit less still and lonely fair
Than the high cloudlets in the sky.
And for that minute a blackbird sang
Close by, and round him, mistier,
Farther and father, all the birds
Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.
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