Page:A treasury of war poetry, British and American poems of the world war, 1914-1919.djvu/278

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So all along the tender blades

Of soft and vivid grass

We lay, nor heard the limber wheels

That pass and ever pass

In noisy continuity until their stony rattle

Seems in itself a battle.

At length we rose up from this ease

Of tranquil happy mind,

And searched the garden's little length

Some new pleasaunce to find;

And there some yellow daffodils, and jasmine hanging high,

Did rest the tired eye.

The fairest and most fragrant

Of the many sweets we found

Was a little bush of Daphne flower

Upon a mossy mound,

And so thick were the blossoms set and so divine the scent,

That we were well content.

Hungry for Spring I bent my head,

The perfume fanned my face,

And all my soul was dancing

In that lovely little place,

Dancing with a measured step from wrecked and shattered towns

Away. . . upon the Downs.

I saw green banks of daffodil,

Slim poplars in the breeze,

Great tan-brown hares in gusty March

A-courting on the leas,

And meadows, with their glittering streams—and silver-scurrying dace—

Home, what a perfect place! E. Wyndham Tennant