Page:Poems (Edward Thomas, 1917).djvu/21

 AS THE TEAM'S HEAD-BRASS

the team's head-brass flashed out on the turn

The lovers disappeared into the wood.

I sat among the boughs of the fallen elm

That strewed an angle of the fallow, and

Watched the plough narrowing a yellow square

Of charlock. Every time the horses turned

Instead of treading me down, the ploughman leaned

Upon the handles to say or ask a word,

About the weather, next about the war.

Scraping the share he faced towards the wood,

And screwed along the furrow till the brass flashed

Once more.

The blizzard felled the elm whose crest

I sat in, by a woodpecker's round hole,

The ploughman said. "When will they take it away?"

"When the war's over." So the talk began—

One minute and an interval of ten,

A minute more and the same interval.

"Have you been out?" "No." "And don't want to, perhaps?"

"If I could only come back again, I should.

I could spare an arm. I shouldn't want to lose

A leg. If I should lose my head, why, so,

I should want nothing more. &hellip; Have many gone

From here?" "Yes." "Many lost?" "Yes: a good few.

Only two teams work on the farm this year.

One of my mates is dead. The second day

In France they killed him. It was back in March,

The very night of the blizzard, too. Now if

He had stayed here we should have moved the tree." 15