Page:Poems (Edward Thomas, 1917).djvu/62

 "How quick" to someone's lip

The words came, "will the beaten horse run home."

The word "home" raised a smile in us all three,

And one repeated it, smiling just so

That all knew what he meant and none would say.

Between three counties far apart that lay

We were divided and looked strangely each

At the other, and we knew we were not friends

But fellows in a union that ends

With the necessity for it, as it ought.

Never a word was spoken, not a thought

Was thought, of what the look meant with the word

"Home" as we walked and watched the sunset blurred.

And then to me the word, only the word,

"Homesick," as it were playfully occurred:

No more.

If I should ever more admit

Than the mere word I could not endure it

For a day longer: this captivity

Must somehow come to an end, else I should be

Another man, as often now I seem,

Or this life be only an evil dream.

THERE'S NOTHING LIKE THE SUN

nothing like the sun as the year dies,

Kind as it can be, this world being made so,

To stones and men and beasts and birds and flies,

To all things that it touches except snow, 56