Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, INACCESSIBILITY IN THE BATTLEFIELD, by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

INACCESSIBILITY IN THE BATTLEFIELD, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Forgotten streams, yet wishful to be known
Last Line: The rampart where the sleepless phantom strode.
Alternate Author Name(s): Blunden, Edmund
Subject(s): World War I; First World War


FORGOTTEN streams, yet wishful to be known,
With humble moan
In rushy channels working, called us on;
These might have with as good result
Remained occult
And gray and dumb;
For where they curled and called we could not come.

Some tottering hut they called the Moated Grange
Bade our steps range
And cramped routine for rural loves exchange;
That thatched spectre might as well
With some fierce shell
Have sunk to earth;
A jealous god declined our going forth.

And that delightful maybush, that above
The dead mill-drove
With rose-lipped courtesy and whispering love
Enchanted, was not ours to touch.
Between, this grutch,
This staring curse
Made a blind wall, and kept our lips averse.

The simple road proposed most kind desires
For further spires,
Hearths, garden-grots, dove-cots; but fang-fixed wires
And ambushed airy murder lay
All day, that way;
A simple road, --
The rampart where the sleepless phantom strode.





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