Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, AFTER THE BATTLE, by GEORGE MURRAY (1830-1910)


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

AFTER THE BATTLE, by                    
First Line: Once on a time, it matters little when
Last Line: Of those that plucked them.
Subject(s): Fights; War


Once on a time, it matters little when—
On English ground, it matters little where—
A fight was fought upon a summer day
When skies were blue and waving grass was green.
The wild flower, fashioned by the Almighty Hand
To be a perfumed goblet for the dew,
Felt its enamelled cup filled high with blood
And shrinking from the horror, drooped and died.
Many an insect that derives its hue
From harmless leaves and tender-bladed herbs
Was stained anew that day by dying men
And marked its wanderings with unnatural track.
The painted butterfly that soared from earth
Bore blood upon the edges of its wings.
The stream ran red. The trampled soil became
A quagmire whence from sullen pools that formed
In prints of human feet and horses' hoofs—
The one prevailing hue of stagnant blood
Still lowered and glimmered at the cloudless sun.
The lonely moon upon the battle-ground
Shone brightly oft, while stars kept mournful watch,
And winds from every quarter of the earth
Blew o'er it, ere the traces of the fight
Were worn away. They lurked and lingered long
In trivial signs surviving. Nature far
Above the evil passions of mankind,
Her old serenity recovered soon
And smiled upon the guilty battle-ground
As she had done when it was innocent.
The lark sang high above it; swallows skimmed
And dipped and flitted gaily to and fro.
The shadows of the flying clouds pursued
Each other swiftly over grass and corn
And field and woodland, over roof and spire
Of peaceful towns embosomed among trees,
Into the glowing distance, far away
Upon the borders of the earth and sky
Where the red sunsets faded. Crops were sown
And reaped and harvested; the restless stream
That once was red with carnage, turned a mill;
Men whistled at the plough, or tossed the hay,
And bands of gleaners gathered up the grain.
In sunny pastures sheep and oxen browsed;
Boys whooped and called to scare the pilfering birds;
Smoke rose from cottage chimneys; Sabbath bells
Rang with sweet chimes; old people lived and died;
The timid creatures of the field and grove,
The simple blossoms of the garden-plot,
Grew up and perished in their destined terms—
And all amid the blood-steeped battle-ground
Where thousands upon thousands had been slain.
But there were deep green patches in the corn,
That peasants gazed upon at first with awe.
Year after year those patches reappeared
And children knew that men and horses lay
In mouldering heaps beneath each fertile spot.
The village hind who ploughed that teeming soil
Shrank from the large worms that abounded there;
The bounteous sheaves it never failed to yield
Were called the "Battle Sheaves" and set apart:
And no one knew a "Battle Sheaf" to be
Borne in the last load at a Harvest Home.
For many a year each furrow that was turned
Revealed some crumbling record of the fight,
And by the roadside there were wounded trees
And scraps of hacked and broken fence and wall
Where deadly struggles erst had taken place,
And trampled spots, where not a blade would grow.
For many a year, no smiling village girl
Would dress her bosom or adorn her hair
With fragrant blossoms from that Field of Death:
And, when the seasons oft had come and gone,
The crimson berries growing there were thought
To leave too deep a stain upon the hands
Of those that plucked them.





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