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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
APRIL BYEWAY, by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: Friend whom I never saw, yet dearest friend Last Line: The unseen friend, the one last friend in all the world. Alternate Author Name(s): Blunden, Edmund Subject(s): Friendship | |||
FRIEND whom I never saw, yet dearest friend, Be with me travelling on the byeway now In April's month and mood: our steps shall bend By the shut smithy with its penthouse brow Armed round with many a felly and crackt plough: And we will mark in his white smock the mill Standing aloof, long numbed to any wind, That in his crannies mourns, and craves him still; But now no fortune sends him grain to grind, And even the master lies too deep for winds to find. Grieve not at these: for there are mills amain With lusty sails that leap and drop away On further knolls, strong backs to fetch the grain. The schoolboys' wickets on the green betray New games begun and old ones put away. Let us fare on, dead friend, O deathless friend, Where under his old hat as green as moss The hedger chops and finds new gaps to mend, And on his bonfires burns the thorns and dross, And hums a hymn, the best, thinks he, that ever was. There the grey guinea-fowl stands in the way, The young black heifer and the raw-ribbed mare, Scorning to move for tumbril or for dray -- They feel themselves as good as farmers there. From the young corn the prick-eared leverets stare At strangers come to spy the land -- small sirs, We bring less danger than the very breeze Who in great zig-zag blows the bee, and whirs In bluebell shadow down the bright green leas; From whom in frolic fit the chopt straw darts and flees. The cherry steepling up in white shall know The two friends passing by, and poplar smile All gold within; the church-top fowl shall glow To lure us on, and we shall rest awhile Where the wild apple blooms above the stile; The yellow frog beneath blinks up half bold, Then scares himself into the deeper green. And thus spring was for you in days of old, And thus will be should I too walk unseen By one that thinks me friend, the best that there has been. All our lone journey laughs for joy, the hours Like honey-bees go home in new-found light Past the cow-pond amazed with twinkling flowers And antique chalk-pit newly delved to white, Or idle snow-plough nearly hid from sight. The blackbird sings us home, on a sudden peers The round tower hung with ivy's blackened chains, Then past the little green the byeway veers, The mill-sweeps torn, the forge with cobwebbed panes That have so many years looked out across the plains. But the old forge and mill are shut and done, The tower is crumbling down, stone by stone falls; An ague doubt comes creeping in the sun, The sun becomes a ghost, the day appals, The concourse of a thousand tempests sprawls Over the blue-lipped lakes and maddening groves, Like agonies of gods the clouds are whirled, The stormwind like the demon huntsman roves -- Still stands my friend, though all's to chaos hurled, The unseen friend, the one last friend in all the world. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...YOU & I BELONG IN THIS KITCHEN by JUAN FELIPE HERRERA JASON THE REAL by TONY HOAGLAND NO RESURRECTION by ROBINSON JEFFERS CHAMBER MUSIC: 17 by JAMES JOYCE CHAMBER MUSIC: 18 by JAMES JOYCE THE STONE TABLE by GALWAY KINNELL ALMSWOMAN by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN TO AN ENEMY by MAXWELL BODENHEIM SONNET: 10. TO A FRIEND by WILLIAM LISLE BOWLES ALMSWOMEN by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN |
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