Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, IN WILTSHIRE; SUGGESTED BY POINTS OF SIMILARITY WITH THE SOMME COUNTRY, by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

IN WILTSHIRE; SUGGESTED BY POINTS OF SIMILARITY WITH THE SOMME COUNTRY, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Fairest of valleys, in this full-bloomed night
Last Line: Among old valley-tombs of flesh and blood and years.
Alternate Author Name(s): Blunden, Edmund
Subject(s): Wiltshire, England


FAIREST of valleys, in this full-bloomed night,
Whose air so lullingly,
Whose dusk so understandingly
Embraces us, and gives us more than light,

O happy valley, with your poplars manned
Beneath the visiting moon,
And talking to the loitering moon,
Vast as desire, and by an owl-call spanned,

Perfection is your name; yet (foolish prayer!)
Well would it be for some,
And safer your dim grace for some,
If nothing in your presence could compare

With a far place. That shuttered lampless mill,
Those white-glanced pools are like,
These tangled cliffs are all too like
A valley where our dream-selves tremble still.

The wires and poles that cut the ridge and sky,
The blackness of these groves,
The secret paths of river-groves,
These fits and starts of sound, identify.

My feet, along this road, above that stream,
Drop into marching-time,
Make wild arithmetic of time --
So like this valley and that dead one seem.

Resemble less, warm vale! that vale of tears;
Some signs and shades forego.
Cause not our very joy to go
Among old valley-tombs of flesh and blood and years.





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