Classic and Contemporary Poetry
THE BEACH ROAD BY THE WOOD, by GEOFFREY HOWARD First Line: I know a beach road Last Line: And the face I never found. Subject(s): Soldiers' Writings; World War I; First World War | ||||||||
I KNOW a beach road, A road where I would go, It runs up northward From Cooden Bay to Hoe; And there, in the High Woods, Daffodils grow. And whoever walks along there Stops short and sees, By the moist tree-roots In a clearing of the trees, Yellow great battalions of them, Blowing in the breeze. While the spring sun brightens, And the dull sky clears, They blow their golden trumpets, Those golden trumpeteers! They blow their golden trumpets And they shake their glancing spears. And all the rocking beech-trees Are bright with buds again, And the green and open spaces Are greener after rain, And far to southward one can hear The sullen, moaning rain. Once before I die I will leave the town behind, The loud town, the dark town That cramps and chills the mind, And I'll stand again bareheaded there In the sunlight and the wind. Yes, I shall stand Where as a boy I stood Above the dykes and levels In the beach road by the wood, And I'll smell again the sea breeze, Salt and harsh and good. And there shall rise to me From that consecrated ground The old dreams, the lost dreams That years and cares have drowned: Welling up within me And above me and around The song that I could never sing And the face I never found. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...D'ANNUNZIO by ERNEST HEMINGWAY 1915: THE TRENCHES by CONRAD AIKEN TO OUR PRESIDENT by KATHARINE LEE BATES THE HORSES by KATHARINE LEE BATES CHILDREN OF THE WAR by KATHARINE LEE BATES THE U-BOAT CREWS by KATHARINE LEE BATES THE RED CROSS NURSE by KATHARINE LEE BATES WAR PROFITS by KATHARINE LEE BATES THE UNCHANGEABLE by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN |
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