Classic and Contemporary Poetry
HOME THOUGHTS IN [OR, FROM] LAVENTIE, by EDWARD WYNDHAM TENNANT Poet's Biography First Line: Green gardens in laventie Last Line: Home, what a perfect place! Subject(s): England; Homesickness; Soldiers' Writings; World War I; English; First World War | ||||||||
GREEN gardens in Laventie! Soldiers only know the street Where the mud is churned and splashed about By battle-wending feet; And yet beside one stricken house there is a glimpse of grass Look for it when you pass. Beyond the church whose pitted spire Seems balanced on a strand Of swaying stone and tottering brick, Two roofless ruins stand; And here, among the wreckage, where the back-wall should have been, We found a garden green. The grass was never trodden on, The little path of gravel Was overgrown with celandine; No other folk did travel Along its weedy surface but the nimble-footed mouse, Running from house to house. So all along the tender blades Of soft and vivid grass We lay, nor heard the limber wheels That pass and ever pass In noisy continuity until their stony rattle Seems in itself a battle. At length we rose up from this ease Of tranquil happy mind, And searched the garden's little length Some new pleasaunce to find; And there some yellow daffodils, and jasmine hanging high, Did rest the tired eye. The fairest and most fragrant Of the many sweets we found Was a little bush of Daphne flower Upon a mossy mound, And so thick were the blossoms set and so divine the scent, That we were well content. Hungry for Spring I bent my head, The perfume fanned my face, And all my soul was dancing In that lovely little place, Dancing with a measured step from wrecked and shattered towns Away ... upon the Downs. I saw green banks of daffodil, Slim poplars in the breeze, Great tan-brown hares in gusty March A-courting on the leas. And meadows, with their glittering streamsand silver-scurrying dace Home, what a perfect place! | 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 LIGHT AFTER DARKNESS by EDWARD WYNDHAM TENNANT |
|