Classic and Contemporary Poetry
NEXT MORNING, by E. ARMINE WODEHOUSE First Line: Today the sun shines bright Last Line: There, with the setting of the sun! Subject(s): Soldiers' Writings; World War I; First World War | ||||||||
I TO-DAY the sun shines bright, The skies are fair; There is a delicate freshness in the air, Which, like a nimble sprite, Plays lightly on my cheek and lifts my hair. And, as I look about melo! I see a world I do not know! As though some soft celestial beam, Some clean and wholesome grace Had purgéd half the foulness of the place To a strange beauty.Was it then a dream, That ghostly march, but yesternight, Beneath the moon's uncertain light, When, chill at heart, we pick'd our way Thro' dreadful silent things, that lay About our path on either hand? Was it a dream? Is this the self-same land, The land we pass'd thro' then? How strange it seems!Yet't is the same! I see from here the path by which we came. The tumbled soil, the shatter'd trees are there! And there, in desolation sleeping, Almost too pitiful for weeping, The little villageonce the home of men! Aye! the whole scene is there! As desperate in its abandonment, As melancholy-wild and savage-bare As then.But, somehow, in this warm, bright air It all seems different! The sameand yet I know it not! II Thus much I see.But there's a spot That's hidden from mine eyes! Behind the ruin'd church it lies, Where gaping vaults, beneath the nave, Have made a dreadful kind of cave; And there, before the cavern's mouth, A dark and stagnant pool is spread So silent and so still! I saw it last i' th' pale moonlight; And I could think that shapes uncouth Crept from that cave at dead of night With ghoulish stealth, to feast their fill Upon the pale and huddled dead! Yet now, Haply, beneath this warm sunlight, Even that fearsome pool is bright, Under the cavern's brow! So outward fair, that none might guess The secret of its hideousness, Nor know what nameless things are done There, with the setting of the sun! | 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 BEFORE GINCHY; SEPTEMBER, 1916 by E. ARMINE WODEHOUSE |
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