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54725: I Never Saw that Land Before

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posted on 2024-04-25, 17:29 authored by First World War Poetry Digital Archive Project Team

I never saw that land before,
And now can never see it again;
Yet, as if by acquaintance hoar
Endeared, by gladness and by pain,
Great was the affection that I bore
To the valley and the river small,
The cattle, the grass, the bare ash trees,
The chickens from the farmsteads, all
Elm-hidden, and the tributaries
Descending at equal interval;
The blackthorns down along the brook
With wounds yellow as crocuses
Where yesterday the labourer's hook
Had sliced them cleanly; and the breeze
That hinted all and nothing spoke.
I neither expected anything
Nor yet remembered: but some goal
I touched then; and if I could sing
What would not even whisper my soul
As I went on my journeying,
I should use, as the trees and birds did,
A language not to be betrayed;
And what was hid should still be hid
Excepting from those like me made
Who answer when such whispers bid.

History

Identifier

2910.txt

Creator

Thomas, Edward (1878-1917)

Date

1979

Date Created

01/01/1979

Temporal Date

31/12/1979

Type

Poem

Rights

Copyright Edward Thomas, 1979, reproduced under licence from Faber and Faber Ltd.

Repository Name

ProQuest

Publisher

The First World War Poetry Digital Archive

Usage metrics

    The Edward Thomas Collection

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