A Gloucestershire Lad at Home and Abroad — John Shaqi
A Gloucestershire Lad at Home and AbroadHarvey, F. W. (Frederick William)
General
A Gloucestershire Lad at Home and Abroad
Harvey, F. W. (Frederick William)
Gloucestershire (England) -- Poetry; World War, 1914-1918 -- Poetry
All night--
All night they shone for me, and then
Came light.
And suddenly I woke, and lovely joy!
I was at home, with the fields gold as when
I was a boy.
* * * * *
Thus shall all men rise up at last to see,
Their dearest dreams golden reality.
THE RETURN
The unimaginable hour
That folds away our joys and pain
Holds not the spirit in its power.
Therefore I shall come home again
(Wherever my poor body lies),
To whisper in the summer trees
Upon a lazy fall and rise
Of wind: and in day’s red decline
Walk with the sun those roads of mine,
Then rosy with my memories.
Though you may see me not, yet hear
My laughter in the laughing streams,
My footsteps in the running rain....
For sake of all I counted dear
And visit still within my dreams
I shall at last come home again.
LAND OF HEART’S DELIGHT
Glory’s a temple open wide,
Content, a little shrine.
But Heart’s Delight is a land so bright
We reckon it half divine.
It lies wherever man has lived,
But wheresoe’er you find it
Its skies are blue with dreams come true,
And Heaven is just behind it.
Glory’s the universal gleam
Of all God gives to men.
Content, the little silver dream
He sends to one in ten.
But Heart’s Delight, all golden bright,
Is given to him alone
Who has hidden his heart in the deepest part
Of a place called Home.
GONNEHEM
Of Gonnehem it shall be said
That we arrived there late and worn
With marching, and were given a bed
Of lovely straw. And then at morn
On rising from deep sleep saw dangle--
Shining in the sun to spangle,
The all-blue heaven--branch loads of red
Bright cherries which we bought to eat,
Dew-wet, dawn-cool, and sunny-sweet.
There was a tiny court-yard too,
Wherein one shady walnut grew.
Unruffled peace the farm encloses--
I wonder if beneath that tree,
The meditating hens still be.
Are the white walls now gay with roses?
Does the small fountain yet run free?
I wonder if that dog still dozes....
Some day we must go back to see.
THE REST FARM
Into this quiet place
Of peace we come.
The War God hides his face,
His mouth is dumb.
All reckless, wild decrees
His lips repeat,
Are hushed by a little breeze
In waving wheat.
And, like the penance-peace
In a heart forlorn,
Thrills the word of the trees--
The sigh of the corn.
BALLADE OF BEELZEBUB, GOD OF FLIES
Some men there are will not abide a rat
Within their bivvy. If one chance to peep
At them through little beady eyes, then pat,
They throw a boot and rouse a mate from sleep
To hunt the thing, and on its head they heap
Curses quite inappropriate to its size.
I care for none of these, but broad and deep
I curse Beelzebub--the God of Flies.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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