Day breaks on England down the Kentish hills, Singing in the silence of the meadow-footing rills, Day of my dreams, O day! I saw them march from Dover, long ago, With a silver cross before them, singing low, Monks of Rome from their home where the blue seas break in foam, Augustine with his feet of snow. Noon strikes on England, noon on Oxford town, --Beauty she was statue cold--there's blood upon her gown: Noon of my dreams, O noon! Proud and godly kings had built her, long ago, With her towers and tombs and statues all arow, With her fair and floral air and the love that lingers there, And the streets where the great men go. Evening on the olden, the golden sea of Wales, When the first star shivers and the last wave pales: O evening dreams! There's a house that Britons walked in, long ago, Where now the springs of ocean fall and flow, And the dead robed in red and sea-lilies overhead Sway when the long winds blow. Sleep not, my country: though night is here, afar Your children of the morning are clamorous for war: Fire in the night, O dreams! Though she send you as she sent you, long ago, South to desert, east to ocean, west to snow, West of these out to seas colder than the Hebrides I must go Where the fleet of stars is anchored, and the young Star-captains glow. * * * * * WILFRID WILSON GIBSON THE GORSE In dream, again within the clean, cold hell Of glazed and aching silence he was trapped; And, closing in, the blank walls of his cell Crushed stifling on him ... when the bracken snapped, Caught in his clutching fingers; and he lay Awake upon his back among the fern, With free eyes travelling the wide blue day, Unhindered, unremembering; while a burn Tinkled and gurgled somewhere out of sight, Unheard of him; till suddenly aware Of its cold music, shivering in the light, He raised himself, and with far-ranging stare Looked all about him: and with dazed eyes wide Saw, still as in a numb, unreal dream, Black figures scouring a far hill-side, With now and then a sunlit rifle's gleam; And knew the hunt was hot upon his track: Yet hardly seemed to mind, somehow, just then ... But kept on wondering why they looked so black On that hot hillside, all those little men Who scurried round like beetles--twelve, all told ... He counted them twice over; and began A third time reckoning them, but could not hold His starved wits to the business, while they ran So brokenly, and always stuck at 'five' ... And 'One, two, three, four, five,' a dozen times He muttered ... 'Can you catch a fish alive?' Sang mocking echoes of old nursery rhymes Through the strained, tingling hollow of his head. And now, almost remembering, he was stirred To pity them; and wondered if they'd fed Since he had, or if, ever since they'd heard Two nights ago the sudden signal-gun That raised alarm of his escape, they too Had fasted in the wilderness, and run With nothing but the thirsty wind to chew,