_From Amiens to Abbeville_ _My swollen waters race,_ _And silver-veined by many a rill_ _Green hamlets thrive apace._ _From Amiens to Abbeville_ _I labour at the listless mill,_ _And tempt the nodding daffodil_ _To blur my open face._ _But south of Amiens I flow_ _Past dumb Peronne and Brie,_ _The peopled land I used to know_ _Now all belongs to me._ _Yet phantom armies come and go,_ _And shadows hurry to and fro;_ _Again my seething battles grow_ _In murdered Picardy._ Behold the mother of a soil forlorn; I suckled towns, and fed the forest land, Behold my shattered villages and mourn How should I understand? Why are those huts o’erpatched like dappled kine, What are those weary men in blue and brown, And humming craft that search my sinuous line; Why should my name re-echo with renown Past every phantom town? But still my lily-breasted waters shine, And still I chant my shadowy ripples down. From peace through war my waters flow, To peace again at sea, The peopled land I used to know Now all belongs to me. Though battling armies come and go, I toil and spin, I reap and sow, And poppy-mantled meadows blow In murdered Picardy. My eddies bear the clinging scent of lime To sweeten clouds of plume-tossed meadowsweet; My meadow grasses nestle with the thyme And flowering rushes tower in the heat. Low-brushing swifts and swallows splashed with white O’er flash my laden mirrors slow and deep That bear swift-merging canopies of sleep. Until the growing light Has chased marauding owls, and butterflies, Born of blue-woven skies, Flutter away like hare-bells spurred to flight. But who are these? The powdered butterfly Outshines that air leviathan that swings In rigid curves adown the barren sky, With cloudy satellites about her wings. And I have seen Dark horsemen ride with spears of tapered steel; And bellowing guns beneath the far balloons. And once a ponderous slug bedecked in green Crept, in the waning moon’s Still-darkening gloom, and at her giant heel White-gleaming, ran a train of hooded cars.... I triumph, triumph, search my sinuous line Amid the snarling impotence of wars. Turn where you will. Look, there a signboard shows The lair of guns; already round the sign White trumpeting convolvuli entwine Their clinging arms, across the placard blows A quiet-breathing rose. And still my lily-breasted waters shine And loud my chanting grows: