He sniffs the chilly air; (his dreaming starts). He's riding in a dusty Sussex lane In quiet September; slowly night departs; And he's a living soul, absolved from pain. Beyond the brambled fences where he goes Are glimmering fields with harvest piled in sheaves, And tree-tops dark against the stars grown pale; Then, clear and shrill, a distant farm-cock crows; And there's a wall of mist along the vale Where willows shake their watery-sounding leaves. He gazes on it all, and scarce believes That earth is telling its old peaceful tale; He thanks the blessed world that he was born ... Then, far away, a lonely note of the horn. They're drawing the Big Wood! Unlatch the gate, And set Golumpus going on the grass: _He_ knows the corner where it's best to wait And hear the crashing woodland chorus pass; The corner where old foxes make their track To the Long Spinney; that's the place to be. The bracken shakes below an ivied tree, And then a cub looks out; and "Tally-o-back!" He bawls, and swings his thong with volleying crack,-- All the clean thrill of autumn in his blood, And hunting surging through him like a flood In joyous welcome from the untroubled past; While the war drifts away, forgotten at last. Now a red, sleepy sun above the rim Of twilight stares along the quiet weald, And the kind, simple country shines revealed In solitudes of peace, no longer dim. The old horse lifts his face and thanks the light, Then stretches down his head to crop the green. All things that he has loved are in his sight; The places where his happiness has been Are in his eyes, his heart, and they are good. * * * * * Hark! there's the horn: they're drawing the Big Wood. A WORKING PARTY Three hours ago he blundered up the trench, Sliding and poising, groping with his boots; Sometimes he tripped and lurched against the walls With hands that pawed the sodden bags of chalk. He couldn't see the man who walked in front; Only he heard the drum and rattle of feet Stepping along the trench-boards,--often splashing Wretchedly where the sludge was ankle-deep. Voices would grunt, "Keep to your right,--make way!" When squeezing past the men from the front-line: White faces peered, puffing a point of red; Candles and braziers glinted through the chinks And curtain-flaps of dug-outs; then the gloom Swallowed his sense of sight; he stooped and swore Because a sagging wire had caught his neck. A flare went up; the shining whiteness spread And flickered upward, showing nimble rats, And mounds of glimmering sand-bags, bleached with rain; Then the slow, silver moment died in dark.