The Word
There are so many things I have forgot,
That once were much to me, or that were not,
All lost, as is a childless woman's child And its child's children, in the undefiled Abyss of what can never be again.
I have forgot, too, names of the mighty men That fought and lost or won in the old wars,
Of kings and fiends and gods, and most of the stars.
Some things I have forgot that I forget.
But lesser things there are, remembered yet,
Than all the others.
One name that I have not — Though 'tis an empty thingless name — forgot Never can die because Spring after Spring Some thrushes learn to say it as they sing.
There is always one at midday saying it clear And tart — the name, only the name I hear.
While perhaps I am thinking of the elder scent That is like food, or while I am content With the wild rose scent that is like memory,
This name suddenly is cried out to me From somewhere in the bushes by a bird Over and over again, a pure thrush word.
Edward Thomas
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October
The green elm with the one great bough of gold Lets leaves into the grass slip, one by one, — The short hill grass, the mushrooms small milk-white, Harebell and scabious and tormentil, That blackberry and gorse, in dew and sun, Bow down to; and th...
Words
Out of us all That make rhymes Will you choose Sometimes - As the winds use A crack in a wall Or a drain, Their joy or their pain To whistle through - Choose me, You English words I know you:
But These Things Also
But these things also are Spring's -On banks by the roadside the Long-dead that is greyer Than all the Winter it was; The shell of a little snail
The Sign-Post
The dim sea glints chill The white sun is shy, And the skeleton weeds and the never-dry, Rough, long grasses keep white with
