Robert Laurence Binyon

In a vision of the night I saw them,
In the battles of the night
'Mid the roar and the reeling shadows of blood They were moving like light,
Light of the reason, guarded Tense within the will,

ME then, as ever, like the wind at morning
Joyous,
O Youth, in the aged world
Freshness to feel the eternities around it,  Rain, stars and clouds, light and the sacred dew

High on the mountain, shrouded in vast trees,
The stillness had the chastity of frost
I trod the fallen pallors of the moon
The path was paven stone:

The rain was ending, and
Lifting the leaden skies
It shone upon ceiling and
And dazzled a child's eyes

She was a city of patience; of proud name,
Dimmed by neglecting Time; of beauty and loss;
Of acquiescence in the creeping moss
But on a sudden fierce destruction came Tigerishly pouncing: thunderbolt and flame Showered on her street...

A far look in absorbed eyes, unaware Of what some gazer thrills to gather there;
A happy voice, singing to itself apart,
That pulses new blood through a listener's heart;
Old fortitude; and, 'mid an hour of dread,

The winds of all the world bring agonies,
Day by day, hour by hour, into our ears;
Not only desolation, blood, and tears,
But cloud on cloud of suffocating lies

I know that there are slumbrous woods beyond On islands of white marges, where the tide Floods upward, blue as a kingfisher's wing,
And sails, like wishes of a reverie,
Shine to the wind that fills them, far inland
I know that there...

Now in thy splendour go before us
Spirit of England, ardent-eyed,
Enkindle this dear earth that bore
In the hour of peril purified

I Now is the time for the burning of the leaves
They go to the fire; the nostril pricks with smoke Wandering slowly into a weeping mist
Brittle and blotched, ragged and rotten sheaves
A flame seizes the smouldering ruin and bites On...

In the high leaves of a walnut,
On the very topmost boughs,
A boy that climbed the branching bole His cradled limbs would house
On the airy bed that rocked him Long, idle hours he'd lie Alone with white clouds sailing The warm blue ...

Trefoil and Quatrefoil
What shaped those destinied small silent
Or numbered them under the soil
I lift my dazzled