Robert Laurence Binyon

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...

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...

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 ...

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,

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:

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

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