Explore "Summer in England, 1914" by Alice Meynell on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
On London fell a clearer light;
Caressing pencils of the sun
Defined the distances, the white
Houses transfigured one by one,
The "long, unlovely street" impearled.
O what a sky has walked the world!
Most happy year! And out of town
The hay was prosperous, and the wheat;
The silken harvest climbed the down: / Moon after moon was heavenly-sweet / Stroking the bread within the sheaves, / Looking 'twixt apples and their leaves.
And while this rose made round her cup, / The armies died convulsed. And when / This chaste young silver sun went up / Softly, a thousand shattered men, / One wet corruption, heaped the plain, / After a league-long throb of pain.
Flower following tender flower; and birds, / And berries; and benignant skies / Made thrive the serried flocks and herds. -- / Yonder are men shot through the eyes. / Love, hide thy face / From man's unpardonable race.
Who said "No man hath greater love than this, / To die to serve his friend"? / So these have loved us all unto the end.
Chide thou no more, O thou unsacrificed! / The soldier dying dies upon a kiss, / The very kiss of Christ.