Saturday 22 June 2013

"Pastoral" (1932) by Lilian Bowes Lyon

This field has buried men; is browed
With easy gold; day's Midas touch
Turns all to richness, only these were ploughed
By poverty under, pave a roofless church -
Kindle no saffron cloud.

There nothing want, are nameless loam;
But hungrier bones we knew as boys
Stand gauntly erect or swelter out their doom,
Live grist to the machine that still destroys;
And wolves sing harvest-home.

On evening lea unearth long sighs,
The lingering testament of their pain;
Tear open this sepulchred acre till they rise
And call Peace hypocrite, who dumbly stain
With blood her pastoral skies.

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