Break of Day

There seemed a smell of autumn in the airAt the bleak end of night; he shivered thereIn a dank, musty dug-out where he lay,Legs wrapped in sand-bags,--lumps of chalk and claySpattering his face. Dry-mouthed, he thought, "To-dayWe start the damned attack; and, Lord knows why,Zero's at nine; how bloody if I'm done inUnder the freedom of that morning sky!"And then he coughed and dozed, cursing the din.

Was it the ghost of autumn in that smellOf underground, or God's blank heart grown kind,That sent a happy dream to him in hell?--Where men are crushed like clods, and crawl to findSome crater for their wretchedness; who lieIn outcast immolation, doomed to dieFar from clean things or any hope of cheer,Cowed anger in their eyes, till darkness brimsAnd roars into their heads, and they can hearOld childish talk, and tags of foolish hymns.

He sniffs the chilly air; (his dreaming starts).He's riding in a dusty Sussex laneIn quiet September; slowly night departs;And he's a living soul, absolved from pain.Beyond the brambled fences where he goesAre glimmering fields with harvest piled in sheaves,And tree-tops dark against the stars grown pale;Then, clear and shrill, a distant farm-cock crows;And there's a wall of mist along the valeWhere willows shake their watery-sounding leaves.He gazes on it all, and scarce believesThat earth is telling its old peaceful tale;He thanks the blessed world that he was born ...Then, far away, a lonely note of the horn.

They're drawing the Big Wood! Unlatch the gate,And set Golumpus going on the grass:He knows the corner where it's best to waitAnd hear the crashing woodland chorus pass;The corner where old foxes make their trackTo the Long Spinney; that's the place to be.The bracken shakes below an ivied tree,And then a cub looks out; and "Tally-o-back!"He bawls, and swings his thong with volleying crack,--All the clean thrill of autumn in his blood,And hunting surging through him like a floodIn joyous welcome from the untroubled past;While the war drifts away, forgotten at last.

Now a red, sleepy sun above the rimOf twilight stares along the quiet weald,And the kind, simple country shines revealedIn solitudes of peace, no longer dim.The old horse lifts his face and thanks the light,Then stretches down his head to crop the green.All things that he has loved are in his sight;The places where his happiness has beenAre in his eyes, his heart, and they are good.Hark! there's the horn: they're drawing the Big Wood.