<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=523151" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Grass From The Battle-Field</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">Small sheaf<br>Of withered grass, that hast not yet revealed<br>Thy story, lo! I see thee once more green<br>And growing on the battle-field,<br>On that last day that ever thou didst grow!</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>I look down thro' thy blades and see between<br>A little lifted clover leaf<br>Stand like a cresset: and I know<br>If this were morn there should be seen<br>In its chalice such a gem<br>As decks no mortal diadem<br>Poised with a lapidary skill<br>Which merely living doth fulfil<br>And pass the exquisite strain of subtlest human will.<br>But in the sun it lifteth up<br>A dry unjewelled cup,<br>Therefore I see that day doth not begin;<br>And yet I know its beaming lord<br>Hath not yet passed the hill of noon,<br>Or thy lush blades<br>Would be more dry and thin,<br>And every blade a thirsty sword<br>Edged with the sharp desire that soon<br>Should draw the silver blood of all the shades.<br>I feel 't is summer. This whereon I stand<br>Is not a hill, nor, as I think, a vale;<br>The soil is soft upon the generous land,<br>Yet not as where the meeting streams take hand<br>Under the mossy mantle of the dale.<br>Such grass is for the meadow. If I try<br>To lift my heavy eyelids, as in dreams<br>A power is on them, and I know not why.<br>Thou art but part; the whole is unconfest:<br>Beholding thee I long to know the rest.<br>As one expands the bosom with a sigh,<br>I stretch my sight's horizon; but it seems,<br>Ere it can widen round the mystery,<br>To close in swift contraction, like the breast.<br>The air is held, as by a charm,<br>In an enforcèd silence, as like sound<br>As the dead man the living. 'T is so still,<br>I listen for it loud.<br>And when I force my eyes from thy sole place<br>And see a wider space,<br>Above, around,<br>In ragged glory like a torn<br>And golden-natured cloud,<br>O'er the dim field a living smoke is warm;<br>As in a city on a sabbath morn<br>The hot and summer sunshine goes abroad<br>Swathed in the murky air,<br>As if a god<br>Enrobed himself in common flesh and blood,<br>Our heavy flesh and blood,<br>And here and there<br>As unaware<br>Thro' the dull lagging limbs of mortal make,<br>That keep unequal time, the swifter essence brake.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>But hark a bugle horn!<br>And, ere it ceases, such a shock<br>As if the plain were iron, and thereon<br>An iron hammer, heavy as a hill,<br>Swung by a monstrous force, in stroke came down<br>And deafened Heaven. I feel a swound<br>Of every sense bestunned.<br>The rent ground seems to rock,<br>And all the definite vision, in such wise<br>As a dead giant borne on a swift river,<br>Seems sliding off for ever,<br>When my reviving eyes,<br>As one that holds a spirit by his eye<br>With set inexorable stare,<br>Fix thee: and so I catch, as by the hair,<br>The form of that great dream that else had drifted by.<br>I know not what that form may be;<br>The lock I hold is all I see,<br>And thou, small sheaf! art all the battle-field to me.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>The wounded silence hath not time to heal<br>When see! upon thy sod<br>The round stroke of a charger's heel<br>With echoing thunder shod!<br>As the night-lightning shows<br>A mole upon a momentary face,<br>So, as that gnarled hoof strikes the indented place,<br>I see it, and it goes!<br>And I hear the squadrons trot thro' the heavy shell and shot,<br>And wheugh! but the grass is gory!<br>Forward ho! blow to blow, at the foe in they go,<br>And 'tis hieover heigho for glory!</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>The rushing storm is past,<br>But hark! upon its track the far drums beat,<br>And all the earth that at thy roots thou hast<br>Stirs, shakes, shocks, sounds, with quick strong tramp of feet<br>In time unlike the last.<br>Footing to tap of drum<br>The charging columns come;<br>And as they come their mighty martial sound<br>Blows on before them as a flaming fire<br>Blows in the wind; for, as old Mars in ire<br>Strode o'er the world encompassed in a cloud,<br>So the swift legion, o'er the quaking ground,<br>Strode in a noise of battle. Nigh and nigher<br>I heard it, like the long swell gathering loud<br>What-time a land-wind blowing from the main<br>Blows to the burst of fury and is o'er,<br>As if an ocean on one fatal shore<br>Fell in a moment whole, and threw its roar<br>Whole to the further sea: and as the strain<br>Of my strong sense cracked in the deafened ear,<br>And all the rushing tumult of the plain<br>Topped its great arch above me, a swift foot<br>Was struck between thy blades to the struck root,<br>And lifted: as into a sheath<br>A sudden sword is thrust and drawn again<br>Ere one can gasp a breath.<br>I was so near,<br>I saw the wrinkles of the leather grain,<br>The very cobbler's stitches, and the wear<br>By which I knew the wearer trod not straight;<br>An honest shoe it seemed that had been good<br>To mete the miles of any country lane,<br>Nor did one sign explain<br>'T was made to wade thro' blood.<br>My shoe, soft footstooled on this hearth, so far<br>From strife, hath such a patch, and as he past<br>His broken shoelace whipt his eager haste.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>An honest shoe, good faith! that might have stood<br>Upon the threshold of a village inn<br>And welcomed all the world: or by the byre<br>And barn gone peaceful till the day closed in,<br>And, scraped at eve upon some homely gate,<br>Ah, Heaven! might sit beside a cottage fire<br>And touch the lazy log to softer flames than war.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Long, long, thou wert alone,<br>I thought thy days were done,<br>Flat as ignoble grass that lies out mown<br>By peaceful hands in June, I saw thee lie.<br>A worm crawled o'er thee, and the gossamer<br>That telegraphs Queen Mab to Oberon,<br>Lengthening his living message, passed thee by.<br>But rain fell: and thy strawed blades one by one<br>Began to stir and stir.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>And as some moorland bird<br>Whom the still hunter's stalking steps have stirred,<br>When he stands mute, and nothing more is heard,<br>With slow succession and reluctant art<br>Grows upward from her bed,<br>Each move a muffled start,<br>And thro' the silent autumn covert red<br>Uplifts a throbbing head<br>That times the ambushed hunter's thudding heart;<br>Or as a snow-drop bending low<br>Beneath a flake of other snow<br>Thaws to its height when spring winds melt the skies,<br>And drip by drip doth mete a measured rise;</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Or as the eyelids of a child's fair eyes<br>Lift from her lower lashes slow and pale<br>To arch the wonder of a fairy tale;<br>So thro' the western light<br>I saw thee slowly rearing to thy height.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Then when thou hadst regained thy state,<br>And while a meadow-spider with three lines<br>Enschemed thy three tall pillars green,<br>And made the enchanted air between<br>Mortal with shining signs,<br>(For the loud carrion-flies were many and late),</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Betwixt thy blades and stems<br>There fell a hand,<br>Soft, small and white, and ringed with gold and gems;<br>And on those stones of price<br>I saw a proud device,<br>And words I could not understand.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Idly, one by one,<br>The knots of anguish came undone,<br>The fingers stretched as from a cramp of woe,<br>And sweet and slow<br>Moved to gracious shapes of rest,<br>Like a curl of soft pale hair<br>Drying in the sun.<br>And then they spread,<br>And sought a wonted greeting in the air,<br>And strayed<br>Between thy blades, and with each blade<br>As with meeting fingers played<br>And tresses long and fair.<br>Then again at placid length it lay,<br>Stretched as to kisses of accustomed lips;<br>And again in sudden strain<br>Sprang, falling clenched with pain,<br>Till the knuckles white,<br>Thro' the evening gray,<br>Whitened and whitened as the snowy tips<br>Of far hills glimmer thro' the night.<br>But who shall tell that agony<br>That beat thee, beat thee into bloody clay<br>Red as the sards and rubies of the rings;<br>As when a bird, fast by the fowler's net,<br>A moment doth forget<br>His fetters, and with desperate wings<br>A-sudden springs and falls,<br>And (while from happy clouds the skylark calls)<br>Still feebler springs<br>And fainter falls,<br>And still untamed upon the gory ground<br>With failing strength renews his deadly wound?<br>At length the struggle ceased; and my fixed eye<br>Perceived that every finger wan<br>Did quiver like the quivering fan<br>Of a dying butterfly,<br>Nor long I watched until<br>Even the humming in the air was still.<br>Then I gazed and gazed,<br>Nor once my aching eyeballs raised<br>Till a poor bird that had a meadow nest<br>Came down, and like a shadow ran<br>Among the shadowy grass.<br>I followed with mine eyes; and with a strain<br>Pursued her, till six cubits' length beyond<br>Thy central sheaf, I found<br>A sight I could not pass.<br>The hacked and haggard head<br>Of a huge war-horse dead.<br>The evening haze hung o'er him like a breath,<br>And still in death<br>He stretched drawn lips of rage that grinned in vain;<br>A sparrow chirped upon<br>His wound, and in his dying slaver fed,<br>Or picked those teeth of stone<br>That bit with lifeless jaws the purple tongue of pain.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>But I remembered that dead hand<br>I left to trace the childless lark,<br>And back o'er those six cubits of grass-land,<br>Blade by blade, and stalk by stalk,<br>As one doth walk<br>Who, mindful, counts by dark<br>Along the garden palings to the gate,<br>I felt along the vision to where late<br>There lay that dead hand white;<br>But now methought that there was something more<br>Than when I looked before,<br>And what was more was sweeter than the rest;<br>As when upon the moony half of night<br>Aurora lays a living light,<br>Softer than moonshine, yet more bright.<br>And as I looked I was aware<br>Another hand was on the hand,<br>A smaller hand, more fair<br>But not more white, as is the warm delight<br>That curves and curls and coyly glows<br>About the blushing heart of the white rose<br>More fair but not more white<br>Than those broad beauties that expand<br>And fall, and falling blanch the morning air.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Both hands lay motionless,<br>The living on the dead. But by and by<br>The living hand began to move and press<br>The cold dead flesh, and took its silent way<br>So often o'er the unrespective clay,<br>In such long-drawn caress<br>Of pleading passion, such an ecstacy<br>Of supplicating touch, that as they lay<br>So like, so unlike, twined with the fond art<br>And all the dear delay<br>And dreadful patience of a desperate heart,<br>Methought that to the tenement<br>From which it lately went,<br>The naked life had come back, and did try<br>By every gate to enter. While I thought,<br>With sudden clutch of new intent<br>The living grasp had caught<br>The dead compliance. Slowly thro'<br>The dusky air she raised it, and aloft,<br>While all her fingers soft<br>And every starting vein<br>Tightened as in a rack of pain,<br>Held it one straining moment fixed and mute,<br>And let it go.<br>And with a thud upon the sod,<br>It fell like falling fruit.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Then there came a cry,<br>Tearless, bloodless, dry<br>Of every sap of sorrow but its own-<br>It had no likeness among living cries;<br>And to my heart my streaming blood was blown<br>As if before my eyes<br>A dead man sprang up dead, and dead fell down.<br>The carrion-hunting winds that prowl the wold,<br>Frenzied for prey, sweep in and bear it on,<br>Far, far and further thro' the shrieking cold,<br>And still the yelling pack devour it as they run.<br>And silence, like a want of air,<br>Was round me, and my sense burned low,<br>And darkness darkened; and the glow<br>Of the living hand being gone,<br>The dead hand showed like a pale stone<br>Full fathom five<br>Under a quiet bay.<br>But still my sight did dive<br>To reach it where it lay,<br>And still the night grew dark, and by degrees<br>The dead thing glimmered with a drownèd light,<br>As faces seem and sink in depths of darkening seas.<br>Then, while yet<br>My set eyes saw it, as the sage doth set<br>His glass to some dim glimpse afar<br>That palpitates from mote to star,<br>It was touched and hid;<br>Touched and hid, as when a deep sea-weed<br>Hides some white sea-sorrow. All<br>My sight uprose, and all my soul<br>(As one who presses at the pane<br>When a city show goes by),<br>Crowded into the fixed eye,<br>And filled the starting ball.<br>Nor filled in vain.<br>I began to feel<br>The air had something to reveal.<br>Beyond the blank indifference<br>Was underlined another sense,<br>Was rained a gracious influence;<br>And tho' the darkness was so deep,<br>I knew it was not wholly dead,<br>Nor empty, as we feel in sleep<br>That some one standeth by the bed.<br>I beheld, as who should look<br>In trance upon a sealèd book.<br>I perceived that in a place<br>The night was lighter, as the face<br>Of an Indian Queen when love<br>Draws back the dark blood from her sick<br>Pale cheek<br>Behind the sable curtain that doth not move.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>No outer light was shed,<br>But as the mystery<br>Before my stronger will did slowly yield,<br>I saw, as in that dark hour before morn<br>When the shocks of harvest corn<br>Exhale about the midnight field<br>The wealth of yellow suns, and breathe a gentle day.<br>I saw the shape of a fair bended head,<br>And hair pale streaming long and low<br>Veiling the face I might not know,<br>And dabbling all the ground with sweet uncertain woe.<br>Much I questioned in my mind<br>Of her form and kind,<br>But my stern compelling eye<br>Brought no other answer from the air,<br>Nor did my rude hand dare<br>Profane that agony.<br>I watched apart<br>With such a sweet awe in my heart<br>As looks up dumb into the sky<br>When that goddess, lorn and lone,<br>Who slew grim winter like a polar bear,<br>And threw his immemorial white<br>Upon her granite throne,<br>Sits all unseen as Death,<br>Save for the loss of many a hidden star<br>And for the wintry mystery of her breath,<br>And at a far-sight that she sees,<br>Bowed by her great despair,<br>Bendeth her awful head upon her knees,<br>And all her wondrous hair<br>Dishevels golden down the northern night.<br>At length my weary gaze<br>Rents: and, haze in haze<br>Pervolving as in glad release,<br>I saw each separate shade<br>Slide from his place and fade,<br>And all the flowering dark did winter back<br>Into its undistinguished black.<br>So the sculptor doth in fancy make<br>His formèd image in the formless stone,<br>And while his spells compel,<br>Can see it there full well,<br>The ivory kernel in the ivory shell,<br>But shakes himself and all the god is gone.<br>Alas!<br>And have I seen thee but an hour?<br>And shalt thou never tell<br>Thy story, oh thou broken flower,<br>Thou midnight asphodel<br>Among the battle grass?</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Too soon! too soon!<br>But while I bid thee stay,<br>Night, like a cloud, dissolves into the day,<br>And from the city clock I hear the stroke of noon.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Sydney+Thompson+Dobell">Sydney Thompson Dobell</a><div class=q> <img src="https://www.citatepedia.ro/g/32share.png" style="float:left" alt="Share"> <script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=523151" data-title="Grass From The Battle-Field de Sydney Thompson Dobell" data-description="Small sheaf Of withered grass, that hast not yet revealed Thy story, lo! I see thee once more green And growing on the battle-field, On that last day that ever thou didst grow! I look down thro' thy blades and see between A little lifted clover ..."></div> </div> </div>

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