Ivor Gurney Poems

Out of my sorrow
have I made these songs,
Out of my sorrow;
...

Out of the blackthorn edges
I caught a tune
And before it could vanish, seized
It, wrote it down.
...

Why have you made life so intolerable
And set me between four walls, where I am able
Not to escape meals without prayer, for that is possible
...

Only the wanderer
Knows England's graces,
Or can anew see clear
Familiar faces.
...

Severn has kilns set all along her banks
Where the thin reeds grow and rushes in ranks;
And the carts tip rubbish there from the town;
...

One would remember still
Meadows and low hill
Laventie was, as to the line and elm row
...

Leckhampton chimney has fallen down
The birds of Crickley have cried it, it is known in the town,
...

Through miles of mud we travelled, and by sick valleys-
The Valley of Death at last – most evil alleys,
...

Larches are most fitting small red hills
That rise like swollen antheaps likeably
And modest before big things like near Malvern
...

From the racked substance of the earth comes the plant and
That with heat and the night frost is tortured:
...