Ivor Gurney Poems

Dawn comes up on London,
And night's undone.
Stars are routed
And street lamps outed.
...

I think the loathed minutes one by one
That tear and then go past are little worth
Save nearer to the blindness to the sun
...

Soft rain beats upon my windows
Hardly hammering
But by the great gusts guessed further off
Up by the bare moor and brambly headland
...

Long shines the line of wet lamps dark in gleaming,
The trees so still felt yet as strength not used,
...

The tiny daisies are
Not anything
Less dear than the great star
Riding in the west afar
...

Had I a song
I would sing it here
Four lined square shaped
...

Darkness has cheating swiftness
When the eyes rove
Opens and shuts in long avenues
That thought cannot prove.
...

Watching the dark my spirit rose in flood
On that most dearest Prelude of my delight.
The low-lying mist lifted its hood,
...

I cannot live with Beauty out of mind.
I search for her and desire her all the day;
...

We who praise poets with our labouring pen
And justify ourselves with laud of men
Have not the right to call our own our own,
...