John Freeman Poems

Small yellow stones
That, lifted, through my idle fingers fall
Leaving a score--
And these I toss between the parted lips
...

The wind fought with the angry trees.
All morning in immense unease
They wrestled, and ruin strawed the ground,
...

O thou, my Muse,
Beside the Kentish River running
Through water-meads where dews
Tossed flashing at thy feet
...

The fire burns low
Where it has burned ages ago,
Sinks and sighs
As it has done to a hundred eyes
...

So! the fierce acid licks the silver clean,
Unwonted plain the superscription's seen
Round the cleared head; the metal, virgin-bright,
...

Let no tears fall
If then they fell not.
If eyes told nothing,
Now let them tell not.
...

Now come,
And I that moment will forget you.
Sit here
And in your eyes I shall not see you.
...

Yet when I am alone my eyes say, Come.
My hands cannot be still.
In that first moment all my senses ache,
...

If ever Thou didst love me, love me now,
When round me beat the flattering vans of life,
Kissing with rapid breath my lifted brow.
...

Then first I knew, seeing that bent grey head,
How England honours all her thousand dead.
...