Classic Poem

Here in happy England the fields are steeped in quiet,
Saving for larks' song and drone of bumble bees;
The deep lanes are decked with roses all a-riot,
With bryony and vetch and ferny tapestries.
O here a maid would linger to hear the blackbird fluting,
And here a lad might pause by wind-berippled wheat,
The lovers in the bat's light would hear the brown owl hooting,
Before the latticed lights of home recalled their lagging feet.
. . . . . .
But over there, in France, the grass is torn and trodden,
Our pastures grow moon daisies, but theirs are strewn with lead.
The fertile, kindly fields are harassed and blood-sodden,
The sheaves they bear for harvesting will be our garnered dead.
But there the lads of England, in peril of advancing,
Have laid their splendid lives down, ungrudging of the cost;
The record — just their names here — means a moment's careless glancing,
But who can tell the promise, the fulfilment of our lost?
. . . . . .
Here in happy England the Summer pours her treasure
Of grasses, of flowers before our heedless feet.
The swallow-haunted streams meander at their pleasure
Through loosestrife and rushes and plumed meadow-sweet.
Yet how shall we forget them, the young men, the splendid,
Who left this golden heritage, who put the Summer by,
Who kept for us our England inviolate, defended,
But by their passing made for us December of July?