Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, SONG OF RENEWAL: 2, by JOHN FREEMAN


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

SONG OF RENEWAL: 2, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: I walked the fields when morning freshened
Last Line: "and ruined spring renews her flower and anxious eyes are once more glad."
Subject(s): Corpses; Death; Fields; Memory; Cadavers; Dead, The; Pastures; Meadows; Leas


I walked the fields when morning freshened. All the long and lovely hills
Were slipping thin clouds from their heads, shaking, lifting in the light—
The miles and miles of hills embayed and mounded high on either hand,
And before me the dark Malverns and the Welsh hills faint in sight.

The greening woods behind me made a bright reed-music in the wind
As I climbed the stile and crossed the field. I had forgot 'twas here
That lonely figure digged; but here his empty work unfinished lay,
His spade long-rusted in the running grass; and he was nowhere near.

Who was it now was treading near? A young man straight and bright who stepped
Against the sun's light up the hill, the sun's light in his eyes and hair.
He rose as fresh as grasses rise that the sun fingers after rain;
As he came near I heard him sing some half-forgot old country air.

Each looked at each, and to his eye I answered: "In that shallow trench
Last winter stood a man who digged a grave for the unburied past.
His silver spade heaped up the clay, but now the clay sinks back again,
And still, I know, the naked past unburied on the wide land's cast."

Each looked at each, and to my eye he answered: "Let the dead bury its dead!
Earth's lovely weed o'ercovers all the deaths of all her myriad brood.
Rain washes wise forgetfulness, and clouds their kindly darkness wave;
Morn springs again, and out of sleep man's generations rise renewed.

"See how the children cross the fields below, shouting and playing there.
One stoops for cowslips and one holds in cuplike hands their yellow flowers.
They would but dance in this vain grave with, 'Let's pretend this is a grave,
And I'm the digger, you the corpse, and Tom's the rector, and here's flowers.'"

Each looked at each. "It is too hard," he said, "to keep the past alive,
And live. Let the past be forgot as storms that leave the drenched earth sad,
Till after gray dawn dense clouds thin with the new wind, and men bestir,
And ruined spring renews her flower and anxious eyes are once more glad."





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