First World War Poetry Digital Archive

That girl's clear eyes

[THAT GIRL'S CLEAR EYES] [SONNET 6] by EDWARD THOMAS That girl's clear eyes utterly concealed all Except that there was something to reveal. And what did mine say in the interval? No more: no less. They are but as a seal Not to be broken till after I am dead; And then vainly. Every one of us This morning at our tasks left nothing said, In spite of many words. We were sealed thus, Like tombs. Nor until now could I admit That all I cared for was the pleasure and pain I tasted in the stony square sunlit, Or the dark cloisters, or shade of airy plane, While music blazed and children, line after line, Marched past, hiding the 'Seventeen Thirty-Nine'.

Citation

“That girl's clear eyes,” by Thomas, Edward (1878-1917). Copyright Edward Thomas, 1979, reproduced under licence from Faber and Faber Ltd. via First World War Poetry Digital Archive, accessed May 1, 2024, http://ww1lit.nsms.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit/collections/item/2952.

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