First World War Poetry Digital Archive

The Lane

[THE LANE] by EDWARD THOMAS Some day, I think, there will be people enough In Froxfield to pick all the blackberries Out of the hedges of Green Lane, the straight Broad lane where now September hides herself In bracken and blackberry, harebell and dwarf gorse. Today, where yesterday a hundred sheep Were nibbling, halcyon bells shake to the sway Of waters that no vessel ever sailed . . . It is a kind of spring: the chaffinch tries His song. For heat it is like summer too. This might be winter's quiet. While the glint Of hollies dark in the swollen hedges lasts--- One mile---and those bells ring, little I know Or heed if time be still the same, until The lane ends and once more all is the same.

Citation

“The Lane,” 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 4, 2024, http://ww1lit.nsms.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit/collections/item/2958.

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