<html xmlns:tei="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0"><body><h1 align="center" class="head">Home Thoughts from Laventie</h1><div class="stanza"><p class="line"><span class="smallcaps">Green</span> gardens in Laventie!</p><p class="line">Soldiers only know the street</p><p class="line">Where the mud is churned and splashed about</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:4%">By battle-wending feet;</p><p class="line">And yet beside one stricken house there is a glimpse of grass --</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:4%">Look for it when you pass.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Beyond the church whose pitted spire</p><p class="line">Seems balanced on a strand</p><p class="line">Of swaying stone and tottering brick,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:4%">Two roofless ruins stand;</p><p class="line">And here, among the wreckage, where the back-wall should have been,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:4%">We found a garden green.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">The grass was never trodden on,</p><p class="line">The little path of gravel</p><p class="line">Was overgrown with celandine;</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:4%">No other folk did travel</p><p class="line">Along its weedy surface but the nimble-footed mouse,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:4%">Running from house to house.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">So all along the tender blades</p><p class="line">Of soft and vivid grass</p><p class="line">We lay, nor heard the limber wheels</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:4%">That pass and ever pass</p><p class="line">In noisy continuity until their stony rattle</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:4%">Seems in itself a battle.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">At length we rose up from this ease</p><p class="line">Of tranquil happy mind,</p><p class="line">And searched the garden's little length</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:4%">Some new pleasaunce to find;</p><p class="line">And there some yellow daffodils, and jasmine hanging high,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:4%">Did rest the tired eye.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">The fairest and most fragrant</p><p class="line">Of the many sweets we found</p><p class="line">Was a little bush of Daphne flower</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:4%">Upon a mossy mound,</p><p class="line">And so thick were the blossoms set and so divine the scent,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:4%">That we were well content.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Hungry for Spring I bent my head,</p><p class="line">The perfume fanned my face,</p><p class="line">And all my soul was dancing</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:4%">In that lovely little place,</p><p class="line">Dancing with a measured step from wrecked and shattered towns</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:4%">Away... upon the Downs.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">I saw green banks of daffodil,</p><p class="line">Slim poplars in the breeze,</p><p class="line">Great tan-brown hares in gusty March</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:4%">A-courting on the leas.</p><p class="line">And meadows, with their glittering streams -- and silver-scurrying dace --</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:4%">Home, what a perfect place!</p></div><p class="byline">E. Wyndham Tennant</p></body></html> · Great War