<html xmlns:tei="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0"><body><h1 align="center" class="head">Summer in England, 1914</h1><div class="stanza"><p class="line"><span class="smallcaps">On</span> London fell a clearer light;</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Caressing pencils of the sun</p><p class="line">Defined the distances, the white</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Houses transfigured one by one,</p><p class="line">The "long, unlovely street" impearled.</p><p class="line">O what a sky has walked the world!</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Most happy year! And out of town</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">The hay was prosperous, and the wheat;</p><p class="line">The silken harvest climbed the down;</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Moon after moon was heavenly sweet,</p><p class="line">Stroking the bread within the sheaves,</p><p class="line">Looking twixt apples and their leaves.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">And while this rose made round her cup,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">The armies died convulsed; and when</p><p class="line">This chaste young silver sun went up</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Softly, a thousand shattered men,</p><p class="line">One wet corruption, heaped the plain,</p><p class="line">After a league-long throb of pain.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Flower following tender flower, and birds,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">And berries; and benignant skies</p><p class="line">Made thrive the serried flocks and herds.</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Yonder are men shot through the eyes,</p><p class="line">And children crushed. Love, hide thy face</p><p class="line">From man's unpardonable race.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="subhead"><em>A Reply</em></p><p class="line">Who said "No man hath greater love than this</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">To die to serve his friend?"</p><p class="line">So these have loved us all unto the end.</p><p class="line">Chide thou no more, O thou unsacrificed!</p><p class="line">The soldier dying dies upon a kiss,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">The very kiss of Christ.</p></div><p class="byline">-- Alice Meynell.</p></body></html> · Great War