All day it has rained by Alun Lewis

All Day It Has Rained

All day it has rained, and we on the edge of the moorsHave sprawled in our bell-tents, moody and dull as boors,Groundsheets and blankets spread on the muddy groundAnd from the first grey wakening we have foundNo refuge from the skirmishing fine rainAnd the wind that made the canvas heave and flapAnd the taut wet guy-ropes ravel out and snap.All day the rain has glided, wave and mist and dream,Drenching the gorse and heather, a gossamer streamToo light to stir the acorns that suddenlySnatched from their cups by the wild south-westerlyPattered against the tent and our upturned dreaming faces.And we stretched out, unbuttoning our braces,Smoking a Woodbine, darning dirty socks,Reading the Sunday papers – I saw a foxAnd mentioned it in the note I scribbled home; –And we talked of girls and dropping bombs on Rome,And thought of the quiet dead and the loud celebritiesExhorting us to slaughter, and the herded refugees:Yet thought softly, morosely of them, and as indifferentlyAs of ourselves or those whom weFor years have loved, and will againTomorrow maybe love; but now it is the rainPossesses us entirely, the twilight and the rain.

And I can remember nothing dearer or more to my heartThan the children I watched in the woods on SaturdayShaking down burning chestnuts for the schoolyard’s merry play,Or the shaggy patient dog who followed meBy Sheet and Steep and up the wooded screeTo the Shoulder o’ Mutton where Edward Thomas brooded longOn death and beauty – till a bullet stopped his song.