Laurie Lee Poems
- 1. April Rise
If ever I saw blessing in the air
I see it now in this still early day
Where lemon-green the vaporous morning drips
Wet sunlight on the powder of my eye.
... - 2. Milkmaid
The girl's far treble, muted to the heat,
calls like a fainting bird across the fields
to where her flock lies panting for her voice,
their black horns buried deep in marigolds.
... - 3. Apples
Behold the applesâ?? rounded worlds:
juice-green of July rain,
the black polestar of flowers, the rind
mapped with its crimson stain.
... - 4. Town Owl
On eves of cold, when slow coal fires,
rooted in basements, burn and branch,
brushing with smoke the city air;
When quartered moons pale in the sky,
... - 5. The Long War For Peace Day
Less passionate the long war throws
its burning thorn about all men,
caught in one grief, we share one wound,
and cry one dialect of pain.
... - 6. Home From Abroad
Far-fetched with tales of other worlds and ways,
My skin well-oiled with wines of the Levant,
I set my face into a filial smile
To greet the pale, domestic kiss of Kent.
... - 7. Christmas Landscape
Tonight the wind gnaws
With teeth of glass,
The jackdaw shivers
In caged branches of iron,
... - 8. Winter Poem
Tonight the wind gnaws with teeth of glass
The jackdaw shivers in caged branches of iron
The stars have talons
There is hunger in the mouth of vole and badger
...
