Tides: A Book of Poems

Chapter 18: THE GUEST

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About This Book

A sequence of lyric poems that range from intimate rural and seasonal scenes—Cotswold hills, gardens, ploughing—to meditations on love, memory, and wartime loss, with occasional civic and political reflections. The voice uses vivid pastoral imagery and simple, songlike rhythms to register everyday labour, landscape, and personal feeling, moving between quiet domestic observation and memorial or civic address. The collection is organized as short, standalone poems that juxtapose pastoral tranquility with the disruptions of modern conflict.

THE GUEST

Sometimes I feel that death is very near,
And, with half-lifted hand,
Looks in my eyes, and tells me not to fear,
But walk his friendly land,
Comrade with him, and wise
As peace is wise.

Then, greatly though my heart with pity moves
For dear imperilled loves,
I somehow know
That death is friendly so,
A comfortable spirit; one who takes
Long thought for all our sakes.

I wonder; will he come that friendly way,
That guest, or roughly in the appointed day?
And will, when the last drops of life are spilt,
My soul be torn from me,
Or, like a ship truly and trimly built,
Slip quietly to sea?