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Siegfried Sassoon - The Last Meeting
Work rating: Medium

I

Because the night was falling warm and still   
Upon a golden day at April’s end,   
I thought; I will go up the hill once more   
To find the face of him that I have lost,   
And speak with him before his ghost has flown
Far from the earth that might not keep him long.   
   
So down the road I went, pausing to see   
How slow the dusk drew on, and how the folk   
Loitered about their doorways, well-content   
With the fine weather and the waxing year.
The miller’s house, that glimmered with grey walls,   
Turned me aside; and for a while I leaned   
Along the tottering rail beside the bridge   
To watch the dripping mill-wheel green with damp.   
The miller peered at me with shadowed eyes
And pallid face: I could not hear his voice   
For sound of the weir’s plunging. He was old.   
His days went round with the unhurrying wheel.   
   
Moving along the street, each side I saw   
The humble, kindly folk in lamp-lit rooms;
Children at table; simple, homely wives;   
Strong, grizzled men; and soldiers back from war,   
Scaring the gaping elders with loud talk.   
   
Soon all the jumbled roofs were down the hill,   
And I was turning up the grassy lane
That goes to the big, empty house that stands   
Above the town, half-hid by towering trees.   
I looked below and saw the glinting lights:   
I heard the treble cries of bustling life,   
And mirth, and scolding; and the grind of wheels.
An engine whistled, piercing-shrill, and called   
High echoes from the sombre slopes afar;   
Then a long line of trucks began to move.   
   
It was quite still; the columned chestnuts stood   
Dark in their noble canopies of leaves.
I thought: ‘A little longer I’ll delay,   
And then he’ll be more glad to hear my feet,   
And with low laughter ask me why I’m late.   
The place will be too dim to show his eyes,   
But he will loom above me like a tree,
With lifted arms and body tall and strong.’   
   
There stood the empty house; a ghostly hulk   
Becalmed and huge, massed in the mantling dark,   
As builders left it when quick-shattering war   
Leapt upon France and called her men to fight. 
Lightly along the terraces I trod,   
Crunching the rubble till I found the door   
That gaped in twilight, framing inward gloom.   
An owl flew out from under the high eaves   
To vanish secretly among the firs,
Where lofty boughs netted the gleam of stars.   
I stumbled in; the dusty floors were strewn   
With cumbering piles of planks and props and beams;   
Tall windows gapped the walls; the place was free   
To every searching gust and jousting gale;
But now they slept; I was afraid to speak,   
And heavily the shadows crowded in.   
   
I called him, once; then listened: nothing moved:   
Only my thumping heart beat out the time.   
Whispering his name, I groped from room to room. 
   
Quite empty was that house; it could not hold   
His human ghost, remembered in the love   
That strove in vain to be companioned still.   
   
II

Blindly I sought the woods that I had known   
So beautiful with morning when I came 
Amazed with spring that wove the hazel twigs   
With misty raiment of awakening green.   
I found a holy dimness, and the peace   
Of sanctuary, austerely built of trees,   
And wonder stooping from the tranquil sky. 
   
Ah! but there was no need to call his name.   
He was beside me now, as swift as light.   
I knew him crushed to earth in scentless flowers,   
And lifted in the rapture of dark pines.   
‘For now,’ he said, ‘my spirit has more eyes
Than heaven has stars; and they are lit by love.   
My body is the magic of the world,   
And dawn and sunset flame with my spilt blood.   
My breath is the great wind, and I am filled   
With molten power and surge of the bright waves 
That chant my doom along the ocean’s edge.   
   
‘Look in the faces of the flowers and find   
The innocence that shrives me; stoop to the stream   
That you may share the wisdom of my peace.   
For talking water travels undismayed. 
The luminous willows lean to it with tales   
Of the young earth; and swallows dip their wings   
Where showering hawthorn strews the lanes of light.   
   
‘I can remember summer in one thought   
Of wind-swept green, and deeps of melting blue, 
And scent of limes in bloom; and I can hear   
Distinct the early mower in the grass,   
Whetting his blade along some morn of June.   
   
‘For I was born to the round world’s delight,   
And knowledge of enfolding motherhood,
Whose tenderness, that shines through constant toil,   
Gathers the naked children to her knees.   
In death I can remember how she came   
To kiss me while I slept; still I can share   
The glee of childhood; and the fleeting gloom 
When all my flowers were washed with rain of tears.   
   
‘I triumph in the choruses of birds,   
Bursting like April buds in gyres of song.   
My meditations are the blaze of noon   
On silent woods, where glory burns the leaves.
I have shared breathless vigils; I have slaked   
The thirst of my desires in bounteous rain   
Pouring and splashing downward through the dark.   
Loud storm has roused me with its winking glare,   
And voice of doom that crackles overhead. 
I have been tired and watchful, craving rest,   
Till the slow-footed hours have touched my brows   
And laid me on the breast of sundering sleep.’   
   
III

I know that he is lost among the stars,   
And may return no more but in their light. 
Though his hushed voice may call me in the stir   
Of whispering trees, I shall not understand.   
Men may not speak with stillness; and the joy   
Of brooks that leap and tumble down green hills   
Is faster than their feet; and all their thoughts 
Can win no meaning from the talk of birds.   
   
My heart is fooled with fancies, being wise;   
For fancy is the gleaming of wet flowers   
When the hid sun looks forth with golden stare.   
Thus, when I find new loveliness to praise,
And things long-known shine out in sudden grace,   
Then will I think: ‘He moves before me now.’   
So he will never come but in delight,   
And, as it was in life, his name shall be   
Wonder awaking in a summer dawn,
And youth, that dying, touched my lips to song. 


Flixécourt. May 1916.
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