---

Robert Laurence Binyon - August Afternoon
Work rating: Low

Thump of a horse`s hoof behind the hedge;
 Long stripes of shadow, and green flame in the grass
 Between them; discrowned, glaucous poppy--pods
 On their tall stalks; a rose
 With its great thorns blood--red in the slant light;
 Round apples swelling on the apple--boughs:--
 Over these, over the rich quiet, comes
 Out of no--where a `plane in the high blue
 Driving its angry furrow across the sky,
 Outstrips the slow clouds, throbs, an urgent roar,
 Right overhead, and fiercely vanishes.
 The quiet has become strange. Like from pools
 A noiseless water issuing, memories,
 Surmises, apprehensions, traceless thoughts,
 Glide with brief visions on the mind, drifting
 From shadow into shadow; and then a pang
 Sudden as when a meteor scars the night:
 See where Christ`s blood streams in the firmament!
 Dead faces of the young, that see nothing...
 The unknown wounds, everywhere, everywhere...
 And then from the inner to the outer sense
 Returns the sun--warm quiet on the grass,
 The poppy charged with sleep, the red, red thorns,
 The stamping of the horse behind the hedge,
 The strong slow patience of the living earth
 And the apple ripening on the apple--tree
 Almost as if I felt it in my flesh.
Source
The script ran 0.001 seconds.