Prose & Poetry - The Muse in Arms - Reverie
First published in London
in November 1917 and reprinted in February 1918 The Muse in Arms
comprised, in the words of editor E. B. Osborne:
"A collection of war poems, for the most part written in the field of action, by seamen, soldiers, and flying men who are serving, or have served, in the Great War".
Below is one of seven poems featured within The Mother Land section of the collection.
You can access other poems within the section via the sidebar to the right.
Reverie
by William Noel Hodgson
At home they see on Skiddaw
His royal purple lie,
And autumn up in Newlands
Arrayed in russet die,
Or under burning woodland
The still lake's gramarye.
And far off and grim and sable
The menace of the Gable
Lifts up his stark aloofness
Against the western sky.
At vesper-time in Durham
The level evening falls
Upon the shadowy river
That slides by ancient walls,
Where out of crannied turrets
The mellow belfry calls.
And there sleep brings forgetting
And morning no regretting,
And love is laughter-wedded
To health in happy halls.
A Flechette was an anti-personnel dart dropped from an aircraft.
- Did you know?
