POEM of the day

Edward Thomas’s benign rural scene is sketched with his usual pared-down eloquence. The poem dates to 1915, in the summer of which he enlisted in the Artists’ Rifles. He would be killed two years later at Arras.

SOWING

It was a perfect day For sowing; just As sweet and dry was the ground As tobacco-dust.

I tasted deep the hour Between the far Owl’s chuckling first soft cry And the first star.

A long stretched hour it was; Nothing undone Remained; the early seeds All safely sown.

And now, hark at the rain, Windless and light, Half a kiss, half a tear, Saying good-night.