A Dog's Death

    The loose earth falls in the grave like a peaceful regular breathing;
    Too like, for I was deceived a moment by the sound:
    It has covered the heap of bracken that the gardener laid above him;
    Quiet the spade swings: there we have now his mound.

    A patch of fresh earth on the floor of the wood's renewing chamber:
    All around is grass and moss and the hyacinth's dark green sprouts:
    And oaks are above that were old when his fiftieth sire was a puppy:
    And far away in the garden I hear the children's shouts.

    Their joy is remote as a dream.    It is strange how we buy our sorrow
    For the touch of perishing things, idly, with open eyes;
    How we give our hearts to brutes that will die in a few seasons,
    Nor trouble what we do when we do it; nor would have it otherwise.

John Collings Squire, Sir

John Collings Squire, also known as Sir John Squire, was an influential British poet, writer, historian, and influential literary editor of the early 20th century. He is best known for his role as editor of the London Mercury, a powerful literary journal of the time. Squire was a leading figure in the Georgian poetry movement, which sought to return English poetry to its traditional form and diction.

John Collings Squire, Sir

The Ship

John Collings Squire, Sir, Simple Poetry

The Mind Of Man

John Collings Squire, Sir, Simple Poetry

Interior

John Collings Squire, Sir, Simple Poetry

To Theodore De Banville, 1842 - (Twelve Translations From Charles Baudelaire)

John Collings Squire, Sir, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

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To A Bull-Dog

    (W. H. S., Capt. [Acting Major] R.F.A.; killed April 12, 1917)

    We sha'n't see Willy any more, Mamie,
    He won't be coming any more:
    He came back once and again and again,
    But he won't get leave any more.

    We looked from the window and there was his cab,
    And we ran downstairs like a streak,
    And he said "Hullo, you bad dog," and you crouched to the floor,
    Paralysed to hear him speak,

    And then let fly at his face and his chest
    Till I had to hold you down,
    While he took off his cap and his gloves and his coat.
    And his bag and his thonged Sam Browne.

    We went upstairs to the studio,
    The three of us, just as of old,
    And you lay down and I sat and talked to him
    As round the...

John Collings Squire, Sir

Winter Nightfall

    The old yellow stucco
    Of the time of the Regent
    Is flaking and peeling:
    The rows of square windows
    In the straight yellow building
    Are empty and still;
    And the dusty dark evergreens
    Guarding the wicket
    Are draped with wet cobwebs,
    And above this poor wilderness
    Toneless and sombre
    Is the flat of the hill.

    They said that a colonel
    Who long ago died here
    Was the last one to live here:
    An old retired colonel,
    Some Fraser or Murray,
    I don't know his name;
    Death came here and summoned him,
    And the shells of him vanished
    Beyond all speculation;
    And silence resumed here,
    Silence and emptiness,
    And nobody came.

    Was it ...

John Collings Squire, Sir

The Child's Grave

I came to the churchyard where pretty Joy lies
    On a morning in April, a rare sunny day;
Such bloom rose around, and so many birds' cries
    That I sang for delight as I followed the way.

I sang for delight in the ripening of spring,
    For dandelions even were suns come to earth;
Not a moment went by but a new lark took wing
    To wait on the season with melody's mirth.

Love-making birds were my mates all the road,
    And who would wish surer delight for the eye
Than to see pairing goldfinches gleaming abroad
    Or yellowhammers sunning on paling and sty?

And stocks in the almswomen's garden were blown,
    With rich Easter roses each side of the door;
The lazy white owls in the glade cool and lone
    Paid calls on their cousins in the e...

Edmund Blunden

On A Friend Recently Dead

    I

    The stream goes fast.
    When this that is the present is the past,
    'Twill be as all the other pasts have been,
    A failing hill, a daily dimming scene,
    A far strange port with foreign life astir
    The ship has left behind, the voyager
    Will never return to; no, nor see again,
    Though with a heart full of longing he may strain
    Back to project himself, and once more count
    The boats, the whitened walls that climbed the mount,
    Mark the cathedral's roof, the gathered spires,
    The vanes, the windows red with sunset's fires,
    The gap of the market-place, and watch again
    The coloured groups of women, and the men
    Lounging at ease along the low stone wall
    That fringed the harbour; and there beyond it all<...

John Collings Squire, Sir

Elegy

I vaguely wondered what you were about,
    But never wrote when you had gone away;
Assumed you better, quenched the uneasy doubt
    You might need faces, or have things to say.
    Did I think of you last evening? Dead you lay.
        O bitter words of conscience!
        I hold the simple message,
And fierce with grief the awakened heart cries out:
        'It shall not be to-day;

It is still yesterday; there is time yet!'
    Sorrow would strive backward to wrench the sun,
But the sun moves. Our onward course is set,
    The wake streams out, the engine pulses run
    Droning, a lonelier voyage is begun.
        It is all too late for turning,
        You are past all mortal signal,
There will be time for nothing but regret
        And the memo...

John Collings Squire, Sir

In An Orchard

    Airy and quick and wise
    In the shed light of the sun,
    You clasp with friendly eyes
    The thoughts from mine that run.

    But something breaks the link;
    I solitary stand
    By a giant gully's brink
    In some vast gloomy land.

    Sole central watcher, I
    With steadfast sadness now
    In that waste place descry
    'Neath the awful heavens how

    Your life doth dizzy drop
    A little foam of flame
    From a peak without a top
    To a pit without a name.

John Collings Squire, Sir