For Music

    Death in the cold grey morning
    Came to the man where he lay;
    And the wind shivered, and the tree shuddered
    And the dawn was grey.

    And the face of the man was grey in the dawn,
    And the watchers by the bed
    Knew, as they heard the shaking of the leaves,
    That the man was dead.

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

In The Park

John Collings Squire, Sir, Simple Poetry

Interior

John Collings Squire, Sir, Simple Poetry

The March

John Collings Squire, Sir, Simple Poetry

Song

John Collings Squire, Sir, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

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 March

    I heard a voice that cried, "Make way for those who died!"
    And all the coloured crowd like ghosts at morning fled;
    And down the waiting road, rank after rank there strode,
    In mute and measured march a hundred thousand dead.

    A hundred thousand dead, with firm and noiseless tread,
    All shadowy-grey yet solid, with faces grey and ghast,
    And by the house they went, and all their brows were bent
    Straight forward; and they passed, and passed, and passed, and passed.

    But O there came a place, and O there came a face,
    That clenched my heart to see it, and sudden turned my way;
    And in the Face that turned I saw two eyes that burned,
    Never-forgotten eyes, and they had things to say.

    Like desolate stars they shone one mome...

John Collings Squire, Sir

Behind The Lines

    The wind of evening cried along the darkening trees,
    Along the darkening trees, heavy with ancient pain,
    Heavy with ancient pain from faded centuries,
    From faded centuries....    O foolish thought and vain!

    O foolish thought and vain to think the wind could know,
    To think the wind could know the griefs of men who died,
    The griefs of men who died and mouldered long ago:
    "And mouldered long ago," the wind of evening cried.

John Collings Squire, Sir

A Day

    I. MORNING

    The village fades away
    Where I last night came,
    Where they housed me and fed me
    And never asked my name.

    The sun shines bright, my step is light,
    I, who have no abode,
    Jeer at the stuck, monotonous
    Black posts along the road.


    II. MIDDAY

    The wood is still,
    As here I sit
    My heart drinks in
    The peace of it.

    A something stirs
    I know not where,
    Some quiet spirit
    In the air.

    O tall straight stems!
    O cool deep green!
    O hand unfelt!
    O face unseen!


    III. EVENING

    The evening closes in,
    As down this last long lane
    I plod; there patter round
    First ...

John Collings Squire, Sir

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...

John Collings Squire, Sir

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