The Going

(R.B.)


He's gone.
I do not understand.
I only know
That as he turned to go
And waved his hand,
In his young eyes a sudden glory shone,
And I was dazzled with a sunset glow,
And he was gone.

Wilfrid Wilson Gibson

Wilfrid Wilson Gibson was a British Georgian poet, known for his early association with Rupert Brooke and other poets like Siegfried Sassoon and Robert Graves. His works primarily dealt with the lives of ordinary people and reflected the grim realities of war. He is also recognized for his contribution to the war poetry genre, capturing the human cost of conflict with stark realism and empathy.

Wilfrid Wilson Gibson

Cruelty And Love

Wilfrid Wilson Gibson, Simple Poetry

Tenants

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For G.

Wilfrid Wilson Gibson, Simple Poetry

Quiet

Wilfrid Wilson Gibson, Simple Poetry

English

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Lament

We who are left, how shall we look again
Happily on the sun or feel the rain
Without remembering how they who went
Ungrudgingly and spent
Their lives for us loved, too, the sun and rain?

A bird among the rain-wet lilac sings -
But we, how shall we turn to little things
And listen to the birds and winds and streams
Made holy by their dreams,
Nor feel the heart-break in the heart of things?

Wilfrid Wilson Gibson

Away

I cannot say, and I will not say
That he is dead. He is just away!

With a cheery smile, and a wave of the hand
He has wandered into an unknown land,

And left us dreaming how very fair
It needs must be, since he lingers there.

And you - O you, who the wildest yearn
For the old-time step and the glad return,

Think of him faring on, as dear
In the love of There as the love of Here;

And loyal still, as he gave the blows
Of his warrior-strength to his country's foes.

Mild and gentle, as he was brave,
When the sweetest love of his life he gave

To simple things: Where the violets grew
Blue as the eyes they were likened to,

The touches of his hands have strayed
As reverently as his lips have prayed:

When ...

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The Gorse

In dream, again within the clean, cold hell
Of glazed and aching silence he was trapped;
And, closing in, the blank walls of his cell
Crushed stifling on him ... when the bracken snapped,
Caught in his clutching fingers; and he lay
Awake upon his back among the fern,
With free eyes travelling the wide blue day,
Unhindered, unremembering; while a burn
Tinkled and gurgled somewhere out of sight,
Unheard of him; till suddenly aware
Of its cold music, shivering in the light,
He raised himself, and with far-ranging stare
Looked all about him: and with dazed eyes wide
Saw, still as in a numb, unreal dream,
Black figures scouring a far hill-side,
With now and then a sunlit rifle's gleam;
And knew the hunt was hot upon his track:
Yet hardly seemed to mind, someho...

Wilfrid Wilson Gibson

Ah, Hast Thou Gone?

Ah, hast thou gone from him whose breast
Bleeds with the thought we are apart,
Whose tears fall vainly and unblest,
Whose all--a crushed--a broken heart!

Thou hastenest on Life's thorny way
Where torrid suns the mountains burn,
Where parch the thirsty plains--yet say,
Oh, say thou wilt to me return.

Beyond the rolling wave art thou
O'er which I waft a sigh to thee,
Beyond the lurid sunset now
Ablaze upon the western sea.

Oh, think of him whose only thought
That thought which Friendship cannot tell,
While flows the burning tear unsought,
He loved, alas, he loved too well.

Farewell to thee than whom all joy
No brighter vision e'er can lend,
Go, he will be to thee, my boy,
A brother--more than that--a friend.

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The Going

Why did you give no hint that night
That quickly after the morrow's dawn,
And calmly, as if indifferent quite,
You would close your term here, up and be gone
    Where I could not follow
    With wing of swallow
To gain one glimpse of you ever anon!

    Never to bid good-bye,
    Or give me the softest call,
Or utter a wish for a word, while I
Saw morning harden upon the wall,
    Unmoved, unknowing
    That your great going
Had place that moment, and altered all.

Why do you make me leave the house
And think for a breath it is you I see
At the end of the alley of bending boughs
Where so often at dusk you used to be;
    Till in darkening dankness
    The yawning blankness
Of the perspective sickens me!

    You were sh...

Thomas Hardy

Battle

I

THE RETURN

He went, and he was gay to go:
And I smiled on him as he went.
My boy! 'Twas well he couldn't know
My darkest dread, or what it meant -

Just what it meant to smile and smile
And let my son go cheerily -
My son ... and wondering all the while
What stranger would come back to me.


II

THE DANCERS

All day beneath the hurtling shells
Before my burning eyes
Hover the dainty demoiselles -
The peacock dragon-flies.

Unceasingly they dart and glance
Above the stagnant stream -
And I am fighting here in France
As in a senseless dream.

A dream of shattering black shells
That hurtle overhead,
And dainty dancing demoiselles
Above the dreamless dead.


III

Wilfrid Wilson Gibson