Green gardens in Laventie!

⁠Soldiers only know the street

Where the mud is churned and splashed about

⁠By battle-wending feet;

And yet beside one stricken house there is a glimpse of grass,⁠

⁠Look for it when you pass.

Beyond the Church whose pitted spire

⁠Seems balanced on a strand

Of swaying stone and tottering brick

⁠Two roofless ruins stand,

And here behind the wreckage where the back-wall should have been⁠

⁠We found a garden green.

The grass was never trodden on,

⁠The little path of gravel

Was overgrown with celandine,

⁠No other folk did travel

Along its weedy surface, but the nimble-footed mouse⁠

⁠Running from house to house.

So all among the vivid blades

⁠Of soft and tender grass

We lay, nor heard the limber wheels

⁠That pass and ever pass,

In noisy continuity, until their stony rattle⁠

⁠Seems in itself a battle.

At length we rose up from our ease

⁠Of tranquil happy mind,

And searched the garden’s little length

⁠A fresh pleasaunce to find;

And there, some yellow daffodils and jasmine hanging high⁠

⁠Did rest the tired eye.

The fairest and most fragrant

⁠Of the many sweets we found,

Was a little bush of Daphne flower

⁠Upon a grassy mound,

And so thick were the blossoms set, and so divine the scent,⁠

⁠That we were well content.

Hungry for Spring I bent my head,

⁠The perfume fanned my face,

And all my soul was dancing

⁠In that lovely little place,

Dancing with a measured step from wrecked and shattered towns⁠

⁠Away. upon the Downs.

I saw green banks of daffodil,

⁠Slim poplars in the breeze,

Great tan-brown hares in gusty March

⁠A-courting on the leas;

And meadows with their glittering streams, and silver scurrying dace,⁠

⁠Home — what a perfect place!