Pastoral
This fields has buried men is browed
With easy gold; day’s Midas touch
Turns all to richness, only these were ploughed
By poverty under, pave a roofless church—
Kindle no saffron cloud.
These nothing want, are nameless loam;
But hungrier bones we knew as boys
Stand gauntly erect or swelter out their doom,
Live grist to the machine that still destroys;
And wolves sing harvest-home.
On evening lea unearth long sighs,
The lingering testament of their pain;
Tear open the sepulchred acre till they rise
And call Peace hypocrite, who dumbly stain
With blood her pastoral skies.
