Peace

And sometimes I am sorry when the grass Is growing over the stones in quiet hollows And the cocksfoot leans across the rutted cart-pass That I am not the voice of country fellows Who now are standing by some headland talking Of turnips and potatoes or young corn Of turf banks stripped for victory. Here Peace is still hawking His coloured combs and scarves and beads of horn. Upon a headland by a whinny hedge A hare sits looking down a leaf-lapped furrow There's an old plough upside-down on a weedy ridge And someone is shouldering home a saddle-harrow. Out of that childhood country what fools climb To fight with tyrants Love and Life and Time?