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    The Daffodil Fields
    The Daffodil Fields
    The Daffodil Fields
    Ebook104 pages1 hour

    The Daffodil Fields

    By John Masefield

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    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArchive Classics
    Release dateApr 1, 2001
    The Daffodil Fields
    Author

    John Masefield

    John Masefield was a well-known English poet and novelist. After boarding school, Masefield took to a life at sea where he picked up many stories, which influenced his decision to become a writer. Upon returning to England after finding work in New York City, Masefield began publishing his poetry in periodicals, and then eventually in collections. In 1915, Masefield joined the Allied forces in France and served in a British army hospital there, despite being old enough to be exempt from military service. After a brief service, Masefield returned to Britain and was sent overseas to the United States to research the American opinion on the war. This trip encouraged him to write his book Gallipoli, which dealt with the failed Allied attacks in the Dardanelles, as a means of negating German propaganda in the Americas. Masefield continued to publish throughout his life and was appointed as Poet Laureate in 1930. Masefield died in 1967 the age of 88.

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      Book preview

      The Daffodil Fields - John Masefield

      THE DAFFODIL FIELDS

      This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at http://www.gutenberg.org/license.

      Title: The Daffodil Fields

      Author: John Masefield

      Release Date: November 23, 2012 [EBook #41466]

      Language: English

      Character set encoding: UTF-8

      *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DAFFODIL FIELDS ***

      Produced by Al Haines.

      [image]

      Cover

      THE DAFFODIL FIELDS

      BY

      JOHN MASEFIELD

      AUTHOR OF THE EVERLASTING MERCY, "THE WIDOW IN

      THE BYE STREET, THE STORY OF A

      ROUND-HOUSE," ETC.

      New York

      THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

      1915

      All rights reserved

      COPYRIGHT, 1918,

      BY JOHN MASEFIELD.

      Set up and electrotyped. Published March, 1913.

      Reprinted July, December, 1913; August, 1915.

      Norwood Press

      J. S. Cushing Co. -- Berwick & Smith Co.

      Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.

      THE DAFFODIL FIELDS

      I

      Between the barren pasture and the wood

      There is a patch of poultry-stricken grass,

      Where, in old time, Ryemeadows' Farmhouse stood,

      And human fate brought tragic things to pass.

      A spring comes bubbling up there, cold as glass,

      It bubbles down, crusting the leaves with lime,

      Babbling the self-same song that it has sung through time.

      Ducks gobble at the selvage of the brook,

      But still it slips away, the cold hill-spring,

      Past the Ryemeadows' lonely woodland nook

      Where many a stubble gray-goose preens her wing,

      On, by the woodland side. You hear it sing

      Past the lone copse where poachers set their wires,

      Past the green hill once grim with sacrificial fires.

      Another water joins it; then it turns,

      Runs through the Ponton Wood, still turning west,

      Past foxgloves, Canterbury bells, and ferns,

      And many a blackbird's, many a thrush's nest;

      The cattle tread it there; then, with a zest

      It sparkles out, babbling its pretty chatter

      Through Foxholes Farm, where it gives white-faced cattle water.

      Under the road it runs, and now it slips

      Past the great ploughland, babbling, drop and linn,

      To the moss'd stumps of elm trees which it lips,

      And blackberry-bramble-trails where eddies spin.

      Then, on its left, some short-grassed fields begin,

      Red-clayed and pleasant, which the young spring fills

      With the never-quiet joy of dancing daffodils.

      There are three fields where daffodils are found;

      The grass is dotted blue-gray with their leaves;

      Their nodding beauty shakes along the ground

      Up to a fir-clump shutting out the eaves

      Of an old farm where always the wind grieves

      High in the fir boughs, moaning; people call

      This farm The Roughs, but some call it the Poor Maid's Hall.

      There, when the first green shoots of tender corn

      Show on the plough; when the first drift of white

      Stars the black branches of the spiky thorn,

      And afternoons are warm and evenings light,

      The shivering daffodils do take delight,

      Shaking beside the brook, and grass comes green,

      And blue dog-violets come and glistening celandine.

      And there the pickers come, picking for town

      Those dancing daffodils; all day they pick;

      Hard-featured women, weather-beaten brown,

      Or swarthy-red, the colour of old brick.

      At noon they break their meats under the rick.

      The smoke of all three farms lifts blue in air

      As though man's passionate mind had never suffered there.

      And sometimes as they rest an old man comes,

      Shepherd or carter, to the hedgerow-side,

      And looks upon their gangrel tribe, and hums,

      And thinks all gone to wreck since master died;

      And sighs over a passionate harvest-tide

      Which Death's red sickle reaped under those hills,

      There, in the quiet fields among the daffodils.

      When this most tragic fate had time and place,

      And human hearts and minds to show it by,

      Ryemeadows' Farmhouse was in evil case:

      Its master, Nicholas Gray, was like to die.

      He lay in bed, watching the windy sky,

      Where all the rooks were homing on slow wings,

      Cawing, or blackly circling in enormous rings.

      With a sick brain he watched them; then he took

      Paper and pen, and wrote in straggling hand

      (Like spider's legs, so much his fingers shook)

      Word to the friends who held the adjoining land,

      Bidding them come; no more he could command

      His fingers twitching to the feebling blood;

      He watched his last day's sun dip down behind the wood,

      While all his life's thoughts surged about his brain:

      Memories and pictures clear, and faces known--

      Long dead, perhaps; he was a child again,

      Treading a threshold in the dark alone.

      Then back the present surged, making him moan.

      He asked if Keir had come yet. No, they said.

      Nor Occleve? No. He moaned: Come soon or I'll be dead.

      The names like live things wandered in his mind:

      Charles Occleve of The Roughs, and "Rowland Keir--

      Keir of the Foxholes"; but his brain was blind,

      A blind old alley in the storm of the year,

      Baffling the traveller life with No way here,

      For all his lantern raised; life would not tread

      Within that brain again, along those pathways red.

      Soon all was dimmed but in the heaven one star.

      I'll hold to that, he said; then footsteps stirred.

      Down in the court a voice said, Here they are,

      And one, He's almost gone. The sick man heard.

      Oh God, be quick, he moaned. "Only one word.

      Keir! Occleve! Let them come. Why don't they come?

      Why stop to tell them that?--the devil strike you dumb.

      "I'm neither doll nor dead; come in, come in.

      Curse you, you women, quick," the sick man flamed.

      "I shall be dead before I can begin.

      A sick man's womaned-mad, and nursed and damed."

      Death had him by the throat; his wrath was tamed.

      Come in, he fumed; stop muttering at the door.

      The friends came in; a creaking ran across the floor.

      Now, Nick, how goes it, man? said Occleve. Oh,

      The dying man replied, "I am dying; past;

      Mercy of God, I die, I'm going to go.

      But I have much to tell you if I last.

      Come near me, Occleve, Keir. I am sinking fast,

      And all my kin are coming; there, look there.

      All the old, long dead Grays are moving in the air.

      "It is my Michael that I called you for:

      My son, abroad, at school still, over sea.

      See if that hag is listening at the door.

      No? Shut the door; don't lock it, let it be.

      No faith is kept to dying men like me.

      I am dipped deep and dying, bankrupt, done;

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