Behind a trench in Flanders the sun was dropping low, <br />With tramp, and creak and jingle I heard the gun-teams go; <br />And something seemed to 'mind me, a-dreaming as I lay, <br />Of my own old Hampshire village at the quiet end of day. <br /> <br />Brown thatch and gardens blooming with lily and with rose, <br />And the cool shining river so pleasant where he flows, <br />White fields of oats and barley, and elderflower like foam, <br />And the sky gold with sunset, and the horses going home! <br /> <br />( <br />Home, lad, home, all among the corn and clover! <br />Home, lad, home when the time for work is over! <br />Oh there's rest for horse and man when the longest day is done <br />And they go home together at setting of the sun! <br />) <br /> <br />Old Captain, Prince and Blossom, I see them all so plain, <br />With tasseled ear-caps nodding along the leafy lane, <br />There's a bird somewhere calling, and the swallow flying low, <br />And the lads sitting sideways, and singing as they go. <br /> <br />Well gone is many a lad now, and many a horse gone too, <br />Off all those lads and horses in those old fields I knew; <br />There's Dick that died at Cuinchy and Prince beside the guns <br />On the red road of glory, a mile or two from Mons! <br /> <br />Dead lads and shadowy horses - I see them just the same, <br />I see them and I know them, and name them each by name, <br />Going down to shining waters when all the West's a-glow, <br />And the lads sitting sideways and singing as they go. <br /> <br />( <br />Home, lad, home . . . with the sunset on their faces! <br />Home, lad, home . . . to those quiet happy places! <br />There's rest for horse and man when the hardest fight is done, <br />And they go home together at setting of the sun! <br />)<br /><br />Cicely Fox Smith<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/homeward-3/
