Here they went with smock and crook, <br />Toiled in the sun, lolled in the shade, <br />Here they mudded out the brook <br />And here their hatchet cleared the glade: <br />Harvest-supper woke their wit, <br />Huntsmen's moon their wooings lit. <br /> <br />From this church they led their brides, <br />From this church themselves were led <br />Shoulder-high; on these waysides <br />Sat to take their beer and bread. <br />Names are gone - what men they were <br />These their cottages declare. <br /> <br />Names are vanished, save the few <br />In the old brown Bible scrawled; <br />These were men of pith and thew, <br />Whom the city never called; <br />Scarce could read or hold a quill, <br />Built the barn, the forge, the mill. <br /> <br />On the green they watched their sons <br />Playing till too dark to see, <br />As their fathers watched them once, <br />As my father once watched me; <br />While the bat and beetle flew <br />On the warm air webbed with dew. <br /> <br />Unrecorded, unrenowned, <br />Men from whom my ways begin, <br />Here I know you by your ground <br />But I know you not within - <br />There is silence, there survives <br />Not a moment of your lives. <br /> <br />Like the bee that now is blown <br />Honey-heavy on my hand, <br />From his toppling tansy-throne <br />In the green tempestuous land - <br />I'm in clover now, nor know <br />Who made honey long ago.<br /><br />Edmund Blunden<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/forefathers/
