I spent last night in my valley. <br />Green and peaceful, it is. <br />Slow wagons of unburdened past <br />creak slow down berry-bright lanes. <br /> <br />That last harvest saved and stacked <br />bristling and quaking in fields <br />where mud is but good earth <br />turned up by good men <br /> <br />and the bells of Sunday toll <br />us all to chapel from our beds, <br />where I've dreamed again of Molly <br />falling, falling into my arms. <br /> <br /> <br />Dawn: I am awake to <br />dull gunboom torturing the air. <br />Mudstuck tumbrils grumble by <br />abrim with glum, unready heroes. <br /> <br />And they will harness me to a post <br />and they will load and aim <br />and they will fire at my heart <br />but they will miss my heart, <br /> <br />for I bequeathed my target heart <br />in its last unhurt murmuring <br />to beat in still valleys <br />beyond these obscene echoes.<br /><br />James Mills<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/terminal-leave-france-1917/
