Where tongues were loud and hearts were light <br />I heard the Ancre flow; <br />Waking oft at the mid of night <br />I heard the Ancre flow. <br /> <br />I heard it crying, that sad rill, <br />Below the painful ridge <br />By the burnt unraftered mill <br />And the relic of a bridge. <br />And could this sighing river seem <br />To call me far away, <br />And its pale word dismiss as dream <br />The voices of to-day? <br />The voices in the bright room chilled <br />And that mourned on alone; <br />The silence of the full moon filled <br />With that brook's troubling tone. <br /> <br />The struggling Ancre had no part <br />In these new hours of mine, <br />And yet its stream ran through my heart; <br />I heard it grieve and pine, <br />As if its rainy tortured blood <br />Had swirled into my own, <br />When by its battered bank I stood <br />And shared its wounded moan.<br /><br />Edmund Blunden<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-ancre-at-hamel-afterwards/
