Sounds of rural life and labour! <br />Not the notes of pipe and tabour, <br />Not the clash of helm and sabre <br />Bright'ning up the field of glory, <br />Can compare with thy ovations, <br />That make glad the hearts of nations; <br />E'en the poet's fond creations <br />Pale before thy simple story. <br /> <br />In the years beyond our present, <br />King was little more than peasant, <br />Labour was the shining crescent, <br />Toil, the poor man's crown of glory; <br />Have we passed from worse to better <br />Since we wove the silken fetter, <br />Changed the plough for book and letter. <br />Truest life for tinsel story? <br /> <br />Up the ladder of the ages <br />Clomb the patriarchal sages, <br />Solving nature's secret pages, <br />Kings of thought's supremest glory; <br />Eagle-winged, and sight far reaching- <br />Are we wiser for their teaching?- <br />Wrangling creeds for gentle preaching! <br />Falsest life for truest story! <br /> <br />Man is overfraught with culture, <br />Virtue early finds sepulture, <br />While our vices sate the vulture <br /> <br />We misname a bird of glory; <br />Life is blindly artificial, <br />Rarely pass we its initial, <br />All our aims are prejudicial <br />To its earnest, simple story. <br /> <br />Hail, primeval life and labour! <br />Martial notes of pipe and tabour, <br />Gleam of spears and clash of sabre, <br />Hero march from fields of glory, <br />All the thundering ovations <br />Surging from the hearts of nations, <br />Poet dreams and speculations, <br />Pale before thy simple story!<br /><br />Charles Sangster<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/glimpses-3/
