Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Siegfried Sassoon (1886–1967). The Old Huntsman and Other Poems. 1918.

35. The Last Meeting

BECAUSE the night was falling warm and still

Upon a golden day at April’s end,

I thought; I will go up the hill once more

To find the face of him that I have lost,

And speak with him before his ghost has flown

Far from the earth that might not keep him long.

So down the road I went, pausing to see

How slow the dusk drew on, and how the folk

Loitered about their doorways, well-content

With the fine weather and the waxing year.

The miller’s house, that glimmered with grey walls,

Turned me aside; and for a while I leaned

Along the tottering rail beside the bridge

To watch the dripping mill-wheel green with damp.

The miller peered at me with shadowed eyes

And pallid face: I could not hear his voice

For sound of the weir’s plunging. He was old.

His days went round with the unhurrying wheel.

Moving along the street, each side I saw

The humble, kindly folk in lamp-lit rooms;

Children at table; simple, homely wives;

Strong, grizzled men; and soldiers back from war,

Scaring the gaping elders with loud talk.

Soon all the jumbled roofs were down the hill,

And I was turning up the grassy lane

That goes to the big, empty house that stands

Above the town, half-hid by towering trees.

I looked below and saw the glinting lights:

I heard the treble cries of bustling life,

And mirth, and scolding; and the grind of wheels.

An engine whistled, piercing-shrill, and called

High echoes from the sombre slopes afar;

Then a long line of trucks began to move.

It was quite still; the columned chestnuts stood

Dark in their noble canopies of leaves.

I thought: ‘A little longer I’ll delay,

And then he’ll be more glad to hear my feet,

And with low laughter ask me why I’m late.

The place will be too dim to show his eyes,

But he will loom above me like a tree,

With lifted arms and body tall and strong.’

There stood the empty house; a ghostly hulk

Becalmed and huge, massed in the mantling dark,

As builders left it when quick-shattering war

Leapt upon France and called her men to fight.

Lightly along the terraces I trod,

Crunching the rubble till I found the door

That gaped in twilight, framing inward gloom.

An owl flew out from under the high eaves

To vanish secretly among the firs,

Where lofty boughs netted the gleam of stars.

I stumbled in; the dusty floors were strewn

With cumbering piles of planks and props and beams;

Tall windows gapped the walls; the place was free

To every searching gust and jousting gale;

But now they slept; I was afraid to speak,

And heavily the shadows crowded in.

I called him, once; then listened: nothing moved:

Only my thumping heart beat out the time.

Whispering his name, I groped from room to room.

Quite empty was that house; it could not hold

His human ghost, remembered in the love

That strove in vain to be companioned still.

Blindly I sought the woods that I had known

So beautiful with morning when I came

Amazed with spring that wove the hazel twigs

With misty raiment of awakening green.

I found a holy dimness, and the peace

Of sanctuary, austerely built of trees,

And wonder stooping from the tranquil sky.

Ah! but there was no need to call his name.

He was beside me now, as swift as light.

I knew him crushed to earth in scentless flowers,

And lifted in the rapture of dark pines.

‘For now,’ he said, ‘my spirit has more eyes

Than heaven has stars; and they are lit by love.

My body is the magic of the world,

And dawn and sunset flame with my spilt blood.

My breath is the great wind, and I am filled

With molten power and surge of the bright waves

That chant my doom along the ocean’s edge.

‘Look in the faces of the flowers and find

The innocence that shrives me; stoop to the stream

That you may share the wisdom of my peace.

For talking water travels undismayed.

The luminous willows lean to it with tales

Of the young earth; and swallows dip their wings

Where showering hawthorn strews the lanes of light.

‘I can remember summer in one thought

Of wind-swept green, and deeps of melting blue,

And scent of limes in bloom; and I can hear

Distinct the early mower in the grass,

Whetting his blade along some morn of June.

‘For I was born to the round world’s delight,

And knowledge of enfolding motherhood,

Whose tenderness, that shines through constant toil,

Gathers the naked children to her knees.

In death I can remember how she came

To kiss me while I slept; still I can share

The glee of childhood; and the fleeting gloom

When all my flowers were washed with rain of tears.

‘I triumph in the choruses of birds,

Bursting like April buds in gyres of song.

My meditations are the blaze of noon

On silent woods, where glory burns the leaves.

I have shared breathless vigils; I have slaked

The thirst of my desires in bounteous rain

Pouring and splashing downward through the dark.

Loud storm has roused me with its winking glare,

And voice of doom that crackles overhead.

I have been tired and watchful, craving rest,

Till the slow-footed hours have touched my brows

And laid me on the breast of sundering sleep.’

I know that he is lost among the stars,

And may return no more but in their light.

Though his hushed voice may call me in the stir

Of whispering trees, I shall not understand.

Men may not speak with stillness; and the joy

Of brooks that leap and tumble down green hills

Is faster than their feet; and all their thoughts

Can win no meaning from the talk of birds.

My heart is fooled with fancies, being wise;

For fancy is the gleaming of wet flowers

When the hid sun looks forth with golden stare.

Thus, when I find new loveliness to praise,

And things long-known shine out in sudden grace,

Then will I think: ‘He moves before me now.’

So he will never come but in delight,

And, as it was in life, his name shall be

Wonder awaking in a summer dawn,

And youth, that dying, touched my lips to song.