"Leaves A frail and tenuous mist on baffled and intricate branches; Little gilt leaves are still, for quietness holds every bough; Pools in the muddy road slumber, reflecting indifferent stars; Steeped in the loveliness of moonlight is earth, and the valleys, Brimmed up with quiet shadow, with a mist of sleep. But afar on the horizon rise great pulses of light,"
"The hammering of guns, wrestling, locked in conflict Like brute, stone gods of old struggling confusedly; Then overhead purrs a shell, and our heavies Answer, with sudden clapping bruits of sound, Loosening our shells that stream whining and whimpering precipitately, Hounding through air athirst for blood. And the little gilt leaves Flicker in falling like waifs and flakes of flame."
The poem juxtaposes tranquil, moonlit nature with sudden, violent artillery, describing frail gilt leaves, sleeping pools, and valleys steeped in moonlight before distant guns hammer the horizon. Imagery shifts from hushed, reflective natural scenes to brutal mechanical violence, with shells characterized as whining, whimpering, and air "athirst for blood," and leaves likened to falling flakes of flame. Combat experience in the infantry and at major World War I battles informs the condensed, imagist-inflected technique, blending vivid sensory detail and lyricism with traces of early modernist influence despite elaboration beyond imagism's usual spare parameters.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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