By sundown we came to a hidden village
Where all the air was still
And no sound met our ears, save
For the sorry drip of rain from blackened trees
And the melancholy song of swinging gates.
Then through a broken pane some of us saw
A dead bird in a rusting cage, still
Pressing his thin, tattered breast against the bars,
His beak wide open. And
As we hurried through the weed-grown street,
A gaunt dog started up from some dark place
And shambled off on legs as thin as sticks
Into the wood to die at last in peace.
No one had told us victory was like this:
Not one amongst us would have eaten bread
Before he’d filled the mouth of the gray child
That sprawled, stiff as stone, before the shattered door
There was not one of us who did not think of home.
Where all the air was still
And no sound met our ears, save
For the sorry drip of rain from blackened trees
And the melancholy song of swinging gates.
Then through a broken pane some of us saw
A dead bird in a rusting cage, still
Pressing his thin, tattered breast against the bars,
His beak wide open. And
As we hurried through the weed-grown street,
A gaunt dog started up from some dark place
And shambled off on legs as thin as sticks
Into the wood to die at last in peace.
No one had told us victory was like this:
Not one amongst us would have eaten bread
Before he’d filled the mouth of the gray child
That sprawled, stiff as stone, before the shattered door
There was not one of us who did not think of home.
Contributed by Bernart Bartleby - 2017/11/30 - 08:45
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Una delle prime poesie di Henry Treece (1911-1966), scrittore inglese che si dedicò soprattutto ai racconti per bambini.
Nella raccolta “38 Poems” pubblicata nel 1940
La trovo – ma forse solo in lettura musicale - nel IX° volume nella poderosa raccolta di poesia e musica folk inglese intitolata “Poetry and Song” (14 LP), pubblicata nel 1967.