POETRY.
'THE FIELD.
RECURRING suns that rise and blaze and die ; Grass-ruffling winds or tempests that trees tear; And that eternal arch of changing sky At which I do for ever stare and stare— The wash of winter rains, the chill of dew, White warmth of snow or tingle of black frost-- Such I do know and such I ever knew Far in my mind where count of time is lost : Back there where there is naught of conscious me Save as vague part of one huge entity— One boundless stretching, undulating skin Informed with dark primordial life within. So through the barren years, barren I lay, While the world weathered and stars burnt away— Lost in that vastness did my smallness lie, Conscious of naught but sun, and wind, and sky, And that old mystery of quickening Which stirred my being each returning spring. I do not know when first there woke in me Dim premonitions of identity :
When first my contours seemed no things of chance But held a sudden deep significance : When year by year more pertinent did grow Each rod of soil, each yard of crankt hedgerow : When seed-time and grave harvest came to be Clear and more clearly charged with destiny— Until it was, I know not why or how, Borne in on me that I was " Bennetts Plough " And with that knowledge revelation came : That they gave me a soul, who gave a name.
KENNETH H. ASHLEY.
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