War and Love/A Village
A VILLAGE
INow if you saw my villageYou'd not think it beautiful,But flat and commonplace—As I'd have called it half a year ago …
IIBut when you've ponderedHour upon chilly hour in those damned trenchesYou get at the significance of things,Get to know, clearer than before,What a tree means, what a pool,Or a black, wet field in sunlight.
One gets to know,In that shell-pierced silenceUnder the unmoved, ironic stars,How good love of the earth is.
So I go strolling,Hands deep in pockets, head aslant,And eyes screwed up against the light,Just loving thingsLike any other lunatic or lover.
IIIFor there's so much to love,So much to see and understand,So much naïveté, whimsicality,Even in a dull village like this.
Pigeons and fowls about a pointed haystack;The red-tiled barns we sleep in;The profile of the distant townMisty against the leaden-silver sky;Two ragged willows and a fallen elmWith an end of broken wallGlimmering through evening mist—All worthy Rembrandt's hand,Rembrandt who loved homely things …
Then there's the rain pool where we wash,Skimming the film-ice with our tingling hands;The elm-fringed dykes and solemn placid fieldsFlat as a slate and blacker.There's the church—The poorest ever built I think—With all its painted plaster saintsStraight from the rue St. Sulpice,Its dreadful painted windows,And Renaissance "St. Jacques le Majeur"Over the porch …
IVTo-day the larks are up,The willow boughs are red with sap,The last ice melting on the dykes;One side there stands a row of poplars,Slender amazons, martial and tall,And on the otherThe sunlight makes the red-tiled roofs deep orange …