Forefathers-Edmund Blunden (1896-1974)

To my father, grandfather.
         My forefathers all.

Here they went with smock and crook,
Toiled in the sun, lolled in the shade,
Here they mudded out the brook,
And here their hatchet cleared the glade:
Harvest-supper woke their wit,
Huntsman's moon their wooings lit.

From this church they led their brides,
From this church themselves were led
Shoulder-high; on these waysides
Sat to take their beer and bread.
Names are gone--what men they were
These their cottages declare.

Names are vanished, save the few
In the old brown Bible scrawled;
These were men of pith and thew,
Whom the city never called;
Scarce could read or hold a quill,
Built the barn;, the forge, the mill.

On the green they watched their sons
Playing till too dark to see,
As their fathers watched them once,
As my father once watched me;
While bat and beetle flew
On the warm air webbed with dew.

Unrecorded, unrenowned,
Men from whom my ways begin,
Here I know you by your ground,
But I know you not within--
All is mist, and there survives
Not a moment of your lives.

Like the bee that now is blown
Honey-heavy on my hand,
From the toppling tansy-throne
In the green tempestuous land,--
I'm in clover now, nor know
Who made honey long ago.