Читать книгу The Searchlights - Wilfrid Wilson Gibson - Страница 11

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Now singlehanded she must run the farm

And keep it going for Tom, if blessedly

Tom should come through the war without much harm

Tom, fighting somewhere far across the sea,

And knowing naught about his father, dead

And buried in a week.

How thoughtless she

Had gone that morning to the milking-shed,

To find Jake lying senseless there, his head

Face-downward in a puddle of spilt milk!

And, as she stood an instant, that had seemed

Time without end, still in their stalls the cows

Kept up their munching, munching placidly;

Their big eyes glinting under quiet brows,

While on their new-brushed hides, as sleek as silk,

Light from the stable-lantern softly gleamed.

She still could hear that munching, as she lay

Wakeful in bed, and see the yellow light

Kindling dark eyes, while slowly the hot night

Dragged onward to another crowded day,

Another Friday ... And, last Friday, she

So unsuspectingly had risen from bed,

Thinking of nothing much; just busily

Concerned to do her usual jobs, with not

A thought of what she would find within the shed.

Her usual jobs! And she had had, instead,

To carry all alone across the yard

Her husband in her arms and up the stair,

And then to lay him out on his last bed,

This very bed that seemed so big and strange

Without him now. God knows how she had got

The heart to do it by herself! But then

She had always been as hefty as most men.

And she’d need all her strength now: ’twould be hard

To keep things going, she was well aware.

Only last Friday morn—and such a change!

But, in these times, when you could only live

From day to day, not knowing what the next

Might bring, changes came quick, and nothing seemed

Too terrible to happen. Yesternight

In brief uneasy slumber she had dreamed

That she awaked to find her world on fire—

The frightened cows within the blazing byre

Mooing like mad—and she had been only vexed

At being disturbed from sleep, when she awoke!

But that was just a dream; and, in dreams, folk

Seemed unaccountable. And yet, she knew,

Ay, all too certainly, she knew she might

Waken one night to find her dream come true:

For Harefield Farm just over the hillside

Already a heap of rubble and cinder lay,

Bombed one black hour. And what would she not give

To have Tom with her here to carry on,

Now Jake was dead! But Tom was far away,

Far out of reach. Three years he had been gone

To some outlandish place across the tide;

And singlehanded she must see things through

Till he came home. ’Twas fortunate for her

That it was nothing but a dairy-farm

She had to manage: and, even so, she knew

That she should have more than enough to do:

’Twould take her all her time. Still, it was well

To be kept busy in these days with not

An idle hour for thinking. Ay, she had got

Her work set.... And, for all that she could tell,

Tom might come through the war without much harm.

Tom might come through ...

Tom might come through ...But it was nearly three!

Already from his roost the cock was crowing;

And from the byre there came a noise of lowing.

The cows awaited her impatiently,

Heavy with milk. Yet, they, she knew, when she

Should come to ease them, would stand quietly

About her, munching, each within her stall,

As they had stood last Friday, as though all

The world were still at peace, and Jake, alive—

Munching and munching on, without a care,

Munching and munching.... It was hard to bear.

She had best try not to listen....

She had best try not to listen....But she must dress

At once and set about her business

And get the milking done, however hard,

And have the full churns ready in the yard

Before the station-lorry should arrive.