Sunday War Poet...

Marian Allen

1892 - 1953

The Wind on the Downs

I like to think of you as brown and tall, 

As strong and living as you used to be, 

In khaki tunic, Sam Brown belt and all, 

And standing there and laughing down at me. 

Because they tell me, dear, that you are dead, 

Because I can no longer see your face, 

You have not died, it is not true, instead, 

You seek adventure some other place. 

I hear you laughing as you used to, 

Yet loving all the things I think of you; 

And knowing you are happy, should I grieve? 

You follow and are watchful where I go; 

How should you leave me, having loved me so? 

We walked along the towpath, you and I, 

Beside the sluggish-moving, still canal; 

It seemed impossible that you should die; 

I think of you the same and always shall. 

We thought of many things and spoke of few, 

And life lay all uncertainly before, 

And now I walk alone and think of you, 

And wonder what new kingdoms you explore. 

Over the railway line, across the grass, 

While up above the golden wings are spread, 

Flying, ever flying overhead, 

Here still I see you khaki figure pass, 

And when I leave meadow, almost wait, 

That you should open first the wooden gate.

***

Eleanor Marian Dundas Allen was a British writer known mainly for her 63 page book of poems entitled

 The Wind on the Downs.
She was born in Sydney, Australia but moved to England with her parents and family in the early 1900s.

Her fiancée, Arthur Greg was killed in a bombing raid in 1917.

Marian Allen died unmarried in 1953. 

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