Sunday War Poet..

The theme for this month's poetry

 is



Memories



The Seed Merchant's Son


by


Agnes Grozier Herbertson

The Seed-Merchant has lost his son,

His dear, his loved, his only one.

So young he was, Even now it seems

He was a child with a child’s dreams.

He would race over the meadow-bed

With his bright, bright eyes and his cheeks all red.

Fair and healthy and long of limb;

It made one young just to look at him.

His school books, unto the cupboard thrust,

Have scarcely had time to gather dust.

Died in the war….And it seems his eyes

Must have looked at death with a child’s surprise.

The Seed-Merchant goes on his way:

I saw him out on his land today;

Old to have fathered so young a son,

And now the last glint of his youth is gone.

What could one say to him in his need?

Little there seemed to say indeed.

So still he was that the birds flew round

The grey of his head without a sound,

Careless and tranquil in the air,

As if naught human were standing there.

On, never a soul could understand

Why he looked at the earth, and the seed in his hand,

As he had never before seen seed or sod:

I heard him murmur: ‘Thank God, thank God!’

Agnes Grozier Herbertson was born in Oslo. She was a novelist, short story writer and journalist.
 She lived in Cornwall.




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