I know of fields by voices haunted still
That years ago grew hushed;
Whose buttercups are brushed
By feet that long have ceased to climb the hill.
On whose green slopes the happy children play
As on a mother's lap,
Then steal through gate and gap,
And by strange hedge-rows make their wondering way.
Sometimes great seas of ripening corn they spy
Across whose rippling face
The shadowy billows race
And round the gate, forlornly whispering, die;
Or in dark rutted lanes by weeds o'ergrown,
Round-eyed they watch a thrush
That breaks the noonday hush
Dashing with zest a snail against a stone;
At others, on an impulse waxing brave,
They climb the churchyard wall
And, marvelling at it all,
See strange black people gathered round a grave.
Then, without question, hurrying up the lane,
They seek once more their own--
That world in which is known
No fear of death, nor thought of change or pain.
Where still they call and answer, still they play,
And summer is ever there;
But I--I never dare
Pass through those fields, retrace the well-known way,
Lest I might meet a lad whom once I knew,
Whose eyes accusingly
Should make demand of me:
"Where are those dreams I left in charge with you?"