Nodding and Laughing....Not !

photo: Phillip Halling

His thoughts dropped back Through eighteen years, and he again saw Jack 

At the old home beneath the Malvern hills, A little fellow plucking daffodils,

A little fellow who could scarcely walk, Yet chuckling as he snapped each juicy stalk

And held up every yellow bloom to smell, Poking his tiny nose into the bell

And sniffing the fresh scent, and chuckling still As though he'd secrets with each daffodil.

Ay, he could see again the little fellow In his blue frock among that laughing yellow,

And plovers in their sheeny black and white Flirting and tumbling in the morning light

About his curly head: he still could see, Shutting his eyes, as plain as plain could be,

Drift upon drift those long-dead daffodils Against the far green of the Malvern hills,

Nodding and laughing round his little lad, As if to see him happy made them glad

— Nodding and laughing ...

They were nodding now, The daffodils, and laughing — yet somehow

They didn't seem so merry now
 ... And he

Was fighting in a bloody trench maybe
 For very life this minute

... They missed Jack, And he would give them all to have him back.

Wilfrid Wilson Gibson (1878-1962)  "Daffodils"

photo : Roger Thomas