Tears

TEARS by EDWARD THOMAS

It seems I have no tears left. They should have fallen--- Their ghosts, if tears have ghosts, did fall---that day When twenty hounds streamed by me, not yet combed out But still all equals in their rage of gladness Upon the scent, made one, like a great dragon In Blooming Meadow that bends towards the sun And once bore hops: and on that other day When I stepped out from the double-shadowed Tower Into an April morning, stirring and sweet And warm. Strange solitude was there and silence. A mightier charm than any in the Tower Possessed the courtyard. They were changing guard, Soldiers in line, young English countrymen, Fair-haired and ruddy, in white tunics. Drums And fifes were playing 'The British Grenadiers'. The men, the music piercing that solitude And silence, told me truths I had not dreamed, And have forgotten since their beauty passed.