To Robert Nichols

 (From Frise on the Somme in February, 1917, in answer to a letter saying: “I am just finishing my ‘Faun’s Holiday.
’ I wish you were here to feed him with cherries.
”)


Here by a snowbound river 
In scrapen holes we shiver, 
And like old bitterns we 
Boom to you plaintively: 
Robert, how can I rhyme
Verses for your desire— 
Sleek fauns and cherry-time, 
Vague music and green trees, 
Hot sun and gentle breeze, 
England in June attire,
And life born young again, 
For your gay goatish brute 
Drunk with warm melody 
Singing on beds of thyme 
With red and rolling eye,
Waking with wanton lute 
All the Devonian plain, 
Lips dark with juicy stain, 
Ears hung with bobbing fruit? 
Why should I keep him time?
Why in this cold and rime, 
Where even to dream is pain? 
No, Robert, there’s no reason: 
Cherries are out of season, 
Ice grips at branch and root,
And singing birds are mute.

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