Nineteen-Fifteen

Nineteen-Fifteen written by John Drinkwater

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On a ploughland hill against the sky,
Over the barley, over the rye,
Time, which is now a black pine tree,
Holds out his arms and mocks at me –

"In the year of our Lord nineteen-fifteen
the acres are ploughed and the acres are green,
and the calves and the lambs and the foals are born,
but man the angel is all forlorn.

"The cropping cattle, the swallow’s wing,
the wagon team and the pasture spring,
move in their seasons and are most wise,
but man, whose image is in the skies,

"Who is master of all, whose hand achieves
the church and the barn and the homestead eaves –
how are the works of his wisdom seen
in the year of your Lord nineteen-fifteen."

This work is in the public domain in countries where the copyright term is the author's life plus 70 years or less.