The First World War was already in its second year when Edward Thomas wrote this little country idyll – with a thunderstorm for backdrop.

THE MILL-POND

The sun blazed while the thunder yet

Added a boom:

A wagtail flickered bright over

The mill-pond’s gloom:

~

Less than the cooing in the alder

Isles of the pool

Sounded the thunder through that plunge

Of waters cool.

~

Scared starlings on the aspen tip

Past the black mill

Outchattered the stream and the next roar

Far on the hill.

~

As my feet dangling teased the foam

That slid below

A girl came out. ‘Take care!’ she said –

Ages ago.

~

She startled me, standing quite close

Dressed all in white:

Ages ago I was angry till

She passed from sight.

~

Then the storm burst, and as I crouched

To shelter, how

Beautiful and kind, too, she seemed,

As she does now!