Some One & From A Full Heart

Some one came knocking

        At my wee, small door;

    Some one came knocking,

        I'm sure - sure - sure;

    I listened, I opened,

        I looked to left and right,

    But naught there was a-stirring

        In the still dark night;

    Only the busy beetle

        Tap-tapping in the wall,

    Only from the forest

        The screech-owl's call,

    Only the cricket whistling

        While the dewdrops fall,

    So I know not who came knocking,

    At all, at all, at all.

 By Walter De La Mare

https://www.public-domain-poetry.com/walter-de-la-mare/some-one-33384

 In days of peace my fellow-men

        Rightly regarded me as more like

    A Bishop than a Major-Gen.,

        And nothing since has made me warlike;

    But when this age-long struggle ends

        And I have seen the Allies dish up

    The goose of Hindenburg - oh, friends!

        I shall out-bish the mildest Bishop.

    When the War is over and the Kaiser's out of print

    I'm going to buy some tortoises and watch the beggars sprint;

    When the War is over and the sword at last we sheathe

    I'm going to keep a jelly-fish and listen to it breathe.

    I never really longed for gore,

        And any taste for red corpuscles

    That lingered with me left before

        The German troops had entered Brussels.

    In early days the Colonel's "'Shun!"

        Froze me; and as the war grew older

    The noise of some one else's gun

        Left me considerably colder.

    When the War is over and the battle has been won

    I'm going to buy a barnacle and take it for a run;

    When the War is over and the German fleet we sink

    I'm going to keep a silkworm's egg and listen to it think.

    The Captains and the Kings depart -

        It may be so, but not lieutenants;

    Dawn after weary dawn I start

        The never ending round of penance;

    One rock amid the welter stands

        On which my gaze is fixed intently:

    An after-life in quiet lands

        Lived very lazily and gently.

    When the War is over and we've done the Belgians proud

    I'm going to keep a chrysalis and read to it aloud;

    When the War is over and we've finished up the show

    I'm going to plant a lemon pip and listen to it grow.

    Oh, I'm tired of the noise and turmoil of battle,

    And I'm even upset by the lowing of cattle,

    And the clang of the bluebells is death to my liver,

    And the roar of the dandelion gives me a shiver,

    And a glacier, in movement, is much too exciting,

    And I'm nervous, when standing on one, of alighting -

    Give me Peace; that is all, that is all that I seek....

                        Say, starting on Saturday week.

                 A. A. Milne.

https://www.public-domain-poetry.com/alan-alexander-milne/from-a-full-heart-38903