It Is the Way the Deep Lush Grass

It is the way the deep lush grass
Roots bravely to the precipice edge,
The way the wind mourns over the low bleak hills
And blows into the sea,
The way the rain drives over the downs
Staining the trees and shining the low stone walls
The way a mockingbird sings his hesitant copied notes
Before the rain … the notes breaking sharply 
Over the white rock cliffs that march along
The sea. 
The way these quiet, lonely country sounds
Come into me, that turns my heart’s anger
Into an upthrust fist, as the army planes
Roar over, startling the sheep a little,
Waking the shepherd hardly, raising his head;
It is expected, yet unbelieved, that bombs
Will drop on London, a few hours away,
That gas will tear a choked and ragged strip
Of death through England.
The radio, the newsreel and the press show
The death-head muzzle of the twentieth century man:
The government makes them now: 11 million people
Wait and doubt, believe and unbelieve the fears
That burn in their minds at night,
When they hear the monotonous roar of the surf
Hurled back to itself by the mighty roar
Of a bomber squadron rehearsing death.