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ReadingWillow structured literacy program for Australian students
Poetry Library

— Stephen Crane

I looked here;

I looked there;

Nowhere could I see my love.

And--this time--

…

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adverb

In an accidental manner; by chance, unexpectedly.

“He discovered penicillin largely accidentally.”

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As the Team's Head-Brass

39 lines
Edward Thomas
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s the team's head-brass flashed out on the turnThe lovers disappeared into the wood.I sat among the boughs of the fallen elmThat strewed an angle of the fallow, andWatched the plough narrowing a yellow squareOf charlock. Every time the horses turnedInstead of treading me down, the ploughman leanedUpon the handles to say or ask a word,About the weather, next about the war.Scraping the share he faced towards the wood,And screwed along the furrow till the brass flashedOnce more.  The blizzard felled the elm whose crestI sat in, by a woodpecker's round hole,The ploughman said. "When will they take it away?""When the war's over." So the talk began--One minute and an interval of ten,A minute more and the same interval."Have you been out?" "No." "And don't wantto, perhaps?""If I could only come back again, I should.I could spare an arm. I shouldn't want to loseA leg. If I should lose my head, why, so,I should want nothing more. . . . Have many goneFrom here?" "Yes." "Many lost?" "Yes: good few.Only two teams work on the farm this year.One of my mates is dead. The second dayIn France they killed him. It was back in March,The very night of the blizzard, too. Now ifHe had stayed here we should have moved the tree.""And I should not have sat here. EverythingWould have been different. For it would have beenAnother world." "Ay, and a better, thoughIf we could see all all might seem good." ThenThe lovers came out of the wood again:The horses started and for the last timeI watched the clods crumble and topple overAfter the ploughshare and the stumbling team.
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