Not Dead

by Robert Graves (pub 1916)

Walking through trees to cool my heat and pain,
I know that David’s with me here again.
All that is simple, happy, strong, he is.
Caressingly I stroke
Rough bark of the friendly oak.
A brook goes bubbling by: the voice is his.
Turf burns with pleasant smoke;
I laugh at chaffinch and at primroses.
All that is simple, happy, strong, he is.
Over the whole wood in a little while
Breaks his slow smile.

The short extract from this poem we have used brings us full circle back to the wood again, in which Graves, comforted by the sense of his friend’s presence, is in some sense reconciled to the losses of the war.