'An Upland Field' by C Day Lewis

Re-copied from my commonplace book where the poem found it's way there thirty years or so ago. Finding an image of 'heartsease' on Google I realize that I have been mistaken as to its identity for all of these years - if not for the inspiration for its importance to me.



An Upland Field

 By a windrowed field she made me stop.
'I love it finding you one of these,'
She said; and I watched her tenderly stoop
Towards a sprig of shy heartsease
Among the ruined crop'

 'Oh but look, it is everywhere!'
Stubble and flint and sodden tresses
Of hay were a prospect of despair:
But a myriad of infant heartsease faces
Pensively eyed us there.

 Long enough had I found that flower
Little more common than what it is named for - 
A chance - some solace amid earth's sour
Failures, a minute joy that bloomed for
It's brief precious hour.

 No marvel that she, who gives me peace
Wherein my shortening days redouble
Their yield, could magically produce 
From all that harshness of flint and stubble
Whole acres of heartsease.














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