Poem A Day

What Will They Do?

by Edward Thomas

What will they do when I am gone? It is plain

That they will do without me as the rain

Can do without the flowers and the grass

That profit by it and must perish without.

I have but seen them in the loud street pass;

And I was naught to them. I turned about

To see them disappearing carelessly.

But what if I in them as they in me

Nourished what has great value and no price?

Almost I thought that rain thirsts for a draught

Which only in the blossom's chalice lies,

Until that one turned back and lightly laughed.

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Poem A Day

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