I haven't updated the Milly Jourdain Archive since last summer, and today is the day to remedy that lack. As luck would have it, I've reached what I think is the most beautiful poem in her collection. I like this first poem so much that I'll be including it The Conversation, although the one that follows is also lovely. Both are Jourdain at her best: focused, precise, patient, lyrical.


Watching the Meet

Milly Jourdain

The air is still so new and fresh and cold,
It makes a warm excitement in our hearts
To drive beside the sad and lonely fields.
And now we see a wider space of road
Where groups of horsemen moving restlessly
Are waiting for the quiet-footed hounds.
The hounds come swiftly, covering the way
Like foaming water surging round our feet.
And then with cries and sound of cracking whips
All, all are gone: the distant beat of hoofs
Like trailing smoke of dreams, comes fitfully
To tell how near they were a moment past.
But we see only winter trees again,
And turning homewards meet a drifting rain.



The End of a Hunting Day

Milly Jourdain

The dusk is creeping up the vale
While on the hill we rest,
And look across the wint'ry fields
Towards the dark'ning west.

A ringing sound comes changefully
Along the narrow way--
Some horsemen going to their homes,
After a hunting day.

They call "Good-night," and soon the dark
Has swallowed them from sight:
But still the sound lives on a while
Lingering like a light.

And now it all grows lonelier
Under the quiet sky,
Until some sparks of life shall come
And burn and then pass by.