Here’s another poem by John Masefield (1878–1967), Poet Laureate from 1930 to 1967.
It’s the sort of poem you can easily overlook and dismiss as a typical pastoral piece. Repeated readings, though, reveal some lovely sound effects and the feeling that the sunset symbolises something else.
As with other Masefield poems that have a rural setting, it’s not clear where we are in time. I had assumed that it was written during the first world war and was a sort of coded reference to that conflict. I was surprised to find out that it was actually written earlier, around the time of the Boer war.
Is it actually the British Empire on which the sun is metaphorically setting? Or is it just a memorable image of a country sunset with words taking the place of paints?
Perhaps it has a more personal meaning because Eastnor is in Herefordshire, near Ledbury where Masefield was born and spent his early years.
On Eastnor Knoll by John Masefield
Silent are the woods, and the dim green boughs are
Hushed in the twilight: yonder, in the path through
The apple orchard, is a tired plough-boy
Calling the cows home.
A bright white star blinks, the pale moon rounds, but
Still the red, lurid wreckage of the sunset
Smoulders in smoky fire, and burns on
The misty hill-tops.
Ghostly it grows, and darker, the burning
Fades into smoke, and now the gusty oaks are
A silent army of phantoms thronging
A land of shadows.
The Good Reader 