



Produced by Al Haines.




[Illustration: Cover]




                          THE DAFFODIL FIELDS


                                   BY
                             JOHN MASEFIELD

            AUTHOR OF "THE EVERLASTING MERCY," "THE WIDOW IN
                    THE BYE STREET," "THE STORY OF A
                           ROUND-HOUSE," ETC.



                                New York
                         THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
                                  1915

                         _All rights reserved_




                            COPYRIGHT, 1918,
                           BY JOHN MASEFIELD.

            Set up and electrotyped.  Published March, 1913.
             Reprinted July, December, 1913; August, 1915.



                             Norwood Press
                J. S. Cushing Co. -- Berwick & Smith Co.
                         Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.




                          THE DAFFODIL FIELDS


                                   I

Between the barren pasture and the wood
There is a patch of poultry-stricken grass,
Where, in old time, Ryemeadows' Farmhouse stood,
And human fate brought tragic things to pass.
A spring comes bubbling up there, cold as glass,
It bubbles down, crusting the leaves with lime,
Babbling the self-same song that it has sung through time.

Ducks gobble at the selvage of the brook,
But still it slips away, the cold hill-spring,
Past the Ryemeadows' lonely woodland nook
Where many a stubble gray-goose preens her wing,
On, by the woodland side.  You hear it sing
Past the lone copse where poachers set their wires,
Past the green hill once grim with sacrificial fires.

Another water joins it; then it turns,
Runs through the Ponton Wood, still turning west,
Past foxgloves, Canterbury bells, and ferns,
And many a blackbird's, many a thrush's nest;
The cattle tread it there;