Lost in France by Ernest Rhys

Jo's Requiem

He had the plowman's strength in the grasp of his hand:
He could see a crow three miles away,
and the trout beneath the stone.
He could hear the green oats growing and the south-west wind making rain.
He could hear the wheel upon the hill when it left the level road.
He could make a gate, and dig a pit,
And plow as straight as stone can fall.
And he is dead.

(Jo died in the Great War1914-18)