Charles Sorley
This field is almost white with stone
That cumber all its thirsty crust.
And underneath, I know, are bones.
And all around is death and dust.
And if you love a livelier hue–
O, if you love the youth of year,
When all is clean and green and new,
Depart. There is no summer here.
Albeit, to me there lingers yet
In this forbidding stony dress
The impotent and dim regret
For some forgotten restlessness.
Dumb, imperceptibly astir,
These relics of an ancient race,
These men, in whom the dead bones were,
Still fortifying their resting-place.
Their field of life was white with stones;
Good fruit to earth they never brought.
O, in these bleached and buried bones
Was neither love nor faith nor thought.
But like the wind in this bleak place,
Bitter and bleak and sharp they grew.
And bitterly they ran their race,
A brutal, bad, unkindly crew:
Souls like the dry earth, hearts like stone.
Brains like that barren bramble-tree:
Stern, sterile, senseless, mute, unknown–
But bold, O, bolder far than we!
_14 July 1913_
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Analysis (AI Assisted)
In this poem, the speaker reflects on a bleak and desolate landscape, one littered with stones and haunted by the bones of a forgotten race. The imagery is stark—dry earth, barren land, and bleached bones evoke a sense of abandonment and decay. The field, seemingly lifeless, represents the absence of vitality, love, or faith, and the speaker contemplates the emptiness of the lives that once inhabited it.
The opening lines describe a field that is “almost white with stone,” a place where the earth is “thirsty” and “cumbered” with debris. This barren, unyielding landscape suggests a place of death, where nature itself has been worn down by time and neglect. The reference to bones beneath the surface deepens this sense of forgotten history and loss. The speaker warns that if one seeks the vibrancy of life, the “youth of year,” they should depart, for there is no summer here—only a harsh, lifeless terrain.
Yet, despite the desolation, the speaker acknowledges a lingering “impotent and dim regret” in the land. This is not a longing for the past or for the lives of those who once walked the earth, but rather a vague, restless feeling tied to the stones and bones that remain. These relics, though now reduced to mere fragments, once had life, and the speaker senses something almost imperceptible stirring in them—an unspoken reminder of the human race that once lived and suffered here.
The second half of the poem shifts focus from the land to the people who once inhabited it. These “men,” now reduced to bones, are depicted as having led lives devoid of love, faith, or thought—lives defined by harshness, bitterness, and sterility. The “field of life” they left behind was “white with stones,” a symbol of their fruitless existence. The speaker paints a grim portrait of these individuals: “bitter and bleak,” they ran their race in a brutal, unkindly manner, leaving no legacy of warmth or compassion.
However, despite their harshness, the speaker paradoxically admires their boldness. Their “souls like the dry earth” and “hearts like stone” might seem barren, yet they possess a kind of strength that is both relentless and unyielding. The final lines suggest that, though they lacked the virtues of love or thought, these individuals were “bolder far than we,” perhaps implying that their uncompromising toughness gave them a certain kind of vitality, even if it was misguided or destructive.
In this poem, the field of bones serves as a meditation on the futility of lives spent in bitterness and hardness. The speaker sees both the emptiness and the strength in this forgotten race. The imagery of stones, bones, and the dry earth evokes a world where nothing grows, where nothing flourishes, but where the memory of existence lingers, inescapable and stark. The speaker’s complex view on the past suggests both a sense of regret for the lost potential of those lives and an acknowledgment of the fierce, albeit tragic, courage they possessed.