And the couch grass burned.
For we have waited for the chance
To turn a furrow clean,
And we have waited for the cry
Of peewits come to glean.
Now there’s work from dawn ’til sunset,
For it’s time the plough awoke,
And it’s time the air was flavoured
With the couch fire smoke.
1940
FINGERPRINTS OF GOD
“Whenever I meet a man,” he said,
“I look him low, I look him high,
To see if a certain gleam is born,
An inner light, deep in the eye,
The light of eyes that see in growing corn
Not only grain, not only golden bread,
But sweet and plain, the fingerprints of God.
What for a man is it, who cares
Only for harvest and the threshing feast,
Sees the reward before the growth of Love,
Who looks impatient at the slim green spears
That tremble under grey October skies
And scorns all but the ripened head?
God is not seen only at harvest time,
But he is here, in winter-sleeping sod,
And half his glory stands about our feet
In the low lines of green young growing wheat.”
1940
EXPERIENCE – BEWILDERMENT
I have stood all day on sodden earth,
Beneath the heavy hand of weeping skies,
But golden fancies hammered at my brain,
An endless count of flying wonder-thoughts,
Pell-mell upon each other, and again
Forgotten, like the dance of dragonflies.
1940
The community happened to be close to several Royal Air Force bases – obvious targets for bombing raids. The men took turns serving as night watchman for the community.
THE END OF THE WATCH
There’s a crowing of cocks, and a paling of stars,
And the hours of the watch are far on;
There’s a flush in the east, and the pipe of a bird,
And the last of the starlight is gone.
The darkness thins out, and the new world appears.
The watchman prepares to depart.
Let him go to his rest with the sun on his face
And the splendour of stars in his heart.
1940
Now is the harvest of death
During the spring and early summer of 1940, while Philip was planting and hoeing, Germany invaded Norway, Denmark, Belgium, Luxembourg, and France. British troops were rescued from Dunkirk, but only after thousands had been killed or taken prisoner.
THE HOUR ON WHICH WE LOOK
Now is the harvest of Death,
Now the red scythe-blade of slaughter
Sweeps through the children of Eve.
We stand in a circle of silence,
The wings of the Reaper are hissing –
And what could our speaking achieve?
And we, as we stand in our silence,
Hear the laugh of the sower of fate,
Who scattered the seed in the hearts of the tribes,
And who reaps now the hate.
Only the music of a wild wind in the trees,
Or the rumble of thunder, the roar of the rain,
The shouting of demons who ride on the storm-winds of wrath
Can tell of the tempest that howls like a wolf on the plain;
Where the earth carried wheat, and the waters were sweet,
But now stink with the blood of the slain.
1940
Germany defeated France in just six weeks, and turned its eyes to its next target across the English Channel. Britain made preparations for the expected invasion.
Now that the people of England were rallying to fight for their country, they had little patience with war resisters. The government, however, provided tribunals to discern whether or not a conscientious objector to war was genuine in his request for alternative service or unconditional exemption.
Philip was called up before such a tribunal. On February 27, 1940, a local newspaper, the Evening Advertiser, reported on his case:
Swindon Man’s “Love Beats All” Theme at Tribunal
Bruderhof Man’s Conscience:“A Christian Cannot Take Up Arms”
A probational member of the international community at the Bruderhof, Ashton Keynes, near Swindon, was an applicant for total exemption from military service before the South-Western Tribunal for Conscientious Objectors, at the University of Bristol yesterday. He was Philip Herbert Cootes Britts, and he was accompanied in court by several fellow members, bearded young fellows, who attracted considerable attention by reason of their unusual appearance.
Britts, in his written statement, applied for complete exemption from any form of war service because of his belief that a Christian cannot take up arms or use violence against his fellows; neither could he help others to do so. For the last five years there had been no question in his mind about that, he averred.
“In the spring of 1939,” the statement proceeded, “I decided to take part in organised pacifism and began to promote my views among others. During the summer I addressed the local Bible classes on this subject and set about organising a group of the Peace Pledge Union in Kingswood, Bristol. I acted as its secretary until I came to the Bruderhof on 26 November. I cannot accept any conditional exemption, and shall refuse any form of alternative service.”
The judge was satisfied that Philip’s beliefs were genuine and granted him an unconditional exemption.
It was no escape from conflict that Philip sought, but a different struggle. “This is the meaning of brotherhood,” he would write eight years later, “– not a haven of refuge, but a joyous aggression against all wrong.” What’s more, there would be no end to this battle, no decommissioning and resting on one’s laurels, no growing old and tepid.
THE OLD MEN WHO HAVE FORGOTTEN WHAT TO DO WITH LIFE
They spoke of high adventure of a thousand mighty sorts –
Of bareback rides on foreign plains
And nights in foreign ports;
They laughed and cursed and downed their beer,
And all would talk and none would hear,
The bar was thick with noisy cheer
As the men sat drinking.
But one man sat in quiet, alone,
In one dim corner, sat and gazed.
He told no story, roared