When the heath wore the robe of late summer, And the fuchsia-bells, hot in the sun, Hung red by the door, a quick comer Brought tidings that marching was done For him who had joined in that game overseas Where Death stood to win, though his name was to borrow A brightness therefrom not to fade on the morrow.
September 1915.
"OFTEN WHEN WARRING"
Often when warring for he wist not what, An enemy-soldier, passing by one weak, Has tendered water, wiped the burning cheek, And cooled the lips so black and clammed and hot;Then gone his way, and maybe quite forgot The deed of grace amid the roar and reek;Yet larger vision than loud arms bespeak He there has reached, although he has known it not.
For natural mindsight, triumphing in the act Over the throes of artificial rage, Has thuswise muffled victory's peal of pride, Rended to ribands policy's specious page That deals but with evasion, code, and pact, And war's apology wholly stultified.
1915.
THEN AND NOW
When battles were fought With a chivalrous sense of Should and Ought, In spirit men said, "End we quick or dead, Honour is some reward!
Let us fight fair--for our own best or worst;So, Gentlemen of the Guard, Fire first!"
In the open they stood, Man to man in his knightlihood:
They would not deign To profit by a stain On the honourable rules, Knowing that practise perfidy no man durst Who in the heroic schools Was nurst.
But now, behold, what Is warfare wherein honour is not!
Rama laments Its dead innocents:
Herod breathes: "Sly slaughter Shall rule! Let us, by modes once called accurst, Overhead, under water, Stab first."1915.
A CALL TO NATIONAL SERVICE
Up and be doing, all who have a hand To lift, a back to bend. It must not be In times like these that vaguely linger we To air our vaunts and hopes; and leave our land Untended as a wild of weeds and sand.
- Say, then, "I come!" and go, O women and men Of palace, ploughshare, easel, counter, pen;That scareless, scathless, England still may stand.
Would years but let me stir as once I stirred At many a dawn to take the forward track, And with a stride plunged on to enterprize, I now would speed like yester wind that whirred Through yielding pines; and serve with never a slack, So loud for promptness all around outcries!
March 1917.
THE DEAD AND THE LIVING ONE
The dead woman lay in her first night's grave, And twilight fell from the clouds' concave, And those she had asked to forgive forgave.
The woman passing came to a pause By the heaped white shapes of wreath and cross, And looked upon where the other was.
And as she mused there thus spoke she:
"Never your countenance did I see, But you've been a good good friend to me!"Rose a plaintive voice from the sod below:
"O woman whose accents I do not know, What is it that makes you approve me so?""O dead one, ere my soldier went, I heard him saying, with warm intent, To his friend, when won by your blandishment:
"'I would change for that lass here and now!
And if I return I may break my vow To my present Love, and contrive somehow "'To call my own this new-found pearl, Whose eyes have the light, whose lips the curl, I always have looked for in a girl!'
"--And this is why that by ceasing to be -Though never your countenance did I see -You prove you a good good friend to me;
"And I pray each hour for your soul's repose In gratitude for your joining those No lover will clasp when his campaigns close."Away she turned, when arose to her eye A martial phantom of gory dye, That said, with a thin and far-off sigh:
"O sweetheart, neither shall I clasp you, For the foe this day has pierced me through, And sent me to where she is. Adieu! -"And forget not when the night-wind's whine Calls over this turf where her limbs recline, That it travels on to lament by mine."There was a cry by the white-flowered mound, There was a laugh from underground, There was a deeper gloom around.
1915.
A NEW YEAR'S EVE IN WAR TIME
I
Phantasmal fears, And the flap of the flame, And the throb of the clock, And a loosened slate, And the blind night's drone, Which tiredly the spectral pines intone!
II
And the blood in my ears Strumming always the same, And the gable-cock With its fitful grate, And myself, alone.
III
The twelfth hour nears Hand-hid, as in shame;I undo the lock, And listen, and wait For the Young Unknown.
IV
In the dark there careers -
As if Death astride came To numb all with his knock -A horse at mad rate Over rut and stone.
V
No figure appears, No call of my name, No sound but "Tic-toc"Without check. Past the gate It clatters--is gone.
VI
