Poems, 43 - 84, XLIII - LXXXV
XLIII
THE breath of God, a wind from heaven's throne,
Like friendship's sweetness, and like pain's sharp strength,
Outstretching mightily to memory's length—
The free and wind-swept Marlborough Downs, my own.
Ah, Marlborough, Martinsell, and Granham Hill !
To see below the little town outspread,
Standing beside the old White Horse's head,
That "pads and pads," unmoved and silent still.
76
The twin grey towers, a double sentinel,
The Chapel spire, the Mound, the Wilderness,
The bridge, and Kennet's silver sluggishness,—
Ah, Marlborough, Granham Hill, and Martinsell !
To stand before the satyr-haunted wood,
Or where I see the Vale beneath my feet;
Beyond, the Plain's bare edges—ah, 'twere sweet
To stand again where often I have stood !
Or where I stand, up high above the earth
On grand Four Miler's top, yet see beyond
The waving trees by Barbury's ancient mound,
And share the wind's ecstatic solemn mirth.
Or where from Liddington I may behold
The mighty plain that stretches out of sight
Beyond dark Swindon town, and with delight
Gaze on a world, and wonder, as of old.
77
These are my friends : men, trees, and grassy downs,
Deep starry nights, wide spaces, and the high
Stern hills that teach our immortality,
And peaceful streams, and old forgotten towns.
These whom I loved, I honour and I hail,
All these,—because I do not know my fate,
And yet I know my love so deep and great
That, death or life betide, it shall not fail.
August, 1917.
78
XLIV
SOME seek, as on a highway plain,
To walk the road that leads to God,
Ever to tread where others trod,
And deem all further searching vain.
And others wander far and wide
O'er trackless moorland, seeming-lost,
Whose path no ray has ever crossed
Save mockery, all true light denied,
Those proud ones think; yet evermore
Before their eyes there burns a star,
Half-quenched, perchance, and pale and far,
Yet burning still their eyes before;
79
And thus they see their final goal,
Beyond the pathless fenland drear,
And fear-wrapt vales and mountains sheer,
Though quicksands threat and thunders roll.
But that far ray of light serene,
Which those dim wanderers follow yet,
Nor, having known, can e'er forget,
It is not from the highway seen.
Wide, wide, the road they tread, well paven,
And beaten hard; and yet that road
Of ease is not the way to God,
Is not the path that leads to heaven.
Where others ended, they shall end,
In prison by their pride inbound,
Fast-locked, with dread and darkness round,
From any light that heaven may send.
80
While they who dared to wander far,
And trust their light through storm and mire,
Whose fear is quell'd by high desire,
Shall find at length their distant star,
Shall stand upon the topmost heights
That crown the heaven of heavens above,
And feel the one enfolding Love
That all things in itself unites.
But mountains dark must steeply rise
And valleys gloom before, ere clear
They see the vision bright, and hear
The perfect songs of Paradise.
September 3rd, 1917.
81
XLV
ON A SONNET OF RUPERT BROOKE
" They say there's a high windless world and strange,
Out of the wash of days and temporal tide,
Where Faith and Good, Wisdom and Truth abide,
Aeterna corpora, subject to no change."
RUPERT BROOKE.
THEY say : and yet to me the human gleam
Of chequered life, and many-coloured love,
Are nobler than the eternal things above,
Whereof sad weary mortals fondly dream.
The white eternity that must remain
Calm 'mid creation's rack, unchanged in change,
Less sweet, less bitter is, less nobly strange,
Than hectic joy, and love, and hate, and pain.
82
And he who fixed this wild and varied flush
Of infinite colour in human life, lest cold
Blank death should seize us, all shall re-unite,
We know not when nor how (as some great hush
May mingle many sounds), in one vast white,
Where yet each hue is shining as of old.
WAMBEKE, October 3rd, 1917.
83
XLVI
REVEALER of the secret things of time,
Tearing the first veil from eternity,
The fear that wraps us, when thine hour doth chime,
Is not of thee, benignant Death, not thee !
Who leadest us, though dark thy way and drear,
Closer, we hope, to God, more nigh the end,
The vision; therefore, gazing on thee near,
We find thy face the visage of a friend.
But one there is, that stalks before thee still,
Blood-red and fierce, intent on raging harms,
And racks and tears and tortures at his will
His victims, ere they reach thy folding arms.
And he it is, whose coming and whose reign
We shudder at—thy frightful brother, Pain.
October 24th, 1917.
84
XLVII
WHEN sweetest Orpheus played and sang,
The mountains with his echo rang,
His music tamed the sea,
And bird and insect, man and beast,
And rock and bush and tree,
All hushed with sudden joy to feast
Upon his minstrelsy.
He soothed the monarch e'en of hell,
So featly as he sang and well,
In that unblest abode;
But when to Thrace his steps he led,
That horde, athirst for blood,
Rent him in pieces, and his head
Cast in the river flood.
85
So Nature shows, and human Art,
And all things lovely, to the heart
The glory that is nigh;
Yet, stonier than the heart of hell,
We bustle, strive, and cry,
And Beauty's calm, eternal spell
Still to ourselves deny.
October 29th, 1917.
86
XLVIII
' 1V OUK 71V ae6OV O KOO"/.GOS
I SAW in dreams the mighty band of saints,
Who lived on earth as men, endured and died,
Firm in the fight where fleshly nature faints
Unmoved in faith of Him, the Crucified,
Who led them once through weariness and strife,
And leads them now in paths of endless life,
Where they in rapture go their loved Lord beside.
And first of all that glorious company
Ir found the fair and tender Mother-Maid,
The Virgin blest to all eternity,
Upon whose breast the Infant God was laid;
Next he, the leader of the Apostles' choir,
Who holds the keys; and he whose holy fire
Spread first the gospel news, unwearied, unafraid.
87
And all the glorious Twelve, Christ's chosen friends,
And those great Four, who showed the Man of men,
The Lion of God, the slaughtered ox that spends
His blood for men; and he whose lofty ken
Saw things unspoken, things unspeakable,
In vision clear that mortals may not tell
Of Heaven's Throne, and God's high glory opened then.
And they who suffered torture, pain and death
By stone or rack or stake or wheel or sword,
Yet knew, like Stephen, 'mid their dying breath
The glory and the succour of their Lord,
And warrior saints who fought with Michael's strength,
And those who well endured a weary length
Of years, and died in His sweet peace whom they adored.
88
But who is this, the best and loveliest
Of souls whom Jesus all in all sufficed?
And lo ! upon his hands and on his breast
And on his feet, he wears the wounds of Christ.
And after him he brings, like odours sweet
Before His Master, throngs whose willing feet
By Francis' fragrant grace to Jesus were enticed.
The prophets' goodly fellowship are here;
He who commanded, Let the people go,
God's chosen king, the psalmist and the seer,
And fallen Ahab's still undaunted foe,
And chiefest he, who saw the holy Dove
Descend on Christ's baptizing from above
And many a prophet more, whom earth shall never know.
89
And all who thirsted once for truth divine,
Though dim, and held of good a love sincere,
See now the God they longed for, and they shine
Bright in the glorious crowd rejoicing here;
Here Socrates and Plato find their goal,
And Virgil, and Lucretius' darkling soul
Now lightened; sad Aurelius' doubts are now made clear.
And Dante holds the Paradise he knew;
And they who, burning, raised a shining light
Of freedom, glowing yet unchecked and true,
With great rejoicing worship day and night;
And Wesley's fiery zeal, and holy Ken,
And all of every farthest race of men,
Who followed God, are here, in robes of glory digit.
90
And many millions more, to earth unknown,
Who lived in Jesus, and in Him have died,
Who knows and stamps the flock of all His own
With His own seals of love, are here beside,
And all adore Him still, and find in Him
Their guidon, truth for eyes that once were dim
Their God in Him, their King, their Pathway and their Guide.
He is their Rest, their Strength; in His great might
They labour still on that eternal shore;
And working yet where never falls the night,
One boundless God immortal souls adore;
And Him, their Lord, their Father, and their Friend,
Their Life, their Satisfaction, and their End,
Cease not to praise, adore and love for evermore.
BAILLEUL, ALL Hallows' Eve, 1917.
91
XLIX
I SAW them laughing once; they held their sides
And laughed till old Olympus shook again,—
The blessed gods, who watch whate'er betides
On earth below, saw man with man in vain
Strive in besotted hate, crawl out at night
And creep about, and hide in fear the day,
Burrowing beneath the earth at dawn's first light,
And sleeping all the golden hours away
Of sun and pleasure; then when night grows chill,
Though bright the full moon shines upon the earth
He calls it dark, comes out, and works his will.
Small wonder surely for Olympus' mirth,
At War, sans right, sans reason, and sans mind,
This wild supremest folly of mankind !
November 5th, 1917.
92
L
PEACE
PEACE is not rest, nor sloth, nor idle ease,
Nor languorous yielding to the body's joys,
Where one, oblivious of discordant noise,
'Mid shade in warmth, cool-fann'd by heaven's breeze,
Forgets the world's harsh cries and slow disease,
Delights himself and bids his soul rejoice ;
Yet through the pleasaunce comes a trumpet-voice,
"Arise to battle ! This is not your peace."
But there is peace, where no rebuking call
Is heard, but every doubt is cast aside,
Though thou with weariness art like to fall,
Yet, fainting, faintest not, nor quittest fight,
Then with true peace thou most art satisfied,
Striving with all thy soul's concordant might.
December 8th, 1917.
93
LI
IN MEMORIAM, J. N. E. (killed Dec. 6th, 1917)
AND hast thou gone through gates of death ?
Though trembling nature bids us mourn,
Yet passed from out this stormy bourn
At price of body and of breath,
Thou seest much we may not see,
Thou knowest what we cannot know ;
Thus nigher God, through all our woe,
We deem thee, and our tears for thee
Are dried, who leftest earth as thou
Didst leave us, brave in righteous strife;
And all our memories of thy life,
Past joys and former laughter, now
94
We know not idle nor in vain,
But part of one tremendous whole,
The life eternal of thy soul,
And I shall speak with thee again,
And laugh, and know thee, and behold,
When I have passed, and, now unseen,
Thy presence is as it has been,
In friendship that grows never old.
MARLBOROUGH, December 9th, 1917
95
LII
SIX things I hate and scorn; yea, seven grow mad
To think on—seven things utterly, wholly bad;
I hate the smug fat smile upon their faces
Who bid "the lower orders know their places";
Loud criers, seeking selfish gain and low,
Who yell the louder as the less they know;
Those who demand the swallowing down of lies
(Dead, putrid truths) as pleasing in God's eyes;
Intolerance, fettering God, and man's large soul,
Stoning the free and true and sane and whole;
Those who long prayers and meek confessions whine,
Vexing with tears the love and scorn Divine;
And those who take a blessing of their friend
Or country, and betray him at the end;
96
And those who, hearing words like these, remark
"Quite true—of other people." These are dark,
Vile, evil, filthy things. Thou God above,
Whose hate is still co-equal with Thy love,
Arise and smite and utterly destroy
These favourite darlings of the devil's joy!
December 23rd, 1917.
97
LIII
ELEGY
WEEP ye for those who cannot come again !
O weep for those whose sun is set in pain !
And let the rocks re-echo to our plaint,
The hills send back the voices of our mourning !
Lament and cry ! nor know ye cold restraint,
But weep for those for whom is no returning,
Their sun already set, while still 'tis day;
And we endure a sad and partial light,
Reft of the radiant love that lit our way.
For death has left his toll of age, to prey
On lives unlived, and snatches from our sight
To silence those whom most we wished him spare;
And smitten hearts, first-struck with sudden grief,
Curse out on death, calling him cruel thief,
98
And eyeless fool, as one who in the green
Should reap the corn, nor wait the ripe and fair
Full crop of harvest-yellow;
Or pluck in June the hard and acid grape,
Nor wait the autumn richness of his shape,
Full-plumped, and sweet, and mellow;
But now he lies in wait to catch and snare
Lives unfulfilled, to whom the morn serene
Had promised deeds of fame, and high reward.
But these they have, and death's fell envious sword
Can sever not the honour from their name;
For these went forth, yielding their lives to death,
And therefore death is vanquished in their fall.
For now the doors of death are opened wide,
And we may gaze therethrough, and seeing, proclaim,
With bursting hope and yearning satisfied,
That that is true which seer and poet saith:
Their early promise is not crushed by fate,
Like some fair trampled bud that withers; dead,
They found their death a gate,
99
And passed from life to life; what did appal,
Now blesses, and their fear remembered
They smile at, and we guess their happy scene ;
For Death in this his dread triumphal hour
Lays by his wonted guise of cruel power,
And lo ! his form benignant and serene,
The All-Father's kindly angel ; and the life
That struggled here, and yearned for mighty things,
Finds there as here the call to manly strife,
And as they were, they are, nor yet exempt
From human passions and from human love.
No sudden change is theirs, but on the wings
Of death upborne, they passed, and now attempt
With mightier weapons deeds our deeds above.
Ay, and they help us also,;. greater might
Is theirs to aid in more than earthly fight;
And still their strength is ours, a sword and shield
Against the foes to which our souls would yield,
And still to earthly friends their love brings aid
When threat'ning ill makes flesh and spirit afraid.
100
For this, their home, where first they learned the spell
Of beauty, and the majesty of truth,
And such good things as now, though learning yet,
Behind a veil less dim than in their youth
Of bodily life, they see, ineffable
In glory—earth they still cannot forget,
Where many souls, to their soul strongly knit
With bonds of love unfading evermore,
Dwell yet, and love and holily worship it.
Be calm, and weep not ; as they joyed before
In all the glories of the earth we adore,
So now in that enduring love they share
Of earthly friends and earthly beauties still.
For deathless love there is no power can kill,
And death no barrier makes twixt here and there.
And even we in flesh confined may yet
See heaven mirrored on earth, who dare behold
All things as one, and know the light eternal
Displayed in earthly glories manifold,
In every splendour of the round diurnal
101
Of tinged dawn, bright noon, and lavish set
Of sun, attended as in regal state
By pomp of every hue that nature wears ;
And then, till flushing morning comes again,
The awful glory of the silent stars,
Cold majesty, that weeps not for our pain,
Where all the passions of our love and hate,
Longing, and turbulent wrath, and aching grief,
Are melted into one eternal calm
Of moveless still relief,
Untouched by time and earthly things, and balm
Is found of fixed peace ;
And there, commingling in that waveless ocean,
Forgetful of desire and change and motion,
In those far burning depths all pulses cease.
Ay, all the beauty, all the mingled dower
That life affords, and all the clouds which lour
That sun-rays doubly sweet may break therethrough,
All veils that half reveal the light beyond,
All torment giving place to sweet relief,
102
All strife and sweat by which our spirit grew,
All joy, all pain, all gladness and all grief,
And all the beatings of our human heart
Are theirs, and still they love us, and the bond
Of passion is not broken with the thread
Of bodily life, but each in his degree
(Those on the earthly and the heavenly verge
Of that grey flood we may not gaze across,)
Alike is an eternal precious part
Of one infinite human destiny.
And hence, though loud we mourn, and call them dead
Who pass, death is not loss;
But all in God and in each other merge,
Each single soul in one vast general soul,
Whereof no part is lost,
Or flung to mere destruction, like the frost
That vanishes before the noonday sun,
Or burning stars that earthwards darkling fall,
But even the vilest and the worst of all
Must still, through ages vast and numberless
103
Though 't be by suffering keen and long distress
Come purified and perfect to his goal,
And make complete the human race in one
Ever aspiring, still triumphant whole.
All we are one, nor long our severing,
And they with clearer eyes behold the earth,
And scan the heavens, in that glad rebirth ;
And every generation following
Is one with us in everlasting worth,
Eternally doomed to endless perfecting.
December, 1917.
104
LIV
CHRISTMAS, 1917
TOGETHER we are glad and sing today,
Exulting in the birth of that sweet Child
Who to God's Father-heart has reconciled
Bewildered man, and lit with hope's pure ray,
And promise of endless life, his gloomy way;
Now sheltered calm, as in some halcyon mild
Retreat from war's black clouds and tempests wild,
This year together we adore and pray,
And if,—if, ere another Christmas dawn,
Death claims me hence, (as well he may, for plain
His path before me), yet my soul reborn
Shall visit you still bound in body's chain;
And after, met beyond, some joyous morn,
We shall share true Christmas mirth together again.
December 25th, 1917.
105
LV
SALISBURY CATHEDRAL
I PRAYED here when I faced the future first
Of war and death, that GOD would grant me power
To serve Him truly, and through best and worst
He would protect and guide me every hour.
And He has heard my prayer, and led me still
Through purging war's grim wondrous revelation
Of fear and courage, death and life, until
I kneel again in solemn adoration
Before Him here, and still black clouds before
Threat as did those which now passed through are bright ;
Therefore, with hope and prayer and praise, once more
I worship Him, and ask that with His might
He still would lead, and I with utter faith
Follow, through life or sharpest pain or death.
December 27th, 1917.
In the train near Salisbury.
106
LVI
ENGLAND
[TWO SONNETS]
I
I CANNOT argue out the rights and wrongs,
Who first this hideous force of war did move,
I only know my heart and spirit longs
To serve this England somehow which I love.
Shall it be ours to dwell where England's hills
Roll down in lonely places to the sea,
And hear the rushing waterfall that fills
The vale with music's deep profundity,
And shall not love compel us, whatsoe'er
This England asks, so beautiful, so great,
To do or suffer, and our end be there,
Not hating, though the foeman merit hate,
But simply glad to pay, if need, the price
Of so much beauty in life's sacrifice?
107
II
Life thus, perchance, is short; but life is worth
More, if your home is England; twenty years
Of living in the loveliest land on earth
Are better than an age where Afric sears
The soul with summer's fires, or Arctic cold
Numbs dead the very brain with wintry stress.
Yes, England, though thou listen to the bold
And braggart cries of folly and shamelessness,
Flinging rewards to those who ask reward,
Thy true sons love thee yet, and loathe the brood
Of cursed traitors. Free thyself, and guard
Thy noble heart unchanged, and ancient blood;
Thee will we answer, not the blatant breath
Of knaves, but thy high call, to life or death.
January, 1918.
108
LVII
HEREFORD
WOE to you, scribe or Pharisee, hypocrite,
Blind leader ! making for pretence long prayer,
Incurring greater wrath, you only care
To strain at gnats, and tithe the tiny height
Of springing mint and cummin, in despite
Of love and mercy, and the graver share
Of God's commands. Therefore shall judgment flare
On your tradition, and consume you quite.
Woe to you, "Christian" Pharisees, who go
Blind to the weightier matters of the law,
Entombed with dead tradition ; ne'er ye saw
The living God, nor heard His voice, nor know
His Spirit. Awake ! or hear the doom in awe,
"Woe!" and the speedy trump shall answer, "Woe!"
Januarv 21st, 1918.
109
LVIII
HEREDITY
WHAT desires and powers are working in me
Strains of long-forgotten ancestry,
Loves and hates, I know not, thoughts and passions
Strangely mingled all, to furnish me.
Did some sire of mine in ages olden
Yield an hour of passion now forgot?
I his offspring, lo ! must watch and struggle
'Gainst the lust that he regarded not.
110
Did he fight in chivalry and honour,
Spurn his own life, spare a conquered foe?
Still that light beams on me as I wander,
Shed from his fair deeds of long ago.
Yet, though thus the past surrounds and holds me,
Strong in good, or baleful with its sin,
Forming me, and prompting yet my actions,
Strange mysterious influence within,
Still myself I rule within my spirit,
Still I guide my purpose and my will,
Cherish yet my loves and aspirations,
Persecute the evil in me still,
So to each succeeding generation
Handing on the evil weaker yet,
All the good my fathers gave the stronger,
Living on though all the world forget,
111
Lest my sons unborn should rise and curse me,
Saying, "He, the recreant from the fray,
Now has cast a heavy weight upon us,
His sin clogging our aspiring way."
Ay, for evil faints not in the battle,
Still to war undaunted comes the right,
Each man's riven soul both field and warriors,
Sharing all mankind's eternal fight.
LARKHILL, January 22nd, 1918.
112
LIX
HERE'S to the glory of life, to the good and the ill that we know,
To the loves and the passions of men as they move and they live,
To the hope of the future that beams, and the splendour of past long ago,
All the chance and the change that the sweet-bitter seasons may give !
When I stand on the height of the hills in dominion, surveying the land,
Where the ridges are silent, regarding the rivers below,
Then the course of their current I trace with my eye from the peak where I stand,
Turning now to the towns in the plain, with their clamour of woe;
113
Even thus when I gaze with my soul for an hour on the surge and the stream
Of mankind, with its infinite ripple and chequer of change,
With its love and its hatred, its longing and laughter, its shade and its gleam,
Commingled of mirth and of care, and so heavenly strange,
With the pain that makes sweeter the pleasure, more happy so desperately snatched
From the sorrow that threatens the future, the ray the more rare,
The more glowing, so caught through the cloudrift, the pang of distress that is matched
By the gladness enhanced, and the friendship the foe makes more fair,
114
Then with wilder thanksgiving I praise the wise Maker of all, and adore
The Ordainer of sun and of shadow, the Giver of breath,
Life's fashioner, mingling the hope and the terror, behind and before,
Multitudinous laughter of life, and high promise of death.
LARKHILL, January 23rd, 1918.
115 8--2
LX
THE POETS
WE too can feel such pangs within our soul
As you can sing of ; we too, we have known
The stirrings of such love, we can but groan
Within ourselves, nor utter, at the whole
Whirl of rich passions myriad-hued, that roll
Through pulsing human life. The winds far-blown,
The tossing ocean, grass and flower and stone,
Hill, valley, dawn, noon, sunset, fill the bowl
Of passionate love in hearts that overflow
In yearning silence, envying still your gift
God gave, to ease your souls in song, and lift
Strains that reveal your vision's fire and show
What we too see, yet cannot, all unswift
In speech, express, nor tell the things we know.
LARKHILL, January 23rd, 1918.
(After reading "Gloucestershire Friends" by F. W. Harvey.)
116
LXI
WE gaze upon the apple-flower in bud,
Knowing decay will brown the pink-hued bloom ;
We see a summer morning's sunshine-flood,
Destined to meet the tempest and the gloom;
We mark the radiant course of youth's hot blood,
Thinking how Death will chill it in the tomb :
And sadly ponder each, remembering
The winter that lies hid in every spring.
Yet from the frozen ground at last uprise
The virgin snowdrops, pushing through the earth;
At last the sun breaks through the clouded skies,
To fat the soil and chase December's dearth;
Even from the grave where man's poor body lies
A fair and glorious hope restores our mirth;
And life and pleasure, flower and sunshine, show
The spring that lies beneath each winter's snow.
LARKHILL, January 27th, 1918.
117
LXII
THE OLD PRIEST
"MY son, you grieve me—you to join the rout
this new superstition, you whom I
Trained in old ways, and taught to supplicate
The mighty gods ! I weep for your recoil
To this soft slough of things untrue ! this Christ—
Who ever heard it in the sacred books
Or words of those inspired from Phoebus' lips,
That thus a god should come, and leave the abode
Of high Olympus, and be made a man,
To live for thirty years upon the earth,
And die the shameful death upon a cross?
You say the gods of Greece have had their day,
And now there is revealed to waiting man
A higher vision, and you worship now
118
Three gods instead of many ! Why, my son,
Think you these wayward fancies are the first
That men have fashioned to oppose the faith
Of countless generations? Many a time
Some unhinged madman, or philosopher
More versed in dreams than thoughts, in thoughts than facts,
Has risen to attack the blessed gods.
The faith, I tell you, that has stood so long
Against so many enemies, not now
Shall fall to your inventions. Evermore
There have been upstart heresies, ages old,
Called new, the farthest fruit of modern thought,
And shall be; yet the ancient faith lives on...
You say this Christ appeared, in Galilee,
A peasant Jew, on the earth, reminding me
How poets tell that gods in ancient times
Appeared in unexpected strange disguise,
To bless mankind: but their divinity
Gave sign of itself at last, nor left the world
119
To guess, a malefactor on a cross
Was God! You say, you never saw the gods;
Did you see Christ ascend into the skies,
As you assert He did? Do you complain
Because the faith of thousand ages past
Gives no more visible sign of gods today
Than this new fancy of unsettled minds?
Why, your own books have said, your own Christ said,
(You tell me) `Blest are they who have not seen,
And yet believed.' But which is worthier faith,
A system that has stood ten thousand years,
Or this new mushroom follower of a score
Of similar heresies and proud revolts
Against past truth? You say, those tales are wrong,
Which say that Zeus is subject to the lust
Of mortal women or many goddesses,
That beings divine are swayed by sudden breath
Of passion, or can strive (as Homer tells)
Between themselves, against each other's might
120
For mortal sakes; but dare you so reject
Our faith because you cannot understand
The meaning of the stories that our sires
Have handed on to us? Nay, nay, my son,
For who art thou to judge the blessed gods?
For thus our wisest tell us that they did,
And wilt thou set thyself against the strength
Of aged wisdom? Nay, thou art impious
To question of the gods. Darest thou claim
To comprehend the incomprehensible?
Pursue not vain philosophies; they talk,
Chop logic, play with words and subtleties;
We are not quick in mind like them, my son;
Meddle thou not with those who pull apart
In pieces our beliefs, and overturn
The faith of many. We are simple folk,
And simply do believe, and sacrifice
The things long since commanded, and fulfil
The duties we are taught. Can reason bind
121
The infinite, or words express the truth
In all its fulness? Can we grasp the whole
With these weak finite human minds of ours?
You say, though, you have left philosophy,
And this new Christ is no philosopher,
Nor seeks alone the clever, but the fools
Makes rather to confound the wise. Be't so :
We will not argue then of brain, but heart.
You did believe the gods, and now 'tis Christ—
What difference? both are faiths, no argument
About them ; you have left without excuse
Even of reason, then, what you were taught
From your first childhood, and our ancient lore,
Traditions handed down, you now desert
To serve new-fangled superstitions, rife
With mystery, whose charm and glamour catch
Your simple fancy, but shall pass away,
And our great faiths shall stand as they have stood
So long until today. Stand in the ways,
122
And see, and ask for the old paths, and then
Follow them where your fathers ere your time
Followed their fathers, and forsake your Christ,
A superstition doomed to die in a day,
As in a day it grew to sudden birth;
Or else endure the judgment of the gods,
Who have commanded: Do ye thus and thus,
The which you will not do. But fire from heaven,
That slew the Titans, shall avenge on you
Your folly and faithlessness in endless doom.
O dear my son, return and worship Zeus
Again, and offer incense to the gods.
Let sacrifice avert their instant wrath;
Or must I curse you as a renegade,
And mourn you as a follower of men
Who have defied the dread and awful gods
That prosper truth, and sternly punish wrong? "
So spake the priest of Zeus to one who had
Forsaken ancient gods to follow Christ;
123
And still methinks such words as these are heard,
Rebuking souls sincere that dare reject
Hard man-made dogmas that their conscience hates,
Their reason scorns, and mind and heart deny,
Claiming anew their Christian liberty,
And truth as man's eternal heritage,
Appealing from a frozen Church to Christ.
0 God of Truth, who lead'st thy followers
So strange and diverse ways, give thou to all
A heart of wisdom and true charity !
February, 1918.
124
LXIII
ON THE RUSSIAN PEACE
YOU damned democrats, you had a king,
And then with some success against the foe
Of all the world you fought, and rallying
When worsted, showed the valour that we know;
Now you have banished him, and set instead
Upstart impostors in the regal seat,
And since the time you put them at your head
Your sky has darkened to this last defeat.
Therefore let those who praised your wicked deed
Hang silent heads, if they know any shame;
For though we yet shall pass this hour of need,
And yet win through in holy Freedom's name,
You have deserted us to fight alone:
The shame be yours, the victor's praise our own.
February 12th, 1918.
125
LXIV
I HAD a vision of the deeps of hell,
And saw the damned look up to him who first
Had bidden them live, and then their souls immersed
In hopeless torment and unspeakable;
I heard the cries from out the pit that well,
"Of mortal and immortal beings worst,
Most hateful, be thy name for ever cursed,
Thou God of cruelty ineffable ! "
And at this curse, that mighty God above
Fell trembling, struck from his ensanguined throne;
And lo ! it was not God, but man had given
A raging Fiend that seat to make his own;
Hell vanished : and I saw true God from heaven
Smile; and His name was Justice and was Love.
February 21st, 1918.
126
LXV
TRANSLATION (Horace, Odes III. 16)
HER tower shut Danaë safely in, with might
Of brass, and doors impenetrable and sure,
And watchful care of savage hounds by night
Kept her from thieving lust of men secure ;
Yet her stern warder, fearful of his guard,
Was mocked by power divine and Love made bold,
And that stern road Acrisius made so hard
Jove lightly passed, turning himself to gold !
For gold can pass through camps, and often broke
The stubborn strength of hills established well,
More powerful than the flashing thunderstroke;
Through gold the ancient house to ruin fell
127
Of Argos' prophet; Philip forced the gates
He feared, with gifts; with gifts the majesty
Of rival kings mined, and hostile states;
Gifts have seduced the rulers of the sea.
But greater care pursues the greater heap
Of riches, and the soul is hungry still;
And rightly have I shrunk too high to keep
My head, and feared too great a place to fill.
For more a man rejects the wealth of life,
More good he gains from heaven ; and I have sought
To leave the worldling host where wealth is rife,
And naked flee to those who ask for nought,
More royal in spurning riches, and more high,
Than if the world should rumour, "Lo! the whole
Of fat Apulia's crops are his "—and I
Amid my boundless wealth be poor in soul.
128
A happier lot is mine than 'twere to hold
The empery of Afric's fertile fields;
I own a silver stream, a wooded fold
Of earth, the safe return my corn-crop yields.
For me no mighty vats of honey stand,
No wealthy store of choicest wines I keep
Imprisoned, nor does Gallic pasture-land
Feed fat for me huge flocks of fleecy sheep;
Yet crying need does not annoy my way,
Nor, should I wish for more, wouldst thou refuse,
Dear patron, my request. Small tax I pay,
And small desire is mine. This would I choose,
Rather than ruling lands of wealth unguessed,
The lord of all rich Alyattes' stuff.
Who seek much, lack much; he is wealthiest
To whom the gods give little, but enough.
February, 1918.
129
LXVI
THE BURIAL OF ARTHUR
THE night was dark on gentle Avalon,
No moon reflected in the lightless mere
Remembered day; no beams of starlight shone
With tender benediction; far and near
The waste of waters spread, unbroken, drear,
Save for one only crest, a little hill
That stood far-off, in grandeur black and sheer
In the wide lake that else the view did fill,
But could not top this peak, lonely, and calm, and still.
130
But blacker than the gloom of night, there came
Across the mere's smooth breast, a moving thing,
A boat, in silence and in hue the same
As those dark waters that it first did fling
So soundlessly aside, and after bring
Together, scarce a ripple showing where
The gliding ship had passed, which journeying
Carried them onward whom its bulk did bear,
And touched that lonely hill, and paused, and stranded there.
And three tall figures, vestured as the night,
Came from the boat, and stood upon the shore,
Beneath the silent mount's protecting height ;
And as they came, with weary steps and sore
A coffin up the level beach they bore ;
Far had they come; and far from field and town
Had brought their burden ; now they came, once more,
Under the cover of Night's darkest frown,
At their long journey's end, weeping, to lay it down.
131
For hither from the shores of Lyonnesse
They voyaged, and the gaze of Bedivere,
The last of Arthur's knights whom that distress
Had left, that slew in one dark day of fear
His Table Round, and all his followers dear,
Comrades in many a battle's fierce delights;
Now all are gone, three queens have brought him here,
Him, the slain victor of a hundred fights,
Arthur, the flower of kings, the noblest knight of knights.
And as they bore him slow, uprose the moon,
Touching with darts of light the watery ways
In twinkling silence, calm and sweet; and soon
O'er those sad forms she shot her silver rays,
Whereat the mourners paused a little space,
While newborn hope seemed first their hearts opprest
To melt to peace, as full on Arthur's face
The moonbeams fell, and where upon his breast
His hands were crossed, as there he lay in kingly rest.
132
So standing there, they prayed a little while
For Arthur, and the land he left forlorn,
And still the moon-rays seemed like Heaven's smile
In answering blessing, promising the morn
Should follow darkness, and the realm so torn
Be healed; and then again they moved, and found
A new-dug grave, where him whom they had borne,
Full reverently, with no profaning sound,
They gave to peace at last, and laid within the ground.
And there they knelt, and each one with her veil
Covered her face in mourning and in prayer,
Yet none, for all their sorrow, with a wail
Profaned the dim and deathly silence there;
But when they rose, the moonlight soft and fair
Showed them a form majestic, solemn, old,
Robed all in white, but his grey head was bare;
They gazed in awe, such aspect to behold,
And, " Who art thou? " said one, whom wonder had made bold.
133
" Lo, I am he," he said, "who first foreknew
The reign of Arthur; from the raging sea
I took him; while he then to manhood grew
Strength, wisdom, valour, first he learned of me ;
Know ye not Merlin? I who bade him free
The realm of heathen foes, and by my spell
Brought him Excalibur, lo ! now that he
Is fallen where his knights around him fell,
I come to bring you hope, and future fame foretell,
"Arthur shall sleep in gentle Avalon,
And time and solitary sleep shall heal
His grievous wound, and he shall slumber on,
Not dead indeed, for still, unmoved and leal,
Within her heart this mighty realm shall feel
His spirit stirring, and his living power
And dauntless valour still her soul shall steel;
And when the storm-clouds deepest o'er her lour
Arthur shall come again, to aid her darkest hour.
134
"So leave him, queenly mourners, who have borne
His body hither, leave him to his rest;
Here in this vale, through many a night and morn,
He shall be soothed upon the earth's kind breast,
And after so long war, with peace be blest
Long time; yet still his spirit her watch shall keep,
Though here his flesh repose; and if, opprest,
His country call him, howsoe'er to sleep
He seem, her cry shall rouse him from his slumbers deep.
"But go ye hence, and wait that glorious day."
And so the three mysterious queens arose,
And o'er the moonlit waters sailed away.
And Merlin that strange way the wisest goes
No long time after went ; and he who knows
Can show where hills remote that gently rise
Shut in a valley where the river flows,
Beside whose stream, 'mid trees, and birds' wild cries,
Beneath an ancient mound the mighty Merlin lies.
135
But still they tell that tale of ancient time,
The happy years of Arthur's golden reign,
And still they speak of Merlin's wizard rhyme,
And long for Arthur to return again;
And o'er his tomb they built a glorious fane,
And worshipped God that sacred grave upon ;
And 'mid green fields the ruins still remain,
Where men may stand, and muse on Arthur gone,
There in the misty vale of gentle Avalon.
LARKHILL, February, 1918.
136
LXVII
PROFICISCENTI
I
NOW God be with you wheresoe'er you go;
God knows I would that I could go instead;
My little worthless life—dear friend, you know
How little loss it were if I were dead.
But you tune songs such as I fain would sing,
You have dared such things as would that I could do;
In music, action, suffering, everything,
My sum is still a moiety of you.
Go, since you must, those strange and fearful ways,
Where death screams loud in hurtling of a shell;
Would I might too !—But though my body stays,
My spirit goes with you to the heart of hell.
For souls once stamped with love's immortal brand
Eternally inseparable stand.
137
II
Full merrily you went; yet my heart yearned
That you should go from England once again,
To tread the paths of death and danger spurned,
The darkling troublous ways of fear and pain.
Happier I was myself to go away;
For then the man that went, perchance to die,
By life and death's grim borderland to stray,
Was not a friend of mine, but merely I.
Call me not fool or braggart, if I know
That love awaked, in ev'n so poor a heart
As mine, desires and pants and suffers so,
To serve what is of its own self a part;
Nor even death can sever loves so sweet ;
If not on earth, beyond it, we shall meet.
March 1st, 1918.
138
LXVIII
RETURN
I
I STOOD in Marlborough by night; the day's
Parting had made it sweet, untroubled, fit
For the very home of God who fashioned it
So heavenly lovely, so beyond all praise.
And as I stood on that great sight to gaze
In love intolerable, my heart was smit
With the yearning past's high flaming passion, lit
By memory, and fanned to burning blaze
By sense, as if a man should dream at night
Of sweet impossible things, and splendours new,
But not of this world's being, or earth's dull hue,
Then rise, and wondering see by day's clear light
His very dream of fairyland come true,
And find his vision turned to waking sight.
139
II
What was 't came o'er me in that sudden blast,
Bearing, like some strange half-forgotten scent
Once known, vague memories of fair content,
Dim with the infinite shadows of the past?
In some prenatal journeying through the vast
Eternities, of time and space unpent,
Have I indeed, in love and wonderment,
Gone by this way before, and now at last
By God's mysterious favour, have I come
Back to a heaven where happy long ago
My spirit rested, that she here might know
That happiness once more, and ere I roam
Further through wilds unknown, again might glow
To feel herself for one brief hour at home?
March, 1918.
140
LXIX
EASTER EVEN
NOW sacred peace enshrouds his bruised head
Who died in agony upon the Cross,
And nature too seems hushed upon the dead,
While earth awaits renewal of her loss,
And all her sons her expectation share,
As when she waits the spring, that she may toss
Her fragrant blossoms in the awakening air,
To cense her gardens, and with greening leaf
Renew the boughs that winter has made bare ;
E'en so while he who bore that fathomless grief
Of soul, and bodily torture's utmost doom,
Finds now in death from all his woes relief,
141
And rests awhile at peace within the tomb,
She waits, until the ever-blessed morn
Of Eastertide shall break the ancient gloom
Of death, and in the first grey light of dawn
The victory shall be at last complete,
And Christ shall rise, and life from death be born.
Then sacrifice shall tread beneath her feet
Her conquerors, and her captivity
Lead captive; death shall bow to those that meet
Her face to face, and open hopefully,
With bright aspect and robes of festival,
The gates of life, and by this victory
Death shall not triumph any more at all.
March 30th, 1918.
142
LXX
THROUGH all the ages we have sought thee, Lord,
To mark the glitter of thy chariot-wheels,
Or hear from out the darkness one clear word
Assuring all that man but dimly feels,
Thy being, glimps'd through this wondrous earth,
The burning sun and tender-shining moon,
The fruits of autumn and the fire of spring
That wakes revived mirth ;
Awhile we seem to near thy throne, but soon
We fail and fall, dismayed and wondering.
'Tis thou that makest every breathing flower,
The glory of the sun's returning might,
The glowing colours of the twilight hour,
And all the silent sympathy of night,
143
Rich with the fiery splendour of the stars;
Thou makest too the earthquake and the storm,
The whirlwind and the whelming avalanche,
And all the pain that mars
The sweetness of our life, and every form
Of cruel wound no after-cure can staunch.
And yet we trust thee, for in earth or heaven
Whom other or what else have we to trust?
And thee, who winter and who spring hast given,
We needs must cling to thee and hope thee just;
And thou, who knowest good and evil both,
Alone canst plumb the secret of our soul,
Our gladness when desire with joy is crowned,
And wherefore we are wroth,
And all our hidden goodness, and the whole
Cause of the vileness that besets us round.
144
Therefore, because thou understandest all,
We know that all is rounded with thy love,
And every thought and impulse, great and small,
Is known of thee and loved of thee above;
And where we fall to baseness and to wrong,
Thou knowest all our weakness, and the force
Of ill, with all our secret strife, and where
In wandering mazes long
We pass perplexed through the darksome course
Of doubt, thy pity still enfolds us there.
Therefore we trust thee, thou unbounded God,
The source and end of all eternity,
Who seest every path that man has trod,
And knowest that they all lead home to thee,
And many erring far shall find thee near;
Through sun and darkness, through delight and pain,
Through every chance, to thee at last we come,
And still our course we steer
Toward our end, when all things shall be plain
In thee, the King of all things, and their sum.
April 3rd, 1918.
145
LXXI
THE STEPMOTHER
WAR is the grim stepmother of all,
Who, smiting earth that nursed us at her breast,
And gave us everything that ours we call,
Birth, and the light, and life's abounding zest,
Has severed her from us, and us from her,
And set in place of joy a hopelessness,
Instead of cheerful day the glooms of hell,
0 cruel stepmother !
Nor can we look for comfort or redress
Save in stern faith that all will yet be well.
For having wrenched us forth, she bears us hence,
All children of our mother-earth and mars
With sudden cruelty and dire offence,
All mortal things that mourn beneath the stars,
146
To her own proper sons she yields our fate,
Horror and Fear; the birds are dumb, the grass
Is red with blood, and trees are winter-bare,
And human love to hate
Is curdled, and where'er our footsteps pass
Her withering curse has blasted all things fair.
Yet faith is ours through all, that from the broil,
Like to that fabled bird of ancient fame,
The earth shall rise restored from all her toil,
Labouring to life through agonising flame,
And casting forth the rival of her might,
From death's caress shall clasp to fair rebirth
Her darling sons, and strike her beams above
The shades of vanished night,
And glad with peace, rejoice in flower-crowned mirth,
Renewed in life and royalty and love.
April 11th, 1918.
147
LXXII
A MAN once sinned a sin,
And the righteous folk all stood
Much shocked, and said, " Within
His soul there is no good.
He is Satan's prey, but we
In strictest virtue lead
Lives of intense respectability,
While he, alas ! is very bad indeed."
I thought I saw God smiling as they said it;
And when the angel came
With that sin's record written all in flame,
And stood before the Throne, and read it,
I heard God's answer then :
"0 guardian spirits of my beloved men,
148
Marked you the weakness on that sinner's face,
And all the sudden passion of the assault
Of evil; ay, and even now the grace
Of tears that mourn his fault,
His soul's stark torment and his wild despair
Of uttermost remorse?
I have gazed through all his deepest soul, and there
Dwells yet desire of goodness, and the force
Of passion, that is fairer in my eyes
Than the cold passionlessness that no repentance can.
O darling race of man,
That struggling falls to rise,
In such as he, who loves and strives and errs,
I see your final triumph; knowing all
Your yearnings, and your battles, and your fears,
Your weakness, your sincerity, your tears,
How deep and true your love, and why you fall,
I pardon all, and love you to the end.
149
But for those worshippers,
Who prattle prayer and praise to pleasure me,
And to their fellow-man say, `Come not near,
Vile sinner, lest I be defiled by thee;
I am holy, and I cannot call thee friend,'
Then take the name of Him who still was seen
With grasping Levi and with Magdalene,—
They have not even strength to sin,
These hypocrites, much less
To love; and from a righteous lovelessness
All evil things that most I hate, begin.
You guardian angels, hear;
Comfort and aid that striving, suffering man;
Then go, convert the others—if you can."
April 13th, 1918.
150
LXXIII
LINCOLN MINSTER
I CANNOT voice thy glories; all too cold
Is human speech to tell of human art,
That strikes, like Lincoln, to the inmost heart
With tender touch of loveliness untold.
What work is here ! Not labour bought and sold,
But love that bursts to life in every part,
In stem and foliage, flower and fruit, that start
From the quick stone. 0 toil unpriced of gold,
O built for ever, sharing sacred days
Of story rich with many a saintly name,
Still may'st thou flourish with no weaker fame,
That ever thou on high may'st proudly raise
Thy towers on Lindum hill, that thee proclaim
Wholly supreme and royal, passing praise.
May 11th, 1918.
151
LXXIV
IMMORTALITY
WHAT would you have, my friend, what would you have?
You say 'twere nobler only to live on,
When earthly life from earthly flesh is gone,
In memory that our former actions gave,
And that desire our single soul to save
Is petty, proud, unprofitable for one
So small as man, and useless benison
To gain that further life which still I crave.
But is not being good, and life a boon?
And is not good immortal in itself?
And what in us spurns dreams of power and pelf,
Shall that not live, to follow dawn's fair light
Toward the glory of an endless noon
Whose cloudless sun can never fade in night?
May 23rd, 1918.
152
LXXV
UTI CONVIVA SATUR
NOW, if I die, so be it. I have seen
The towers of Lincoln soaring from the hill;
Passed the broad breast of Mendip, to the still
Sweet spot where Wells sits throned as a queen ;
Beheld in Glastonbury what things have been
In golden ages past; and felt the thrill
Of eve in Purbeck, gazing rapt until
On sea and shore night dropped her darkening screen.
But best, I have exulted as I went
From Marlborough o'er the ancient downlands bare,
To Totterdown or Hackpen, or to where
Free Barbury lifts a head by storms unbent :
I have had earth's blessing full and rich and fair,
And if I die, I well may go content.
May 27th, 1918.
153
LXXVI
IN CRUCE REGNANS
ENTHRONED above the sages and the saints,
Above all kings that e'er had empery,
And wielded sceptres over land and sea,
More nobly crown'd than all that fancy paints
Of any monarch,—lo ! thy life-blood taints
Thy cross of unimagined agony,
Whereon, thorn-diadem'd, thus patiently
Thou hangest, while to death thy body faints;
Therefore thy crown is every crown above,
Thou mighty martyr of the truth divine
Declared for ever in the cross thy sign,
The ultimate teaching thou dost seal and prove
In that unfathomable death of thine,
The highest good, self-sacrificing love.
June 30th, 1918
154
LXXVII
THE ASCETIC
SILENT he sits in his retired cave,
And only from the solitary mouth
Of that dim hovel, faint with willing drouth
And needless hunger, sees mankind who crave
Not singly still their soul alone to save
And cherish, like that eremite uncouth,
But also love the body's life and growth,
Not spurning earthly joys the Maker gave.
Indeed I deem who loves not human clay
Can love not GOD aright, by whom were sown
The joys that gladden life, beside whose throne
Sit Mirth and Beauty. Surely far astray
He wanders, who for ever treads alone
A selfish and a solitary way.
July 3rd, 1918.
155
LXXVIII
AS one who wanders on a desert plain,
An arid waste of dead sterility,
Then finds a green oasis suddenly,
And slakes his thirst there, and forgets his pain,
Resting awhile from the long journey's strain
'Neath the cool shade of some o'erarching tree
In full content, and yearneth longingly
In that sweet place for ever to remain;
So has it been my fortune all this day
Beneath the cloud-flecked blue of heaven's wide dome
To rest in quiet ease, my spirit at home,
All weary care and labour put away,
Free now and happy, ere again I roam,
Once more in void and barren paths to stray.
July 7th, 1918.
156
LXXIX
AND if a bullet in the midst of strife
Should still the pulse of this unquiet life,
'Twere well: be death an everlasting rest,
I oft could yearn for it, by cares opprest;
And be 't a night that brings another day,
I still could go rejoicing on my way,
Desiring in no phantom heav'n to dwell,
Nor scared with terror of any phantom hell,
But gazing now I find not death a curse
Better than life perchance, at least not worse;
Only the fierce and rending agony,
The torment of the flesh about to die,
Affrights my soul; but that shall pass anon,
And death's repose or strife be found, that gone;
Only with that last earthly ill to cope
God grant me strength, and I go forth with hope
July 17th, 1918.
157
LXXX
WELLS CATHEDRAL
O BRIGHTEST bloom of beauty, and most dear,
Thee to behold what ecstasy is mine,
Where the crossed arches form thy Saint's great sign,
Or where thy vaulted Chapter's single pier
Flowers into life that grows not old nor sere,
And all the best of human and divine
Is mingled in the glory that is thine,
In the quick loveliness luxuriant here !
Thy fair perfections that I fain would praise,
But find not words,—thy traceried cloister-walls,
Thy long low nave and carven capitals,
And all thy rich profusion here displays,
Are to my soul a dew that gently falls
Upon the arid desert of my days.
July, 1918.
158
LXXXI
HAD some wise seer foretold that you should die
In Soissons city, or by Ypres gate,
Would you not shun the places where in wait
For your dear life death's hidden terrors lie?
—Or no? Perhaps you do not seek to fly
From death : perhaps you cannot. Be your state
Whatever it may, and what it may your fate,
One certain path remains to victory,--
Let fate control your acts, never your will;
Be fortune now your friend, and now your foe,
Submit, and you shall conquer. Gladly go
And with a laugh your destiny fulfil,
And then, through every smile and every blow,
You are your own soul's lord, unvanquished still.
July 27th, 1918.
159
LXXXII
H AST thou beheld a night of burning stars?
With ev'n such silent eyes does GOD behold
The world and all its sorrows from of old,
The pangs that torture, and the strife that jars,
The abounding evil that infects and mars
The glories of our being manifold.
Hast thou not cursed those eyes of splendid gold,
That pity not our sufferings and our wars?
But who can tell the love deep-hidden there,
Or doubt that gladsome day shall follow dark?
And as we know the sun's rekindled spark
Shall flood the earth again with radiance fair,
So may the silent Power that seems so stark
At last for man some glorious dawn prepare.
August 4th, 1918.
160
LXXXIII
HOPE
O MONSTROUS din of struggle purposeless,
Wild waste of war that means not anything,
Keen lead and whistling steel that burn and sting,
O riddle ever graver in its stress,
Unsolved enigma yet of wickedness ;
Why, if there is a God who is a King,
Can earth be made a hell in spite of spring,
And ravage soil the summer's flowery dress?
And yet, behind the strident howling blast,
The blinding lightning and the deaf' 'ling storm,
Still moves, I know, the one eternal Form,
The unity of all things, silent, vast,
And That shall yet restore creation's norm,
And clear all doubts, and heal all wounds, at last.
August 23rd, 1918.
161
LXXXIV
FAITH
WHY do we madly rob ourselves in vain,
Cast life and treasure recklessly away,
And lose our richest in our zeal to slay,
Enlarging wickedness and kindling pain?
And only faith returns an answer plain:
That somehow, sometime yet shall dawn the day,
When gloom of night shall yield to twilight grey,
And twilight to full noon give place again.
But ask you, how I dare to hold confess'd
This faith, when all the world is harsh and stark,
And only evil all around I mark?
I answer: Either all is but a jest,
Wrought by a purposeless demon in the dark
(Which soul denies), or all is for the best.
September 1st, 1918.
162
LXXXV
WHEN the last long trek is over,
And the last long trench filled in,
I'll take a boat to Dover,
Away from all the din;
I'll take a trip to Mendip,
I'll see the Wiltshire downs,
And all my soul I'll then dip
In peace no trouble drowns.
Away from noise of battle,
Away from bombs and shells,
I'll lie where browse the cattle,
Or pluck the purple bells ;
I'll lie among the heather,
And watch the distant plain,
Through all the summer weather,
Nor go to fight again.
September 2nd, 1918.
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