Poems
H. S. T.
Requiescat
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WE were bereft ere we were well aware Of all our precious fears, and had instead A hopeless safety, a secure despair. We know that fate dealt kindly with our dead, Tenderer to that fair face we held so dear Than unto many another's best beloved. Whate'er befall, we know him far removed From all the weary labours of last year, And even in paying this most bitter price We know the cause worthy the sacrifice. Now he is safe from any further ill, Nor toils in peril while at ease we sit, Yet bides our loss in thinking of him still,— Of sombre eyes, by sudden laughter lit, Darkened till all the eternal stars shall wane; And lost the incommunicable lore Of cunning fingers ne'er to limn again And restless hands at rest for ever more. |
The Dead Comrade
The Choice
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TOO well they saw the road where they must tread Was shrouded in a misty winding sheet, Among whose strangling coils their souls might meet Death, and delaying not to go, they said Farewell to hope, to dear tasks left undone, To well-loved faces and to length of days.— So came they to the parting of the ways, A year agone, and saw no way but one. Others, and they were many, watched them go But turned not from the pleasant path of ease, With hedges full of flowers, and fields of sheep. Their hearts waxed gross, battening on braver woe And their eyes heavy.—God, for such as these No trump avails but Thine to break their sleep! |
The House by the Highway
Night in the Suburbs, August, 1914
Autumn Wind
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A MONTH ago they marched to fight Away 'twixt the woodland and the sown, I walked that lonely road to-night And yet I could not feel alone. The voice of the wind called shrill and high Like a bugle band of ghosts, And the restless leaves that shuffled by Seemed the tread of the phantom hosts. Mayhap when the shadows gather round And the low skies lower with rain, The dead that rot upon outland ground March down the road again. |
The Battle of the Rivers
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FOR fifteen hundred valiant men and tried, These waters were as Lethe's, dark and deep And bitter as the bitterest tears we weep; Their high hearts rose above the swollen tide, Fain of the foe upon the further side, Though in death's draught their lips they needs must steep. Since their own lives their valour might not keep, Our tall young men drank of that cup and died. Now are their faces hidden from the sky, Under the trampled turf where last they trod; Yet unforsaken sleeps that sad array; The living hearts of all their mothers lie Buried with them, and beat below the sod, As their poor pulse could stir the senseless clay. |
A Legend of Ypres
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BEFORE the throne the spirits of the slain With a loud voice importunately cried, "Oh, Lord of Hosts, whose name be glorified, Scarce may the line one onslaught more sustain Wanting our help. Let it not be in vain, Not all in vain, Oh God, that we have died." And smiling on them our good Lord replied, "Begone then, foolish ones, and fight again." Our eyes were holden, that we saw them not; Disheartened foes beheld—our prisoners said— Behind us massed, a mighty host indeed, Where no host was. On comrades unforgot We thought, and knew that all those valiant dead Forwent their rest to save us at our need. |
Ecce Homo!
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HE hung upon a wayside Calvary, From whence no more the carven Christ looks down With wide, blank eyes beneath the thorny crown, On the devout and careless, passing by. The Cross had shaken with his agony, His blood had stained the dancing grasses brown, But when we found him, though the weary frown, That waited on death's long delayed mercy, Still bent his brow, yet he was dead and cold, With drooping head and patient eyes astare, That would not shut. As we stood turned to ice The sun remembered Golgotha of old, And made a halo of his yellow hair In mockery of that fruitless sacrifice. |
April Nights
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WHEN the night watches slowly downwards creep, And heavy darkness lays her leaden wings On aged eyes that ache but cannot weep, For burning time hath dried the water-springs— Yearneth the watcher then with sleepless pain For eager hearts that in the grave lie cold, For all the toil and pride of years made vain, And grieveth sore to be alive, and old. Without, the lost wind desolately crying Scatters poor spring's frail children rent and torn, And when the moon looks, wearily a-dying, A moment 'thwart her shroud, faint and forlorn, Gleams ghostly through the trees her fickle light On barren blossoms, strewn upon the night. |
Rupert Brooke. April, 1915
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YOUNG and great hearted, went he forth to dare Death on the field of honour; all he sought, Was leave to lay life down a thing of naught And spill its hopes and promise on the air. Then lest vile foes should vaunt a spoil so rare The sun that loved him gave a kiss death-fraught Quenching the heaven-enkindled fire that wrought Fair fancies, bodied forth in words more fair, And lit the dreaming beauty of his face With tender mirth and strength-begetting trust,— Impotent strength, and mirth that might not save. Therefore we mourn, counting each vanished grace. Ne'er was so much, since dust returned to dust, Cribbed in the compass of a narrow grave. |
The Last Evening
The Letter
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SHE read the words of him that was her own: The dauntless brow that grief itself had steeled Quickened with listening ever, not in vain Amid brave stories of the stricken field, For strange, sad echoes from a child's heart grown Untimely old, that scarce will dance again This side the grave, but nathless keeps a leaven Of mirth most bitter sweet. So changed her face, 'twixt pride and sorrowing, As stirs and shadows sun-bleached wheat With winds that walk the stair of heaven And high clouds hovering. |
Frigga. (Up to date)
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FOR the last time I kissed The lips of my dearest son, For the last time looked in his face— My brave, my beautiful one. Reaching up to his breast, But lately as low as my knee, I felt with my hands in his heart A shadow I might not see. Scarce could I bid him farewell, Scarce to bless him find breath, For I felt the shape of the shade And knew 'twas the shadow of death. |
Farewells à la Mode
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THE limbs she bore and cherished tenderly, And rocked against her heart, with loving fears, Through helpless infancy that all endears, Unto the verge of manhood's empery, Were fostered for this cruel end, and she Kneeling beside him, looks through blinding tears Down the long vista of the lonely years, Void of all light, drear as eternity. But her young son, who knows not that he dies, Gives good-night lightly, on the utmost brink, And, anguish overmastered for her sake, Says smiling with stiff lips and death-dimmed eyes, "Why, Mother, if you kiss me so, I'll think You'll not be here to-morrow, when I wake." |
Sunset
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DEAR is young morning's tender-hued attire: To us and ours, 'stead of that promise, came A brief and burning sunset, blood and flame, And, looking on the end of our desire, Yet said we, "What if fealty to a name Have built our hearts' beloved a funeral pyre? Their death hath kindled a fair beacon fire To lighten all this world of fear and shame, And none shall quench it." As the words were said, Darkened and failed the strange, unearthly light, And faded all the surging sea of gold, And nought was left of the fierce glories fled But ashen skies slow deepening into night, Lit by pale memory's stars that shake for cold. |
Sursum Corda
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OH faint and feeble hearted, comfort ye! Nor shame those dead whose death was great indeed, Greater than life in death. It doth not need, Since we seek strength where healing may not be, Faith in fair fables of eternal rest, Nor seer's eyes to look beyond the grave. That they endured and dared for us shall save Our souls alive:—they met, our tenderest, Pain without plaint and death without dismay, Bore and beheld sorrows unspeakable, Yet shrank not from that double-edged distress, But, eyes set steadfastly where ends the way, They through all perils laughed and laboured well, Nor ceased from mercy on the merciless. |
Lying in State
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IF with his fathers he had fallen asleep, Far different would have been this drear lyke-wake. Lonely and lampless lies he, for whose sake Many might well a night-long vigil keep, And, though we have not time nor heart to weep, Yet fain would we some slight observance make, E'er sad to-morrow's earliest dawn shall break When he must lie yet darker and more deep. Therefore we've laid him 'neath a chestnut tree, That bears a myriad candles all alight, And faintly glimmering through the starry gloom— No dimmer than a holy vault might be— It sheds abroad upon the quiet night A gentle radiance and a faint perfume. |
Wind-pedlars
Dulce et Decorum?
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WE buried of our dead the dearest one— Said each to other, "Here then let him lie, And they may find the place, when all is done, From the old may tree standing guard near by." Strong limbs whereon the wasted life blood dries, And soft cheeks that a girl might wish her own, A scholar's brow, o'ershadowing valiant eyes, Henceforth shall pleasure charnel-worms alone. For we, that loved him, covered up his face, And laid him in the sodden earth away, And left him lying in that lonely place To rot and moulder with the mouldering clay. The hawthorn that above his grave head grew Like an old crone toward the raw earth bowed, Wept softly over him, the whole night through, And made him of her tears a glimmering shroud. · · · · · · Oh Lord of Hosts, no hallowed prayer we bring, Here for Thy grace is no importuning, No room for those that will not strive nor cry When loving kindness with our dead lies slain: Give us our fathers' heathen hearts again, Valour to dare, and fortitude to die. |
Succory
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IN a strange burial ground Searching strange graves above, By a sure sign I found Where lay my love. Bluer than summer skies, Than summer seas more blue, Looked from the dust his eyes Whose death I rue. Sweet eyes of my sweet slain Lost all these weary hours, Lo, I beheld again Turned into flowers. |
Dreams Trespassing
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OF all the spectres feared and then forgot That haunt us sleeping, this is dreadfullest— Still to seek help and find it not Through those dim lands that sleep and know not rest; Followed for ever by a formless fear That drawing near and nearer hungrily Lowers against our dearest dear, And nought can shield them from that jeopardy; To see the unknown horror rearing slow, Hang high above them like a craning wave, And in that endless moment know Intolerable impotence to save. Yet 'whelmed the dream-doom never one dear head, Our own hearts woke us with their passionate beat: Straightway we found all peril fled And lay, awaiting dawn's deliverance sweet. · · · · · · Now growing with the strengthening daylight strong Doth that ill dream, the sleep-world's confines breaking, Walk at our elbow all day long To leave us only at a worse awaking. |
"What shall be done with all these tears of ours?"
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THE poor proud mother in the sad old tale, That wept her lovely children's loss in vain Grew one with her own tears' most bitter rain; The immortal Gods that spared not for her wail Then made from out her grief's eternal flow A never-failing fountain, at whose brink Wayfaring men oft stooped them down to drink And blessed those Gods, whose envy wrought her woe. So may these bitter springs with years grow sweet, And welling ever upward full and strong, As when from many a broken heart they burst, Stay not for frost nor fail for summer heat, But make fair pools life's desert way along Where unborn generations slake their thirst. |
In Hereford Cathedral
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WHILE the noonday prayers were said, For the warriors in our War, And many bowed the head With heavy hearts and sore, Each with his voiceless dread, Each with his hidden pain, Each thinking on his own, The living and the dead,— Then on the pillared stone Behind the altar, fell A cross-shaped stain, A shadow strong and dark That all may mark, And know it well, That doth dear won salvation spell. Awhile the sad sign stayed, And the shadow-shape, concealed In the hearts of them that prayed, Stood for a space revealed. |
Poppyfields
Artificial Light
Epitaph
On a Child left Buried Abroad
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FATHER, forget not, now that we must go, A little one in alien earth low laid; Send some kind angel when thy trumpets blow Lest he should wake alone, and be afraid. |
Veronica
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SHE lifted up her eyes and looked at me;— Straightway, methought that I was gazing down Through lacy lattices of meadow grass, Into the face of that low, little flower, That holds all fathomless eternity, Inscrutable, immeasurable dusk's Heart-breaking blue, and night's first timid star, Prisoned and mirrored in a shallow cup, So small a single dewdrop would o'erflow it, So frail no vagrant bee could rest thereon. But unaware of its own loveliness This symbol of all mysteries sad and sweet Fixes on heaven the wide unwinking stare Of blind, bright eyes, coloured and glorified, By light and hues, it apprehendeth not.— Even so, lovely, senseless and aloof, Round-eyed Veronica looked up at me. |
Moonlight
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EVEN as walk on middle earth The shades of the unquiet dead That loathe the graves allotted them from birth And wander without end, uncomforted; So the dead moon, poor restless rover That died by fire, long, long ago, Wanders forlorn the steeps of heaven over; With death's despair and life's outwearied woe She journeys, a reluctant lustre giving To this world's throbbing life and strong, And, being dead, envieth all things living, And sheds a passing death her beams along. To that weird corpse-light worse than dark, All fair things for a little die; The spell-bound earth lies, colourless and stark, Beneath the wan ghost witch's jealous eye. |
Waking
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SO fair a dream last night my heart had kissed, I sought some token of it, but 'twould give Nothing, save formless fancies fugitive, That slipped from words' encirclement away— As, when hell's shades 'gan quicken with the day, His lost belovèd fled the lutanist. |
Feather Boats
The Lovers' Walk
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