TO THE OLD YEAR
Old year, farewell!
Much have you given which was ill to bear:
Much have taken which was dear, so dear:
Much have you spoken which was ill to hear;
Echoes of speech first uttered deep in hell.
Pass now like some grey harlot to the tomb!
Yet die in child-birth, and from out your womb
Leap the young year unsullied! He perchance
Shall bring to man his lost inheritance.
BALLADE
No. 1
Bodies of comrade soldiers gleaming white
Within the mill-pool where you float and dive
And lounge around part-clothed or naked quite;
Beautiful shining forms of men alive,
O living lutes stringed with the senses five
For Love’s sweet fingers; seeing Fate afar,
My very soul with Death for you must strive;
Because of you I loathe the name of War.
But O you piteous corpses yellow-black,
Rotting unburied in the sunbeam’s light,
With teeth laid bare by yellow lips curled back
Most hideously; whose tortured souls took flight
Leaving your limbs, all mangled by the fight,
In attitudes of horror fouler far
Than dreams which haunt a devil’s brain at night;
Because of you I loathe the name of War.
Mothers and maids who loved you, and the wives
Bereft of your sweet presences; yea, all
Who knew you beautiful; and those small lives
Made of that knowledge; O, and you who call
For life (but vainly now) from that dark hall
Where wait the Unborn, and the loves which are
In future generations to befall;
Because of you I loathe the name of War.
L’ENVOI
Prince Jesu, hanging stark upon a tree
Crucified as the malefactors are
That man and man henceforth should brothers be;
Because of you I loathe the name of War.
BALLADE
No. 2
You dawns, whose loveliness I have not missed,
Making so delicate background for the larches
Melting the hills to softest amethyst;
O beauty never absent from our marches;
Passion of heaven shot golden through the arches
Of woods, or filtered softly from a star,
Nature’s wild love that never cloys or parches;
Because of you I love the name of War.
I have seen dawn and sunset, night and morning,
I have tramped tired and dusty to a tune
Of singing voices tired as I, but scorning
To yield up gaiety to sweltering June.
O comrades marching under blazing noon
Who told me tales in taverns near and far,
And sang and slept with me beneath the moon;
Because of you I love the name of War.
But you most dear companions Life and Death,
Whose friendship I had never valued well
Until that Battle blew with fiery breath
Over the earth his message terrible;
Crying aloud the things Peace could not tell,
Calling up ancient custom to the bar
Of God, to plead its cause with Heaven and Hell ...
Because of you I love the name of War.
L’ENVOI
Prince Jesu, who did speak the amazing word
Loud, trumpet-clear, flame-flashing like a star
Which falls: “Not peace I bring you, but the sword!”
Because of you I love the name of War.