THE LAST WATCH OF THE NIGHT.
The hand of dawn is on the door
That seals the dolorous arch of night;
Dim gardens and hushed groves once more
Dream of the half-forgotten light;
Yet all the ancient fires are cold
On altars battered and forlorn,
And men grope still for gauds of gold,
Oblivious of the imminent morn.
When comes the dawn? Its unseen dew
Distils on folded swath and mound,
Where grass is deep or sods are new,
And branches shake without a sound;
Where, numberless and low and grey,
The furrows lessen to the sky;
There sleep the sons of England, they
Who died that England should not die.
Better—ah, better for us all,
For them who sleep and us who wake,
That never bird at dawn should call
Nor golden foam of morning break;
That on one high cairn of the dead
The ultimate light should be unsealed,
Than that the world should live unled,
Unchanged, unpurified, unhealed.
Life and all things that make it fair
Men gave that better lives might be;
They went exulting and aware
Forth to the great discovery;
But who will prize life over-much
Or deem that death comes over-soon
If hands of fools and barterers touch
The architrave of Hope half-hewn!
Under a brave new baldachin,
New robes drooped o'er their crimson feet,
The old unaltered twain begin
Their ride along the embannered street;
With golden charms for men to kiss
A-swing from wrist and bridle-rein,
The brethren Pride and Avarice,
The monarchs of the world again.
If this thing be and no new world
Rise from the old dead world beneath,
Then morning's chaplet seven-pearled
Is made the bauble-crest of death;
All dreams belied, all vows made void,
Pale Hope a wingless fugitive,
And man a stumbling anthropoid—
Can these things be if England live?
If England live, the anarch tide
Shall lose itself among her waves,
And the grey earth be glorified
By the young blossom on her graves;
And by her grace no power shall part;
Fulfilment from the dreams that were,
If still the music of her heart
Be theirs who lived and died for her.
D.M.S.
