THE SWING
The crooked swing that hung beneath
The crooked willow tree
Brought all his laughter to my ears
When school was out at three.
When later years and afternoons
Their symphony had sung
Beneath the crooked willow tree
An idle swing had hung.
Then war came on. There’s always war
To readjust the past,
And he got leave and I got leave,
And home we came at last.
But I alone return tonight
And naught to battle bring,
For he is dead beneath the tree
And broken hangs the swing.
SOMEWHERE ON LEAVE
Unfurrowed field and lonely plow,
The laughing lad has fled,
Sweet-throated, unaccompanied lark,
The laughing lad is dead.
I found him on a barren tract,
Stretched out and lying still,
And on his lips the blood had dried,
And on the blasted hill.
Oh, that was far from hills like these,
A hundred thousand guns
Are booming, bursting in his ears
And he does not hear a one.
A soldier’s thoughts and a soldier’s laugh
And a soldier’s boyish grin
Are dead on a lonely battlefield,
And the war is yet to win.