Moths of the candle-flame,
Gnats from the stream,
Wraiths from the moonlight,
Spectres of dream;
All that the earth gave,
All that it bare—
With all its far kindred
Of water and air.
And in those rutted acres
Which the heart's red blood has sown,
Soon shall the bramble flourish
Where the gentian had grown;
And wherever ran the myrtle,
Let the dust of thistles be shed,
For these, with nightshade and burdock,
Shall fast cover the dead.
IX
THE SEED MUST DIE
Ye meadows, groves, your birth renew; ye orchards, vineyards, grow!
Where fast the wastrel waters of the Marne and Yser flow;
On the plains bestow your verdure, to the hills your odors fling.
Before the smile of Ceres, let your golden censer swing.
For never since great Nature ran her sluices to the sea,
And opened up her flood-gates at the Rain-God's first decree,
Have richer tides flowed round your rooted hidings in the clay,
Than these which seek quite other veins from those of yesterday.
Bring forth the fruitage of your loins in deep, impurpurate stain,
Ye vines, that sprang to life from out the throes of British pain;
Gird on your strength, ye pines that shade the dead on yonder height;
Re-knot your tissues with the stubborn fibre of their might.
And let the rose its crimson darken towards the purple shade,
Full-flushed with blood imperial—the price that Britain paid,
The lily and the jonquil greet once more their native hills,
Companioned by anemones and sun-crowned daffodils.
Command the earth its seed receive, in rare profusion sent,
Pledged to high increase in the wine of life's last sacrament,
For when sowed Nature seed like this since Time in cycles ran,
Or bade the soil accept so strange, so stern a harvest plan?