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

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

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.