I did not know his name.
But so white-faced and wan, we talked a little while together
Amongst dead men, and timbers black with flame.
“What would you do with life again,” asks he, “if one could give it?”
“No use to talk when life is done,” I say.
“But, by the living God, if He should grant me life I’d live it
Kinder to man, truer to God each day.”
Flame and the noise of doom devoured the words, and for a while
Senseless I lay.... Then,
Oh, then as in a dream I saw the stranger with a smile