REVELATION
Can death give you such dignity, and pride
So beautiful it puts our grief to shame?
For now we stumble as we speak your name,
Yet you were just a boy before you died.
We question blankly, pondering heavy-eyed,
Can this be he we used to praise or blame
In careless moments, ere the trial came
When all the bravest hearts in anguish cried?
Then, humbled, we beheld our poor disguise,
False moods and manners clothed in empty speech
Which drowned the silence—till there came a day
That smote our vision to awakened eyes:
For God bent down to bring you to our reach,
But ere we touched you, you had gone away.
TELL ME, STRANGER
Tell me, Stranger, is it true
There is magic happening,
Are all the dappled fields of Kew
Bowing to their Lord the Spring?
Are the bluebells chaste and mute
Dancing in each dale and hollow
Dew-sprinkled, with a glad salute
To omnipotent Apollo?
Tell me, do the feathered creatures
Flutter as in days of yore,
What are the “distinctive features”
Of the Swallow’s Flying Corps?
Here there is no magic, Stranger.
Save within our merry souls—
For some wanton god in anger
Punches earth with gaping holes.
Yet the stifled land is showing
Here and there a touch of grace,
And the marshalled clouds are blowing
Through the aerodromes of space.