Before my gaze a teeming city loomed
Gay with the bustling clamour of the street—
The very town an easy word had doomed
And cast in ashes at the trampling feet
Of mortal gods. Street, corner, square and place,
Seemed woken from a long and squalid trance—
I saw a nation growing like a flower;
A nation true and loyal to a race
That forged an army of clean-soldiered power
Wrought by the common chivalry of France.
Here was no arrogance of martial pride,
The fireside boast that sows the fatal seed,
For happiness had come from those who died
Stark of delusion and the deadly creed
Of false romance. I saw a world reborn—
The very battlefield was robed again
In lines of chequered land, and bordered round
With stretching roads and rills. The poppied corn
Held rubies set in gold, and far beyond
Lay a surf-ravelled sea and swarded plain.
I marvelled, till oblivion shadowed all,
Blurred in the dawning light of every day.
It was so true, I scarcely heard the call
To feed and water and to move away.
We stretched our limbs, and packed each heavy load;
Moved on, and left the weary night behind,
Through torn and withered trees that stared aghast;
Yet, through the veil that shrouded all the road
I saw new radiance in the land we passed,
And heard a sudden murmur in the wind.
KEATS, BEFORE ACTION
A little moment more—O, let me hear
(The thunder rolls above, and star-shells fall)
Those melodies unheard re-echo clear
Before the shuddering moment closes all.
They come—they come—they answer to my call,
That Grecian throng of graven ecstasies,
Hyperion aglow in blazing skies,
And Cortez with the wonder in his eyes.
In battle-wreaths of smoke they rise, and fall
Beyond—beyond recall.
Now all is silent, still, and magic-keen
(Yet thunder rolls above and star-shells fall)
And slowly pacing, rides a faery queen
Wild eyed and singing to a knight in thrall.
Enough—enough—let lightning whip me bare
And leave me naked in the howling air
My body broken here, and here, and here.
Beauty is truth, truth beauty—that is all,
The very all in all.
THE SOMME
From Amiens to Abbeville
My swollen waters race,
And silver-veined by many a rill
Green hamlets thrive apace.
From Amiens to Abbeville
I labour at the listless mill,
And tempt the nodding daffodil
To blur my open face.
But south of Amiens I flow
Past dumb Peronne and Brie,
The peopled land I used to know
Now all belongs to me.
Yet phantom armies come and go,
And shadows hurry to and fro;
Again my seething battles grow
In murdered Picardy.