“But who is Lord of Paradise
And Commandant; and who
Commands sky-faring butterflies
All camouflaged in blue?
“Are dandelion parachutes
His messages, and do
Those armoured beetles clamber roots
With news from Army Q?
“Above each water-lily ship
The feathered red caps pipe.
Because the pear has earned a pip,
The tiger-moth a stripe.
“The gorse artillery has eyes
We never knew before.
And lady bees can organise
The Honey Service Corps.
“Field-marshals rule the war behind
The guns, but Summer shields
Here in the clash of human kind
Her marshal of the fields.”
TO THE UTTERMOST FARTHING.
“He too! He too!” The veteran paused, the sound
Of a light paper fluttering to the ground
Rustled the twilight peace. “He—too—is—dead—”
His wife, scarce faltering from the words she read,
Stared at the glowing sun, the while her eyes
Shone mistily in nameless agonies.
Five sons, and four were dead!
The clock ticked desolation to their ears
And silence gripped the moments as they passed
Too terrible, too passionless for tears.
At last,
Stronger than he, she curbed herself and smiled
And held him weeping like a weary child
Before the first immensity of pain.
Yet once again
She conjured scenes beyond the darkened cloud
That blurred the soul’s horizon, as aloud
She spoke his name, and whispered little things
More pregnant than the utterance of kings.
That night she moved,
Spurred by devotion for the man she loved,
Without a pause for sorrow, or a breath
To murmur at the closing walls of death;
Love-steeled and queenly every step she trod;
She climbed unfaltering, serenely browed,
Until she touched the very feet of God
Undaunted and unbowed.
And there in mystic awe
Slow-turning wheels of evolution spun
The poised and pulsing universe. She saw
All life and death synonymous, and birth
The dawn of human wonderment begun
(Birth of all birth) in other realms afar.
Below, ice pivoted revolved the earth,
A traveller’s joy it seemed, a mile-stone star,
Half-glowing, bathed in sun....
At dawn they met and found each other’s eyes,
Asked the same questions, sought the same replies:
Their last and youngest fought where harsh commands
Still goaded forward lashed and driven bands,
Where Vaux and Thiaumont twin sentinels
Loomed stalwartly. And still a howl of shells
Shattered the Verdun battlements in vain;
Still domineered that keen death-tutored brain
Behind an army deaf to angry scorn,
The boast forgotten and the mask outworn.
At length she spoke: “Go quickly now,” she said,
“Quick, the next hurrying hour may see him dead.
Find the Great Overlord and tell him all
Quick, for our boy may pass beyond recall
Meanwhile. He shall know happiness to come,
He, the last scion of our stricken home,
Shall blossom like a flower in early Spring
I say it, I who bore him. Time shall bring
The old primeval happiness to birth
If there be any justice upon earth.”
She ceased; it seemed her voice re-echoed still
As strung with hope he hurried on until
He reached the palace and besought for grace
To see his royal master face to face.
That night in sudden joy he urged away
Across Lorraine, for in his wallet lay
An order blazoned with the royal seals.
Hour after hour the car’s revolving wheels
Rushed dizzily towards the high command
That held his son in fee. Around, the land
Awoke in changeless Spring. Four steady hours
They travelled, till the bloom of passing flowers
Brought tidings of the dawn. Then to his ears
Rumbled a distant thunder, sudden fears
Urged onward faster. Now the country showed
First signs of war-flung tentacles, the road
Lay pitted here and there, a wounded tree
No longer framed its lordly symmetry.
And soon the land whereon all life was stilled
Became as Man had willed.
At last his journey ended. Long delayed
He sought his goal, now pressing on, now stayed,
Until outside the place of high command
The royal warrant burning in his hand
He knocked—was bidden enter—tense and mute
He faced the marshal with a grave salute
And showed the royal word.
The crowded room was silent, no man stirred—
A pause as long as death, then, dragged and slow,
A voice—“Your son was killed an hour ago.”
A clock importunately unconcerned
Repeated tick—tick—tick. His eyes discerned
A pen vague-sprawling, madly spiderwise.
Not a man glanced—Yet all the room had eyes:
Not a man spoke—Yet clamorous voices cried:
Stumbling, he walked outside.