Nike of Samothrace,
Thy godlike wings
Cleft windy space
Above the ships of kings,
Fain of thy lips,
By hope made glorious,
Time kissed thy grand, Greek face
Away from us.
Our Nike has no wings;
She has not known
Clean heights, and from her lips
Comes starvèd moan.
Mints lie that coin her grace,
And Time will hate her face,
For it has turned the world's hope
Into stone.
POEMS WRITTEN IN FRANCE AT THE FRONT
1918
THE BLINDMAN.
A Ballad of Nogent l'Artaud.
At Nogent, on the river Marne,
I passed a burning house and barn.
I went into the public square
Where pigeons fluttered in the air
And empty windows gaped a-stare.
There crouched a blindman by the wall
A-shivering in a ragged shawl,
Who gave a hopeless parrot screech
And felt the wall with halting reach.
He went around as in a trap.
He had a stick to feel and rap.
A-rap-a-tap, a-rap-a-tap.
I strode across the public square.
I stopped and spoke him full and fair.
I asked him what he searched for there.
There came a look upon his face
That made me want to leave the place.
He could not answer for a space.
He moved his trembling hands about
And in-and-out, and in-and-out.
"Kind sir," he said, "I scarcely know—
A week ago there fell a blow—
I think it was a week ago.
I sent my little girl to school,
With kisses and her book and rule,
A week ago she went to school."
The pigeons all began to coo,
"A-cock-a-loo, a-cock-a-loo."