Now, youth, the hour of thy dread passion comes:
Thy lovely things must all be laid away;
And thou, as others, must face the riven day
Unstirred by rattle of the rolling drums,
Or bugles’ strident cry. When mere noise numbs
The sense of being, the fear-sick soul doth sway,
Remember thy great craft’s honour, that they may say
Nothing in shame of poets. Then the crumbs
Of praise the little versemen joyed to take
Shall be forgotten: then they must know we are,
For all our skill in words, equal in might
And strong of mettle as those we honoured; make
The name of poet terrible in just war,
And like a crown of honour upon the fight.
MAISEMORE
O when we swung through Maisemore,
The Maisemore people cheered,
And women ran from farmyards,
And men from ricks, afeared
To lose the sight of soldiers
Who would, ’fore Christmas Day,
Blow Kaiser William’s Army
Like mist of breath away!
The war it was but young then!
And we were young, unknowing
The path we were to tread,
The way the path was going.
And not a man of all of us,
Marching across the bridge,
Had thought how Home would linger
In our hearts, as Maisemore Ridge.
When the darkness downward hovers
Making trees like German shadows,
How our souls fly homing, homing
Times and times to Maisemore meadows,
By Aubers ridge that Maisemore men
Have died in vain to hold....
The burning thought but once desires
Maisemore in morning gold!
O when we marched through Maisemore
Past many a creaking cart,
We little thought we had in us
Love so hot at heart.