Suddenly!
Terrible! Wild!
A skylark shatters the spell,
With a music more fiery than hell,
More frail than the laugh of a child!
His little brown wings soar high to assault the sun.
His little round throat sends a challenge audacious and far
To the pale-faced legions of Silence that waver and run,
To the uprisen dawn and every invisible star.
Ah God! the song cuts deeper than tempered steel!
The eyes overflow with the surge of a salt harsh tear,
Again to listen to Music, again to feel
The uttermost glory of living when Death is so near!
Scream of a shell! ...
Dull dead thud in a trench,
Curses and flame and stench! ...
Instantly all the white dawn,
Fragrant and frail and cool,
Breaks like a vase in the hands of a fool.
For the thick sick lips of Death have spoken,
The fine gold chain of the bird-song is broken.
The lank dank hand of Death has withdrawn
The curtain of bird-song and magic dawn
From the sullen red windows of Hell.
Rattle of rifle and shriek of gun,
Gas-cloud sickly and heavy and dun,
Death has taken his armies in hand,
And the bodies lie countless in No Man's Land.
Out of the shock of the storm
Where the foul winds meet and cry,
Something drops down at my feet,
A little brown body and sweet,
A little dead body and warm.
The tiny dead throat shall sing no more,
Nor the quick eyes flash nor the swift wings soar;
But the shells shall hurtle, the grim guns roar,
O skylark out of the sky!
My singing is ended, the pall descended on land and sea.
I sang my song to the tune of my own heart-beat
Between the sound of the wars, and there sang with me
My little brother the skylark, dead at my feet.
France, 1917