JACK OF APRIL
April!—this is when
All the flowers beloved of men,
This is when they laugh all day,
Birds and they.
Then are they not opened quite
To the singing year's delight.
This is when the April showers
Make a running road of noise;
Woods are stormed by boyish flowers,
Flowery boys.
Would you then not weep with me,
Wring your hands,
Sing a dirge of saddest grief,
If your eyes should chance to see
Blight upon the April leaf;
O, but more,
Would you not weep long and sore,
If an April flower that stands
Waiting for the kiss of May,
Suddenly, swift, were snapt away,
Down, deep down, were crushed in clay?
Then would you not almost say,
"Curst be April!
Never sunlight bring in May!
Curst be June!
Death hath seized the budding year.
Never flush of copper stir
On the unrisen harvest moon!
May stark winter come straightway
—Now my little flower of April,
Now is cold and clay!"
April!—this was when
Jack went laughing to the wars.
Now he knew
What a boy in Spring must do.
There are flowers to learn, he said,
In the countries where I go.
There are birds to talk to and
Skies and winds to understand.
Never a moment knew he pause.
Jack went swinging to the ships
With a laughter on his lips,
Jack went singing to the wars.
Jack among the boys and men
Went to France in April when
Flowers and boys laughed all the day,
Birds and they.
... Till the Doom came down that day,
Even though the time was Spring,
Even April,
Even though he had not sung
Half the songs a lad should sing,
When the nesting-time is young,
April, Spring.
And he shuddered for a moment,
Blood and flame convulsed the day,
And he crumpled on the way,
And the scarlet tide went sweeping,
Heaping, heaping
Clay upon his trodden clay,
April, Spring!
April!—can you wonder then
That my bitten lips have said,
"Curst be men,
Now that Jack in lyric April,
Jack is dead.
Curst be all the race of men!
May the last child die away
From the poisoned air of day!
Never May-time come, nor summer;
Never autumn
Crown the dim uncertain ending
To the fevers of the race
With a drowsy peace descending
On their spirits racked and rending,
On the evil human face.
May the last supernal winter
Freeze the earth straightway,
Now my little Jack of April,
Now is cold and clay!"
STATESMEN DEBONAIR
O ye statesmen debonair,
With the partings in your hair;
Statesmen, ye who do your bit
In the arm-chairs where you sit;
You with top-hats on your head
Even when you lie in bed;
O superbly happy, ye
Traders in Humanity;
Every time you smile, sweet friends,
A moan goes up, a plague descends.
Every time you show your teeth,
A hundred swords desert the sheath.
Every time you pare your nails,
The manhood of a city fails.
Every time you dip your pen,
You slaughter ten platoons of men.
For every glass of port you hold,
Blood is spilt ten thousandfold....
O ye statesmen debonair,
With the partings in your hair;
O ye statesmen pink and white,
Sleep like little lambs to-night.