Very quiet I am then,
Like a moon-enchanted boy,
As I see the khaki men
Storm the granite walls of Troy.
HARFLEUR, 1917
I DREAM'D I DIED
I dream'd I died.
The green of Spring was not yet manifest
Upon the cold hillside.
They bore me slowly to my place of rest,
And let me bide.
Far from the pale I lay of space and light,
Of dusk and dawn.
I knew the sharp stars of the winter night
Were far withdrawn.
Silent I lay upon my bed,
In sooth at rest.
The earth pressed heavily on my head,
My lean hands cross'd my breast.
I saw not through my eyes.
When I had faded from the room of sighs,
Someone had sealed them down with clay,
Had whispered, "He hath seen the whole
Of summer earth and starlit skies,
Or yellow hills of tumbled hay
That he shall see.
Here till the time of Judgment let him be.
God soothe his soul."
Under the moon
I lay remote from the dear nightingale.
Late and soon,
Faintly I heard the wan wind drone and wail.
I dream'd,
Thro' many years it seemed:
Until I wearied me of dreaming
And closed the windows of my soul,
Where no sun streaming
Show'd how God's far far days did westward roll.
All blind, blind,
A sea of sleep did drown me unconfin'd,
Wide and deep,
A sea of utter sleep,
Its levels no time stirred by any wind.
And so I slept,
My hands across my breast.
My clamped spirit kept
A total rest.
* * * * *
Earth of the Earth I slumber'd long,
I slumber'd in the untrod glooms,
And then Dawn came.
I felt the world was glad with song,
I felt the hillsides were a flame
Of king-cup blooms.
And when Dawn came,
Three times I knocked upon the door
Which was my seal, my world and sky,
Three times with might.
There came a burst of sound and light,
A knowledge broad and deep and high,
The long breath of a sloping moor.
I looked into the daylight wide,
A bird sang thro' the singing blue,
And then, O heart, and then I knew
I dream'd I died.