Here murdered by the frenzied, not the free,
Lies the latest monarch of a star-crossed line;
Anointed Emperor by right divine,
From Arctic icefields to the Aral sea,
From Warsaw to the walls of Tartary.
His country’s travail claimed a high design;
Too stubborn to respond, he shrank supine
Before the large demand of destiny.
Bereft of crown, and throne, and hearth and name,
Grief lent him majesty, and suffering
Gave him a more than regal diadem.
His people kissed the desecrated hem
Of robes not now of splendour but of shame,
And knelt before their undiminished King.
AUGUST, 1918
(In a French Village.)
I hear the tinkling of the cattle bell,
In the broad stillness of the afternoon;
High in the cloudless haze the harvest moon
Is pallid as the phantom of a shell.
A girl is drawing water from a well,
I hear the clatter of her wooden shoon;
Two mothers to their sleeping babies croon,
And the hot village feels the drowsy spell.
Sleep, child, the Angel of Death his wings has spread;
His engines scour the land, the sea, the sky;
And all the weapons of Hell’s armoury
Are ready for the blood that is their bread;
And many a thousand men to-night must die,
So many that they will not count the Dead.