Because of you we will be glad and gay, Remembering you, we will be brave and strong; And hail the advent of each dangerous day, And meet the last adventure with a song. And, as you proudly gave your jewelled gift, We’ll give our lesser offering with a smile, Nor falter on that path where, all too swift, You led the way and leapt the golden stile.
Whether new paths, new heights to climb you find, Or gallop through the unfooted asphodel, We know you know we shall not lag behind, Nor halt to waste a moment on a fear; And you will speed us onward with a cheer, And wave beyond the stars that all is well.
PIERRE
I saw you starting for another war, The emblem of adventure and of youth, So that men trembled, saying: “He forsooth Has gone, has gone, and shall return no more.” And then out there, they told me you were dead, Taken and killed; how was it that I knew, Whatever else was true, that was not true? And then I saw you pale upon your bed,
Scarcely two years ago, when you were sent Back from the margin of the dim abyss; For Death had sealed you with a warning kiss, And let you go to meet a nobler fate: To serve in fellowship, O fortunate: To die in battle with your regiment.
ICARUS
Here fell the daring Icarus in his prime, He who was brave enough to scale the skies; And here bereft of plumes his body lies, Leaving the valiant envious of that climb. O rare performance of a soul sublime, That with small loss such great advantage buys! Happy mishap! fraught with so rich a prize, That bids the vanquished triumph over time.
So new a path his youth did not dismay, His wings but not his noble heart said nay; He had the glorious sun for funeral fire; He died upon a high adventure bent; The sea his grave, his goal the firmament. Great is the tomb, but greater the desire.
EPITAPH
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.
POEMS WRITTEN BEFORE THE WAR
VITA NUOVA
I watched you in the distance tall and pale, Like a swift swallow in a pearly sky; Your eyelids drooped like petals wearily, Your face was like a lily of the vale. You had the softness of all Summer days, The silver radiance of the twilight hour, The mystery of bluebell-haunted ways, The passion of the white syringa’s flower.
I watched you, and I knew that I had found The long-delaying, long-expected Spring; I knew my heart had found a tune to sing; That strength to soar was in my spirit’s wing; That life was full of a triumphant sound, That death could only be a little thing.
Ω Κάλα, ὧ χαρίεσσα
I saw you by the Summer candlelight: — You put to shame the sparkle of the gems, The lights, the flashing of the diadems, The moon and all the stars of Summer night. I saw you in the radiant morning hour: — You put to shame the white rose and the red; Your chiselled lips, your little lovely head, Were fairer than the petals of a flower.
And on the shaven surface of the lawn, You moved like music, and you smiled like dawn, — The leaves, the flowers, the dragon-flies, the dew, Beside you seemed the stuff of coarser clay; And all the glory of the Summer day A background for the wonder that was you.
