Only the stuttering rifles’ rapid rattleCan patter out their hasty orisons.No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells;Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;And bugles calling for them from sad shires.What candles may be held to speed them all?Not in the hands of boys, but in their…
So sympathetic, ample, sweet, and goodThat I preferred it to Society.Not for a season, be it understood,But altogether and perpetually.As far as feeling went, I thought I couldBe quit of men, live independently.For men and minds, heart-humours and heart’s-teaseDisturbed without exciting: whereas woods,The seasonal changes, and the chanting seasWere both soul-rousing and sense-lulling. Moods,Such moods…
Then fell a stillness such as harks appalledWhen far-gone dead return upon the world.There watched I for the Dead; but no ghost woke.Each one whom Life exiled I named and called.But they were all too far, or dumbed, or thralled,And never one fared back to me or spoke.Then peered the indefinite unshapen dawnWith vacant gloaming,…
After the drums of time have rolled and ceasedAnd from the bronze west long retreat is blown,Shall Life renew these bodies? Of a truthAll death will he annul, all tears assuage?Or fill these void veins full again with youthAnd wash with an immortal water age?When I do ask white Age, he saith not so, —‘My…
But His disciples hide apart;And now the Soldiers bear with Him.Near Golgotha strolls many a priest,And in their faces there is prideThat they were flesh-marked by the BeastBy whom the gentle Christ’s deniedThe scribes on all the people shoveAnd bawl allegiance to the state,But they who love the greater loveLay down their life; they do…
So men who fade in dust of warfare fadeFairer, and sorrow blooms their soul.Like pearls which noble women wearAnd, tarnishing, awhile confideUnto the old salt sea to feed,Many return more lustrous than they were.But what of them buried profound,Buried where we can no more find.Who ( )Lie dark for ever under abysmal war?
Till on the haunting flares we turned out backs,And towards our distant rest began to trudge.Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame, all blind;Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hootsOf gas-shells dropping softly behind.Gas! GAS! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumblingFitting the clumsy helmets just in…
Sway steep against them, and for years rehearseHuge imprecations like a blasting charm!Reach at that Arrogance which needs thy harm,And beat it down before its sins grow worse.Spend our resentment, cannon, – yea, disburseOur gold in shapes of flame, our breaths in storm.Yet, for men’s sakes whom thy vast malisonMust wither innocent of enmity,Be not…
Kindness of wooed and wooerSeems shame to their love pure.O Love, your eyes lose lureWhen I behold eyes blinded in my stead!Your slender attitudeTrembles not exquisite like limbs knife-skewed,Rolling and rolling thereWhere God seems not to care;Till the fierce Love they bearCramps them in death’s extreme decrepitude.Your voice sings not so soft, —Though even as…
We smiled at nothings, needing no caress?Have we not laughed too often since with Joy?Have we not stolen too strange and sorrowful wrongsFor her hands’ pardoning? The sun may cleanse,And time, and starlight. Life will sing great songs,And gods will show us pleasures more than men’s.Yet heaven looks smaller than the old doll’s-home,No nestling place…
