Poems, 1914-1919

Now free from the world’s touch.
And with them were the friends of yesterday,
Who went before and pointed you the way;
And in that place of freshness, light and rest,

Where Lancelot and Tristram vigil keep
Over their King’s long sleep,
Surely they made a place for you,
Their long-expected guest,
Among the chosen few,
And welcomed you, their brother and their friend,
To that companionship which hath no end.

And in the portals of the sacred hall
You hear the trumpet’s call,
At dawn upon the silvery battlement,
Re-echo through the deep
And bid the sons of God to rise from sleep,
And with a shout to hail
The sunrise on the city of the Grail:
The music that proud Lucifer in Hell
Missed more than all the joys that he forwent.
You hear the solemn bell
At vespers, when the oriflammes are furled;
And then you know that somewhere in the world,
That shines far-off beneath you like a gem,
They think of you, and when you think of them
You know that they will wipe away their tears,
And cast aside their fears;
That they will have it so,
And in no otherwise;
That it is well with them because they know,
With faithful eyes,
Fixed forward and turned upwards to the skies,
That it is well with you,
Among the chosen few,
Among the very brave, the very true.

DIFFUGERE NIVES, 1917

To J. C. S

The snows have fled, the hail, the lashing rain,
Before the Spring.
The grass is starred with buttercups again,
The blackbirds sing.

Now spreads the month that feast of lovely things
We loved of old.
Once more the swallow glides with darkling wings
Against the gold.

Now the brown bees about the peach trees boom
Upon the walls;
And far away beyond the orchard’s bloom
The cuckoo calls.

The season holds a festival of light,
For you, for me,
The shadows are abroad, there falls a blight
On each green tree.

And every leaf unfolding, every flower
Brings bitter meed;
Beauty of the morning and the evening hour
Quickens our need.

All is reborn, but never any Spring
Can bring back this;
Nor any fullness of midsummer bring
The voice we miss.

The smiling eyes shall smile on us no more;
The laughter clear,
Too far away on the forbidden shore,
We shall not hear.

Bereft of these until the day we die,
We both must dwell;
Alone, alone, and haunted by the cry:
“Hail and farewell!”

Yet when the scythe of Death shall near us hiss
Through the cold air,
Then on the shuddering marge of the abyss
They will be there.

They will be there to lift us from sheer space
And empty night;
And we shall turn and see them face to face
In the new light.

So shall we pay the unabated price
Of their release,
And found on our consenting sacrifice
Their lasting peace.

The hopes that fall like leaves before the wind,
The baffling waste,
And every earthly joy that leaves behind