Poems, 1914-1919

A mortal taste.

The uncompleted end of all things dear,
The clanging door
Of Death, forever loud with the last fear,
Haunt them no more.

Without them the awakening world is dark
With dust and mire;
Yet as they went they flung to us a spark,
A thread of fire.

To guide us while beneath the sombre skies
Faltering we tread,
Until for us like morning stars shall rise
The deathless dead.

JULIAN GRENFELL

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,