Many Voices

Just as the barred gate holds me fast,
Your face, your face, too late.

FEAR

If you were here,
Hopes, dreams, ambitions, faith would disappear,
Drowned in your eyes; and I should touch your hand,
Forgetting all that now I understand.
For you confuse my life with memories
Of unrememberable ecstasies
Which were, and are not, and can never be; . . .
Ah! keep the whole earth between you and me.

THE DAY OF JUDGMENT

When the bearing and doing are over,
And no more is to do or bear,
God will see us and judge us
The kind of men we were;
And our sins, so ugly and heavy,
We shall drag them into His sight,
And throw them down at the foot of the throne,
Foul on the steps of light.

We shall not be shamed or frightened,
Though the angels are all at hand,
For He will look at our burden,
And He will understand.
He will turn to the little angels,
Agog to hear and obey,
And point to the festering sin-loads
With, “Take that rubbish away!”

Then the steps will be cleared of the burdens
That we threw down at His feet;
And we shall be washed in the tears of Christ,
And our tears bathe His feet.
And the harvest of all our sinning
That moment’s shame will reap—
When we look in the eyes that love us
And know we have made them weep.

A FAREWELL

Good-bye, good-bye; it is not hard to part!
You have my heart—the heart that leaps to hear
Your name called by an echo in a dream;
You have my soul that, like an untroubled stream,
Reflects your soul that leans so dear, so near—
Your heartbeats set the rhythm for my heart.

What more could Life give if we gave her leave
To give, and Life should give us leave to take?
Only each other’s arms, each other’s eyes,
Each other’s lips, the clinging secrecies
That are but as the written words to make
Records of what the heart and soul achieve.

This, only this we yield, my love, my friend,
To Fate’s implacable eyes and withering breath.
We still are yours and mine, though, by Time’s theft,
My arms are empty and your arms bereft.
It is not hard to part—not harder than Death;
And each of us must face Death in the end!

IN HOSPITAL

Under the shadow of a hawthorn brake,
Where bluebells draw the sky down to the wood,
Where, ’mid brown leaves, the primroses awake
And hidden violets smell of solitude;
Beneath green leaves bright-fluttered by the wing
Of fleeting, beautiful, immortal Spring,
I should have said, “I love you,” and your eyes
Have said, “I, too . . . ”  The gods saw otherwise.

For this is winter, and the London streets
Are full of soldiers from that far, fierce fray
Where life knows death, and where poor glory meets
Full-face with shame, and weeps and turns away.
And in the broken, trampled foreign wood
Is horror, and the terrible scent of blood,
And love shines tremulous, like a drowning star,
Under the shadow of the wings of war.

1916.

PRAYER IN TIME OF WAR

Now Death is near, and very near,
In this wild whirl of horror and fear,
When round the vessel of our State
Roll the great mountain waves of hate.
God!  We have but one prayer to-day—
O Father, teach us how to pray.

For prayer is strong, and very strong;
But we have turned from Thee so long
To follow gods that have no power