Many Voices

Save in the safe and sordid hour,
That to Thy feet we have lost the way . . .
O Father, teach us how to pray.

We have done ill, and very ill,
Set up our will against Thy will.
That our soft lives might gorge, full-fed,
We stole our brothers’ daily bread.
Lord, we are sorry we went astray—
O Father, teach us how to pray.

Now in this hour of desperate strife
For England’s life, her very life,
Teach us to pray that life may be
A new life, beautiful to Thee,
And in Thy hands that life to lay.
O Father, teach us how to pray.

1915.

AT PARTING

Go, since you must, but, Dearest, know
That, Honour having bid you go,
Your honour, if your life be spent,
Shall have a costly monument.

This heart, that fire and roses is
Beneath the magic of your kiss,
Shall turn to marble if you die
And be your deathless effigy.

1914.

INVOCATION

The Spirit of Darkness, the Prince of the Power of the Air,
The terror that walketh by night, and the horror by day,
The legions of Evil, alert and awake and aware,
Press round him each hour; and I pray here alone, far away.

God! call up Thy legions to fight on the side of my love,
Let the seats of the mighty be cast down before him, O Lord,
Send strong wings of angels to shield him beneath and above,
Let glorious Michael unsheath his implacable sword.

Let the whole host of Heaven take part with my dear in his fight,
That the armies of Hell may be scattered like chaff in the blast,
And the trumpets of Heaven blow fair for the triumph of Right.
Inspire him, protect him, and bring him home victor at last.

But if—ah, dear God, give me strength to withhold nothing now!—
If the life of my life be required for Thy splendid design,
Give his country the laurels, though cold and uncrowned be his brow . . .
Thou gavest Thy Son for the world, and shall I not give mine?

1914.

TO HER: IN TIME OF WAR

Once I made for you songs,
Rondels, triolets, sonnets;
Verse that my love deemed due,
Verse that your love found fair.
Now the wide wings of war
Hang, like a hawk’s, over England,
Shadowing meadows and groves;
And the birds and the lovers are mute.

Yet there’s a thing to say
Before I go into battle,
Not now a poet’s word
But a man’s word to his mate:
Dear, if I come back never,
Be it your pride that we gave
The hope of our hearts, each other,
For the sake of the Hope of the World.

1915.

THE FIELDS OF FLANDERS

Last year the fields were all glad and gay
With silver daisies and silver may;
There were kingcups gold by the river’s edge
And primrose stars under every hedge.

This year the fields are trampled and brown,
The hedges are broken and beaten down,
And where the primroses used to grow
Are little black crosses set in a row.

And the flower of hopes, and the flowers of dreams,
The noble, fruitful, beautiful schemes,
The tree of life with its fruit and bud,
Are trampled down in the mud and the blood.

The changing seasons will bring again
The magic of Spring to our wood and plain:
Though the Spring be so green as never was seen