Part 9

And thence in an hour their hunt rides forth, And the chetahs course the shy gazelle To the east or west or south or north, And every eve in a distant vale

A hetacomb of the slaughtered beasts Is piled; tongues loll from breathless throats; Round large jet eyes the horsefly feasts-- Jet eyes, which now a blue film coats:

Dead there they bleed, and each prince there Is met by his sister, wife, or bride-- Delicious ladies with long dark hair, And soft dark eyes, and brows arched wide,

In quilted jacket, embroidered sash, And tent-like skirts of pleated lawn; While their silk-lined jewelled slippers flash Round bare feet bedded like pools at dawn:

So choicefully prepared to please, Young, female, royal of race and mood, In indolent compassion these O'er those dead beauteous creatures brood:

They lean some minutes against their friend, A lad not slow to praise himself, Who tells how this one met his end Out-raced, or trapped by leopard stealth,

And boasts his chetahs fleetest are; Through his advice the chance occurred, That leeward vale by which the car Was well brought round to head the herd.

Seeing him bronzed by sun and wind, She feels his power and owns him lord, Then, that his courage may please her mind, With a soft coy hand half draws his sword,

Just shudders to see the cold steel gleam, And drops it back in the long curved sheath; She will make his evening meal a dream And surround his sleep like some rich wreath

Of heavy-lidded flowers bewitched To speak soft words of ecstasy To wizard king old, wise, and enriched With all save youth's and love's sweet glee.

But, while they sleep, the orphaned herd And wounded stragglers, through the night Wander in pain, and wail unheard To the moon and the stars so cruelly bright:

Why are they born? ah! why beget They in the long November gloom Heirs of their beauty, their fleetness,--yet Heirs of their panics, their pangs, their doom?

That to princely spouses children are born To be daintily bred and taught to please, Has a fitness like the return of morn: But why perpetuate lives like these?

Why, with horns that jar and with fiery eyes, Should the male stags fight for the shuddering does Through the drear dark nights, with frequent cries From tyrant lust or outlawed woes?

Doth the meaningless beauty of their lives Rave in the spring, when they course afar Like the shadows of birds, and the young fawn strives Till its parents no longer the fleetest are?

Like the shadows of flames which the sun's rays throw On a kiln's blank wall, where glaziers dwell, Pale shadows as those from glasses they blow, Yet that lap at the blank wall and rebel,--

Even so to my curious trance-like thought Those herds move over those pallid hills, With fever as of a frail life caught In circumstance o'er-charged with ills;

More like the shadow of lives than life, Or most like the life that is never born From baffled purpose and foredoomed strife, That in each man's heart must be hidden from scorn

Yet with something of beauty very rare Unseizable, fugitive, half discerned; The trace of intentions that might have been fair In action, left on a face that yearned

But long has ceased to yearn, alas! So faint a trace do they leave on the slopes Of hills as sleek as their coats with grass; So faint may the trace be of noblest hopes.

Yet why are they born to roam and die? Can their beauty answer thy query, O soul? Nay, nor that of hopes which were born to fly, But whose pinions the common and coarse day stole.

Like that region of grassy hills outspread, A realm of our thoughts knows days and nights And summers and winters, and has fed Ineffectual herds of vanished delights.

ROBERT NICHOLS

TO ------

Asleep within the deadest hour of night And turning with the earth, I was aware How suddenly the eastern curve was bright, As when the sun arises from his lair. But not the sun arose: it was thy hair Shaken up heaven in tossing leagues of light.

Since then I know that neither night nor day May I escape thee, O my heavenly hell! Awake, in dreams, thou springest to waylay And should I dare to die, I know full well Whose voice would mock me in the mourning bell, Whose face would greet me in hell's fiery way.

FAREWELL TO PLACE OF COMFORT

For the last time, maybe, upon the knoll I stand. The eve is golden, languid, sad.... Day like a tragic actor plays his role To the last whispered word, and falls gold-clad. I, too, take leave of all I ever had.

They shall not say I went with heavy heart: Heavy I am, but soon I shall be free; I love them all, but O I now depart A little sadly, strangely, fearfully, As one who goes to try a Mystery.

The bell is sounding down in Dedham Vale: Be still, O bell! too often standing here When all the air was tremulous, fine, and pale, Thy golden note so calm, so still, so clear, Out of my stony heart has struck a tear.

And now tears are not mine. I have release From all the former and the later pain; Like the mid-sea I rock in boundless peace, Soothed by the charity of the deep sea rain.... Calm rain! Calm sea! Calm found, long sought in vain.

O bronzen pines, evening of gold and blue, Steep mellow slope, brimmed twilit pool below, Hushed trees, still vale dissolving in the dew, Farewell! Farewell! There is no more to do. We have been happy. Happy now I go.

THE FULL HEART

Alone on the shore in the pause of the night-time I stand and I hear the long wind blow light; I view the constellations quietly, quietly burning; I hear the wave fall in the hush of the night.

Long after I am dead, ended this bitter journey, Many another whose heart holds no light Shall your solemn sweetness, hush, awe, and comfort, O my companions, Wind, Waters, Stars, and Night.

_Near Gold Cap,_ 1916.

THE TOWER

It was deep night, and over Jerusalem's low roofs The moon floated, drifting through high vaporous woofs. The moonlight crept and glistened silent, solemn, sweet, Over dome and column, up empty, endless street; In the closed, scented gardens the rose loosed from the stem Her white showery petals; none regarded them; The starry thicket breathed odours to the sentinel palm; Silence possessed the city like a soul possessed by calm.

Not a spark in the warren under the giant night, Save where in a turret's lantern beamed a grave, still light: There in the topmost chamber a gold-eyed lamp was lit-- Marvellous lamp in darkness, informing, redeeming it! For, set in that tiny chamber, Jesus, the blessed and doomed, Spoke to the lone apostles as light to men entombed; And spreading His hands in blessing, as one soon to be dead, He put soft enchantment into spare wine and bread.

The hearts of the disciples were broken and full of tears, Because their Lord, the spearless, was hedged about with spears; And in His face the sickness of departure had spread a gloom At leaving His young friends friendless. They could not forget the tomb. He smiled subduedly, telling, in tones soft as voice of the dove, The endlessness of sorrow, the eternal solace of love; And lifting the earthly tokens, wine and sorrowful bread, He bade them sup and remember One who lived and was dead. And they could not restrain their weeping. But one rose up to depart, Having weakness and hate of weakness raging within his heart, And bowed to the robed assembly whose eyes gleamed wet in the light. Judas arose and departed; night went out to the night.

Then Jesus lifted His voice like a fountain in an ocean of tears, And comforted His disciples and calmed and allayed their fears. But Judas wound down the turret, creeping from floor to floor, And would fly; but one leaning, weeping, barred him beside the door. And he knew her by her ruddy garment and two yet-watching men: Mary of Seven Evils, Mary Magdalen. And he was frighted at her. She sighed: 'I dreamed Him dead. We sell the body for silver ...' Then Judas cried out and fled Forth into the night!... The moon had begun to set; A drear, deft wind went sifting, setting the dust afret, Into the heart of the city Judas ran on and prayed To stern Jehovah lest his deed make him afraid. But in the tiny lantern, hanging as if on air, The disciples sat unspeaking. Amaze and peace were there. For _His_ voice, more lovely than song of all earthly birds, In accents humble and happy spoke slow, consoling words.

Thus Jesus discoursed, and was silent, sitting upright, and soon Past the casement behind Him slanted the sinking moon; And, rising for Olivet, all stared, between love and dread, Seeing the torrid moon a ruddy halo behind His head.

FULFILMENT

Was there love once? I have forgotten her. Was there grief once? grief yet is mine. Other loves I have, men rough, but men who stir More grief, more joy, than love of thee and thine.

Faces cheerful, full of whimsical mirth, Lined by the wind, burned by the sun; Bodies enraptured by the abounding earth, As whose children we are brethren: one.

And any moment may descend hot death To shatter limbs! pulp, tear, blast Beloved soldiers who love rough life and breath Not less for dying faithful to the last.

O the fading eyes, the grimed face turned bony, Oped mouth gushing, fallen head, Lessening pressure of a hand shrunk, clammed, and stony! O sudden spasm, release of the dead!

Was there love once? I have forgotten her. Was there grief once? grief yet is mine. O loved, living, dying, heroic soldier, All, all, my joy, my grief, my love, are thine!

THE SPRIG OF LIME

He lay, and those who watched him were amazed To see unheralded beneath the lids Twin tears, new gathered at the price of pain, Start and at once run crookedly athwart Cheeks channelled long by pain, never by tears. So desolate too the sigh next uttered They had wept also, but his great lips moved, And bending down one heard, '_A sprig of lime; Bring me a sprig of lime._' Whereat she stole With dumb signs forth to pluck the thing he craved.

So lay he till a lime-twig had been snapped From some still branch that swept the outer grass Far from the silver pillar of the hole Which mounting past the house's crusted roof Split into massy limbs, crossed boughs, a maze Of close-compacted intercontorted staffs Bowered in foliage wherethrough the sun Shot sudden showers of light or crystal spars Or wavered in a green and vitreous flood.

And all the while in faint and fainter tones Scarce audible on deepened evening's hush He framed his curious and last request, For '_lime, a sprig of lime._' Her trembling hand Closed his loose fingers on the awkward stem Covered above with gentle heart-shaped leaves And under dangling, pale as honey-wax, Square clusters of sweet-scented starry flowers.

She laid his bent arm back upon his breast, Then watched above white knuckles clenched in prayer. He never moved. Only at last his eyes Opened, then brightened in such avid gaze She feared the coma mastered him again ... But no; strange sobs rose chuckling in his throat, A stranger ecstasy suffused the flesh Of that just mask so sun-dried, gouged and old Which few--too few!--had loved, too many feared. 'Father,' she cried; 'Father!' He did not hear.

She knelt and kneeling drank the scent of limes, Blown round the slow blind by a vesperal gust, Till the room swam. So the lime incense blew Into her life as once it had in his, Though how and when and with what ageless charge Of sorrow and deep joy how could she know?

Sweet lime that often at the height of noon Diffusing dizzy fragrance from your boughs, Tasselled with blossoms mere innumerable Than the black bees, the uproar of whose toil Filled your green vaults, winning such metheglyn As clouds their sappy cells, distil, as once Ye used, your sunniest emanations Toward the window where a woman kneels--She who within that room in childish hours Lay through the lasting murmur of blanch'd noon Behind the sultry blind, now full now flat, Drinking anew of every odorous breath, Supremely happy in her ignorance Of Time that hastens hourly and of Death Who need not haste. Scatter your fumes, O lime, Loose from each hispid star of citron bloom, Tangled beneath the labyrinthine boughs, Cloud on such stinging cloud of exhalations As reek of youth, fierce life and summer's prime, Though hardly now shall he in that dusk room Savour your sweetness, since the very sprig, Profuse of blossom and of essences, He smells not, who in a paltering hand Clasps it laid close his peaked and gleaming face Propped in the pillow. Breathe silent, lofty lime, Your curfew secrets out in fervid scent To the attendant shadows! Tinge the air Of the midsummer night that now begins, At an owl's oaring flight from dusk to dusk And downward caper of the giddy bat Hawking against the lustre of bare skies, With something of th' unfathomable bliss He, who lies dying there, knew once of old In the serene trance of a summer night When with th' abundance of his young bride's hair Loosed on his breast he lay and dared not sleep, Listening for the scarce motion of your boughs, Which sighed with bliss as she with blissful sleep, And drinking desperately each honied wave Of perfume wafted past the ghostly blind Knew first th' implacable and bitter sense Of Time that hastes and Death who need not haste. Shed your last sweetness, limes! But now no more. She, fruit of that night's love, she heeds you not, Who bent, compassionate, to the dim floor Takes up the sprig of lime and presses it In pain against the stumbling of her heart, Knowing, untold, he cannot need it now.

SEUMAS O'SULLIVAN

THE TWILIGHT PEOPLE

It is a whisper among the hazel bushes; It is a long low whispering voice that fills With a sad music the bending and swaying rushes; It is a heart beat deep in the quiet hills.

Twilight people, why will you still be crying, Crying and calling to me out of the trees? For under the quiet grass the wise are lying, And all the strong ones are gone over the seas.

And I am old, and in my heart at your calling Only the old dead dreams a-fluttering go; As the wind, the forest wind, in its falling Sets the withered leaves fluttering to and fro.

WILFRED OWEN

_Born 1893,_ _Killed in Action, 1918._

STRANGE MEETING

It seemed that out of the battle I escaped Down some profound dull tunnel, long since scooped Through granites which Titanic wars had groined. Yet also there encumbered sleepers groaned, Too fast in thought or death to be bestirred. Then, as I probed them, one sprang up, and stared With piteous recognition in fixed eyes, Lifting distressful hands as if to bless. And by his smile, I knew that sullen hall. With a thousand fears that vision's face was grained; Yet no blood reached there from the upper ground, And no guns thumped, or down the flues made moan. "Strange, friend," I said, "here is no cause to mourn." "None," said the other, "save the undone years." The hopelessness. Whatever hope is yours, Was my life also; I went hunting wild After the wildest beauty in the world, Which lies not calm in eyes, or braided hair, But mocks the steady running of the hour, And if it grieves, grieves richlier than here. For by my glee might many men have laughed, And of my weeping something has been left, Which must die now. I mean the truth untold, The pity of war, the pity war distilled. Now men will go content with what we spoiled, Or, discontent, boil bloody, and be spilled. They will be swift with swiftness of the tigress, None will break ranks, though nations trek from progress. Courage was mine, and I had mystery, Wisdom was mine, and I had mastery; To miss the march of this retreating world Into vain citadels that are not walled. Then, when much blood had clogged their chariot-wheels I would go up and wash them from sweet wells, Even with truths that lie too deep for taint. I would have poured my spirit without stint But not through wounds; not on the cess of war. Foreheads of men have bled where no wounds were. I am the enemy you killed, my friend. I knew you in this death: for so you frowned Yesterday through me as you jabbed and killed. I parried; but my hands were loath and cold. Let us sleep now......

JOSEPH PLUNKETT

_Born 1887._ _Executed after the Easter Week Rising, 1916._

I SEE HIS BLOOD UPON THE ROSE

I see His blood upon the rose And in the stars the glory of His eyes, His body gleams amid eternal snows, His tears fall from the skies.

I see His face in every flower; The thunder and the singing of the birds Are but His voice--and carven by His power Rocks are His written words.

All pathways by His feet are worn, His strong heart stirs the ever-beating sea, His crown of thorns is twined with every thorn, His cross is every tree.

SIEGFRIED SASSOON

'IN THE PINK'

So Davies wrote: 'This leaves me in the pink. Then scrawled his name: 'Your loving sweet-heart, Willie' With crosses for a hug. He'd had a drink Of rum and tea; and, though the barn was chilly, For once his blood ran warm; he had pay to spend. Winter was passing; soon the year would mend.

He couldn't sleep that night. Stiff in the dark He groaned and thought of Sundays at the farm, When he'd go out as cheerful as a lark In his best suit to wander arm-in-arm With brown-eyed Gwen, and whisper in her ear The simple silly things she liked to hear.

And then he thought: to-morrow night we trudge Up to the trenches, and my boots are rotten. Five miles of stodgy clay and freezing sludge, And everything but wretchedness forgotten. To-night he's in the pink; but soon he'll die. And still the war goes on; _he_ don't know why.

THE DEATH-BED

He drowsed and was aware of silence heaped Round him, unshaken as the steadfast walls; Aqueous-like floating rays of amber light, Soaring and quivering in the wings of sleep,-- Silence and safety; and his mortal shore Lipped by the inward, moonless waves of death.

Some one was holding water to his mouth, He swallowed, unresisting; moaned and dropped Through crimson gloom to darkness; and forgot The opiate throb and ache that was his wound. Water--calm, sliding green above the weir; Water--a sky-lit alley for his boat, Bird-voiced, and bordered with reflected flowers And shaken hues of summer: drifting down, He dipped contented oars, and sighed, and slept.

Night, with a gust of wind, was in the ward, Blowing the curtain to a glimmering curve. Night. He was blind; he could not see the stars Glinting among the wraiths of wandering cloud; Queer blots of colour, purple, scarlet, green, Flickered and faded in his drowning eyes.

Rain; he could hear it rustling through the dark Fragrance and passionless music woven as one; Warm rain on drooping roses; pattering showers That soak the woods; not the harsh rain that sweeps Behind the thunder, but a trickling peace Gently and slowly washing life away. . . . . . He stirred, shifting his body; then the pain Leaped like a prowling beast, and gripped and tore His groping dreams with grinding claws and fangs. But some one was beside him; soon he lay Shuddering because that evil thing had passed. And Death, who'd stepped toward him, paused and stared.

Light many lamps and gather round his bed. Lend him your eyes, warm blood, and will to live. Speak to him; rouse him; you may save him yet. He's young; he hated war; how should he die When cruel old campaigners win safe through?

But Death replied: 'I choose him.' So he went, And there was silence in the summer night; Silence and safety; and the veils of sleep. Then, far away, the thudding of the guns.

COUNTER-ATTACK

We'd gained our first objective hours before While dawn broke like a face with blinking eyes, Pallid, unshaved and thirsty, blind with smoke. Things seemed all right at first. We held their line, With bombers posted, Lewis guns well placed, And clink of shovels deepening the shallow trench. The place was rotten with dead; green clumsy legs High-booted, sprawled and grovelled along the saps; And trunks, face downward, in the sucking mud, Wallowed like trodden sand-bags loosely filled; And naked sodden buttocks, mats of hair, Bulged, clotted heads slept in the plastering slime. And then the rain began,--the jolly old rain! A yawning soldier knelt against the bank, Staring across the morning blear with fog; He wondered when the Allemands would get busy; And then, of course, they started with five-nines Traversing, sure as fate, and never a dud. Mute in the clamour of shells he watched them burst, Spouting dark earth and wire with gusts from hell, While posturing giants dissolved in drifts of smoke. He crouched and flinched, dizzy with galloping fear, Sick for escape,--loathing the strangled horror And butchered, frantic gestures of the dead.

An officer came blundering down the trench: "Stand-to and man the fire-step!" On he went ... Gasping and bawling, "Fire-step... Counter-attack!" Then the haze lifted. Bombing on the right Down the old sap: machine-guns on the left; And stumbling figures looming out in front. "O Christ, they're coming at us!" Bullets spat, And he remembered his rifle ... rapid fire ... And started blazing wildly ... Then a bang Crumpled and spun him sideways, knocked him out To grunt and wriggle: none heeded him; he choked And fought the flapping veils of smothering gloom, Lost in a blurred confusion of yells and groans ... Down, and down, and down, he sank and drowned, Bleeding to death. The counter-attack had failed.

DREAMERS

Soldiers are citizens of death's grey land, Drawing no dividend from time's to-morrows. In the great hour of destiny they stand, Each with his feuds, and jealousies, and sorrows. Soldiers are sworn to action; they must win Some flaming, fatal climax with their lives. Soldiers are dreamers; when the guns begin They think of firelit homes, clean beds, and wives.

I see them in foul dug-outs, gnawed by rats, And in the ruined trenches, lashed with rain, Dreaming of things they did with balls and bats, And mocked by hopeless longing to regain Bank-holidays, and picture shows, and spats, And going to the office in the train.

EVERYONE SANG

Everyone suddenly burst out singing; And I was filled with such delight As prisoned birds must find in freedom, Winging wildly across the white Orchards and dark-green fields; on--on--and out of sight.