Part 31

“O sweetheart, neither shall I clasp you, For the foe this day has pierced me through, And sent me to where she is. Adieu!—

“And forget not when the night-wind’s whine Calls over this turf where her limbs recline, That it travels on to lament by mine.”

There was a cry by the white-flowered mound, There was a laugh from underground, There was a deeper gloom around.

1915.

A NEW YEAR’S EVE IN WAR TIME

PHANTASMAL fears, And the flap of the flame, And the throb of the clock, And a loosened slate, And the blind night’s drone, Which tiredly the spectral pines intone!

And the blood in my ears Strumming always the same, And the gable-cock With its fitful grate, And myself, alone.

III

The twelfth hour nears Hand-hid, as in shame; I undo the lock, And listen, and wait For the Young Unknown.

In the dark there careers— As if Death astride came To numb all with his knock— A horse at mad rate Over rut and stone.

No figure appears, No call of my name, No sound but “Tic-toc” Without check. Past the gate It clatters—is gone.

What rider it bears There is none to proclaim; And the Old Year has struck, And, scarce animate, The New makes moan.

VII

Maybe that “More Tears!— More Famine and Flame— More Severance and Shock!” Is the order from Fate That the Rider speeds on To pale Europe; and tiredly the pines intone.

1915–1916.

“I MET A MAN”

I MET a man when night was nigh, Who said, with shining face and eye Like Moses’ after Sinai:—

“I have seen the Moulder of Monarchies, Realms, peoples, plains and hills, Sitting upon the sunlit seas!— And, as He sat, soliloquies Fell from Him like an antiphonic breeze That pricks the waves to thrills.

“Meseemed that of the maimed and dead Mown down upon the globe,— Their plenteous blooms of promise shed Ere fruiting-time—His words were said, Sitting against the western web of red Wrapt in His crimson robe.

“And I could catch them now and then: —‘Why let these gambling clans Of human Cockers, pit liege men From mart and city, dale and glen, In death-mains, but to swell and swell again Their swollen All-Empery plans,

“‘When a mere nod (if my malign Compeer but passive keep) Would mend that old mistake of mine I made with Saul, and ever consign All Lords of War whose sanctuaries enshrine Liberticide, to sleep?

“‘With violence the lands are spread Even as in Israel’s day, And it repenteth me I bred Chartered armipotents lust-led To feuds . . . Yea, grieves my heart, as then I said, To see their evil way!’

—“The utterance grew, and flapped like flame, And further speech I feared; But no Celestial tongued acclaim, And no huzzas from earthlings came, And the heavens mutely masked as ’twere in shame Till daylight disappeared.”

Thus ended he as night rode high— The man of shining face and eye, Like Moses’ after Sinai.

1916.

“I LOOKED UP FROM MY WRITING”

I LOOKED up from my writing, And gave a start to see, As if rapt in my inditing, The moon’s full gaze on me.

Her meditative misty head Was spectral in its air, And I involuntarily said, “What are you doing there?”