Part 5 (1/2)
Come now, O Death, While I am proud, While joy and awe are breath, And heart beats loud!
While all around me stand Men that I love, The wind blares aloud, the grand Sun wheels above.
Naked I stand to-day Before my doom, Welcome what comes my way, Whatever come.
What is there more to ask Than that I have?-- Companions, love, a task, And a deep grave!
Come then, Eternity, If thou my lot; Having been thus, I cannot be As if I had not.
Naked I wait my doom!
Earth enough shroud!
Death, in thy narrow room Man can lie proud!
XI.--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 gus.h.i.+ng, 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 DEAD
I.--THE BURIAL IN FLANDERS
(H. S. G., YPRES, 1916)
Through the light rain I think I see them going, Through the light rain under the m.u.f.fled skies; Across the fields a stealthy wet wind wanders, The mist bedews their tunics, dizzies their brains.
Shoulder-high, khaki shoulder by shoulder, They bear my Boy upon his last journey.
Night is closing. The wind sighs, ebbs, and falters....
They totter dreaming, deem they see his face.
Even as Vikings of old their slaughtered leader Upon their shoulders, so now bear they on All that remains of Boy, my friend, their leader, An officer who died for them under the dawn.
O that I were there that I might carry, Might share that bitter load in grief, in pride!...
I see upon bronze faces love, submission, And a dumb sorrow for that cheerful Boy.