Part 31 (1/2)

Amid this hot green glowing gloom A word falls with a raindrop's boom....

Like baskets of ripe fruit in air The bird-songs seem, suspended where

Those goldfinches--the ripe warm lights Peck slyly at them--take quick flights.

My feet are feathered like a bird Among the shadows scarcely heard;

I bring you branches green with dew And fruits that you may crown anew

Your whirring waspish-gilded hair Amid this cornucopia--

Until your warm lips bear the stains And bird-blood leap within your veins.

_F. W. Harvey_

Harvey was a lance-corporal in the English army and was in the German prison camp at Gutersloh when he wrote _The Bugler_, one of the isolated great poems written during the war. Much of his other verse is haphazard and journalistic, although _Gloucesters.h.i.+re Friends_ contains several lines that glow with the colors of poetry.

THE BUGLER

G.o.d dreamed a man; Then, having firmly shut Life like a precious metal in his fist Withdrew, His labour done. Thus did begin Our various divinity and sin.

For some to ploughshares did the metal twist, And others--dreaming empires--straightway cut Crowns for their aching foreheads. Others beat Long nails and heavy hammers for the feet Of their forgotten Lord. (Who dares to boast That he is guiltless?) Others coined it: most Did with it--simply nothing. (Here again Who cries his innocence?) Yet doth remain Metal unmarred, to each man more or less, Whereof to fas.h.i.+on perfect loveliness.

For me, I do but bear within my hand (For sake of Him our Lord, now long forsaken) A simple bugle such as may awaken With one high morning note a drowsing man: That wheresoe'er within my motherland That sound may come, 'twill echo far and wide Like pipes of battle calling up a clan, Trumpeting men through beauty to G.o.d's side.

_T. P. Cameron Wilson_

”Tony” P. Cameron Wilson was born in South Devon in 1889 and was educated at Exeter and Oxford. He wrote one novel besides several articles under the pseudonym _Tipuca_, a euphonic combination of the first three initials of his name.

When the war broke out he was a teacher in a school at Hindhead, Surrey; and, after many months of gruelling conflict, he was given a captaincy. He was killed in action by a machine-gun bullet March 23, 1918, at the age of 29.

SPORTSMEN IN PARADISE

They left the fury of the fight, And they were very tired.

The gates of Heaven were open quite, Unguarded and unwired.

There was no sound of any gun, The land was still and green; Wide hills lay silent in the sun, Blue valleys slept between.

They saw far-off a little wood Stand up against the sky.

Knee-deep in gra.s.s a great tree stood; Some lazy cows went by ...