Part 34 (1/2)

Sorley left but one book, _Marlborough and Other Poems_. The verse contained in it is sometimes rough but never rude. Although he admired Masefield, loveliness rather than liveliness was his aim. Restraint, tolerance, and a dignity unusual for a boy of 20, distinguish his poetry.

TWO SONNETS

I

Saints have adored the lofty soul of you.

Poets have whitened at your high renown.

We stand among the many millions who Do hourly wait to pa.s.s your pathway down.

You, so familiar, once were strange: we tried To live as of your presence unaware.

But now in every road on every side We see your straight and steadfast signpost there.

I think it like that signpost in my land h.o.a.ry and tall, which pointed me to go Upward, into the hills, on the right hand, Where the mists swim and the winds shriek and blow, A homeless land and friendless, but a land I did not know and that I wished to know.

II

Such, such is Death: no triumph: no defeat: Only an empty pail, a slate rubbed clean, A merciful putting away of what has been.

And this we know: Death is not Life effete, Life crushed, the broken pail. We who have seen So marvellous things know well the end not yet.

Victor and vanquished are a-one in death: Coward and brave: friend, foe. Ghosts do not say, ”Come, what was your record when you drew breath?”

But a big blot has hid each yesterday So poor, so manifestly incomplete.

And your bright Promise, withered long and sped, Is touched; stirs, rises, opens and grows sweet And blossoms and is you, when you are dead.

TO GERMANY

You are blind like us. Your hurt no man designed, And no man claimed the conquest of your land.

But gropers both, through fields of thought confined, We stumble and we do not understand.

You only saw your future bigly planned, And we the tapering paths of our own mind, And in each other's dearest ways we stand, And hiss and hate. And the blind fight the blind.

When it is peace, then we may view again With new-won eyes each other's truer form And wonder. Grown more loving-kind and warm We'll grasp firm hands and laugh at the old pain, When it is peace. But until peace, the storm, The darkness and the thunder and the rain.

_Robert Graves_

Robert Graves was born July 26, 1895. One of ”the three rhyming musketeers” (the other two being the poets Siegfried Sa.s.soon and Robert Nichols), he was one of several writers who, roused by the war and giving himself to his country, refused to glorify warfare or chant new hymns of hate. Like Sa.s.soon, Graves also reacts against the storm of fury and blood-l.u.s.t (see his poem ”To a Dead Boche”), but, fortified by a lighter and more whimsical spirit, where Sa.s.soon is violent, Graves is volatile; where Sa.s.soon is bitter, Graves is almost blithe.

An unconquerable gayety rises from his _Fairies and Fusiliers_ (1917), a surprising and healing humor that is warmly individual. In _Country Sentiment_ (1919) Graves turns to a fresh and more serious simplicity.

But a buoyant fancy ripples beneath the most archaic of his ballads and a quaintly original turn of mind saves them from their own echoes.

IT'S A QUEER TIME

It's hard to know if you're alive or dead When steel and fire go roaring through your head.

One moment you'll be crouching at your gun Traversing, mowing heaps down half in fun: The next, you choke and clutch at your right breast-- No time to think--leave all--and off you go ...

To Treasure Island where the Spice winds blow, To lovely groves of mango, quince and lime-- Breathe no good-bye, but ho, for the Red West!

It's a queer time.

You're charging madly at them yelling ”f.a.g!”

When somehow something gives and your feet drag.