VALLEY OF THE SHADOW
GOD, I am travelling out to death's sea,
I, who exulted in sunshine and laughter,
Thought not of dying death—is such waste of me!
Grant me one comfort: Leave not the hereafter
Of mankind to war, as though I had died not—
I, who in battle, my comrade's arm linking,
Shouted and sang—life in my pulses hot
Throbbing and dancing! Let not my sinking
In dark be for naught, my death a vain thing!
God, let me know it the end of man's fever!
Make my last breath a bugle call, carrying
Peace o'er the valleys and cold hills, for ever!
[From A Sheaf. Copyright, 1916, by Charles Scribner's Sons.]
A HARROW GRAVE IN FLANDERS
HERE in the marshland, past the battered bridge,
One of a hundred grains untimely sown,
Here, with his comrades of the hard-won ridge,
He rests unknown.
His horoscope had seemed so plainly drawn,—
School triumphs, earned apace in work and play;
Friendships at will; then love's delightful dawn
And mellowing day;
Home fostering hope; some service to the State;
Benignant age; then the long tryst to keep
Where in the yew-tree shadow congregate
His fathers sleep.
Was here the one thing needful to distil
From life's alembic, through this holier fate,
The man's essential soul, the hero will?
We ask; and wait.
