than the flash of vision that comes to him as he looks on 'An Old Boot in a Ditch,' and reflects that
In your green silence there
You see the world pass like a lean old witch,
You watch the stars at night, and you may share
The small fierce love wherein the soil is rich,
And know that half the gifts of God are won
By centipedes and fairies in the ditch...
nor more characteristic of him than that quaint fantasy of the sportsmen killed in battle passing through the open gates into Paradise, and—
They saw far off a little wood
Stand up against the sky.
Knee-deep in grass a great tree stood...
Some lazy cows went by....
There were some rooks sailed overhead—
And once a church-bell pealed.
'God! but it 's England,' some one said,
'And there 's a cricket-field!'
He could lay bare the beastly and brutal facts of war in 'A Soldier' and in 'France, 1917,' but the gay, sad 'Song of Amiens' tells you that
laughter runs
The cleanest stream a man may know
To rinse him from the taint of guns.
And if 'France, 1917,' is full of the heart-
