second book of his you see him moving through scenes of conflict in strange lands, but still dreaming and singing of home and the peace of home. Though his poems are divided into those written in barracks, in camp, at sea, in Serbia, in Greece, in hospital in Egypt, and again in barracks, there is not a war song among them. In barracks he sings of love, of May, of a place he knew in Ireland where the birds used to sing:
And when the war is over I shall take
My lute adown to it and sing again
Songs of the whispering things among the brake,
And those I love shall know them by their strain.
Their airs shall be the blackbird's twilight song,
Their words shall be all flowers with fresh dews hoar—
But it is lonely now in winter long,
And, God, to hear the blackbird sing once more!
In camp and on the sea his verse is all of clouds, flowers, the sky and the trees and hills of Ireland; the hints of darker things are few and faint and elusive. In hospital his thoughts turn wistfully to Ireland, 'My Mother':
