More Songs by the Fighting Men
With new-born blossoms and the scent of hay;
Of hills and valleys, laughing streams and lakes
Where rustling reeds their whispered secrets told.
All these he knew and loved, they were his friends,
His sole companions, and through them he learnt
To know his mother Nature; all her moods
Diverse and strange he learnt them one by one;
Her summer laughter and her autumn tears,
Her seeming winter harshness and the sweet
Serene repentance of her early spring.
Life was his love, and in her warm soft arms
He freedom found from care, repose and peace,
And finding knew that it sufficed.
······
And then came War to claim him, dragged him forth,
Forth from his quiet world, and flung him down
Bewildered and amazed, yet unafraid,
The merest cypher in that crowded train.
So hour by hour the meanness of War,
And all its horrors, petty hates and sins
Raged round his struggling head, until the day
A wandering bullet found him, and Death took
Unto himself what Life once held so dear.
······
His face was smiling when they picked him up
As though he'd learnt his Mother's last great secret
And in learning found all well.
No. 7 Stationary Hospital, B.E.F., France.
72
