POETRY: A Magazine of Verse
WAR
There was a time
When there was no war.
Deep I look into that pool of memory
And see the things I thought of then, the dreams I dreamed,
Like strange corals at the bottom of the sea—
Each, for being so far, so lost,
Shining with a beauty past its own.
They lie like jewels that have slipped into the ocean,
Unattainable and gone;
A moment of great sweetness, a day of great beauty, a dream,
a longing, a happy chance.
Never shalt I touch them again;
Never, I believe, shall I see their like again
In the dark horror of these days.
[72]