A treasury of war poetry, British and American poems of the world war, 1914-1919/The Return

by John Frederick Freeman

THE RETURN

I HEARD the rumbling guns. I saw the smoke,
The unintelligible shock of hosts that still,
Far off, unseeing, strove and strove again;
And Beauty flying naked down the hill

From morn to eve: and the stern night cried Peace!
And shut the strife in darkness: all was still,
Then slowly crept a triumph on the dark—
And I heard Beauty singing up the hill.

John Freeman