The Rear-Guard
Groping along the tunnel, step by step, He winked his prying torch with patching glare From side to side, and sniffed the unwholesome air. Tins, boxes, bottles, shapes too vague to know, A mirror
In Barracks
The barrack-square, washed clean with rain, Shines wet and wintry-grey and cold. Young Fusiliers, strong-legged and bold, March and wheel and march again. The sun looks over the barrack gate, Warm and white with
To Leonide Massine in 'Cleopatra'
O beauty doomed and perfect for an hour, Leaping along the verge of death and night, You show me dauntless Youth that went to fight Four long years past, discovering pride and power. You
The Goldsmith
‘This job’s the best I’ve done.’ He bent his head Over the golden vessel that he’d wrought. A bird was singing. But the craftsman’s thought Is a forgotten language, lost and dead. He sighed
Sick Leave
When I’m asleep, dreaming and lulled and warm,- They come, the homeless ones, the noiseless dead. While the dim charging breakers of the storm Bellow and drone and rumble overhead, Out of the gloom
Stretcher Case
He woke; the clank and racket of the train Kept time with angry throbbings in his brain. Then for a while he lapsed and drowsed again. At last he lifted his bewildered eyes And
Dream-Forest
Where sunshine flecks the green, Through towering woods my way Goes winding all the day. Scant are the flowers that bloom Beneath the bosky screen And cage of golden gloom. Few are the birds
Fight to a Finish
The boys came back. Bands played and flags were flying, And Yellow-Pressmen thronged the sunlit street To cheer the soldiers who’d refrained from dying, And hear the music of returning feet. ‘Of all the
Trench Duty
Shaken from sleep, and numbed and scarce awake, Out in the trench with three hours’ watch to take, I blunder through the splashing mirk; and then Hear the gruff muttering voices of the men
Break of Day
There seemed a smell of autumn in the air At the bleak end of night; he shivered there In a dank, musty dug-out where he lay, Legs wrapped in sand-bags,-lumps of chalk and clay
A Poplar and the Moon
There stood a Poplar, tall and straight; The fair, round Moon, uprisen late, Made the long shadow on the grass A ghostly bridge ‘twixt heaven and me. But May, with slumbrous nights, must pass;
Middle-Ages
I heard a clash, and a cry, And a horseman fleeing the wood. The moon hid in a cloud. Deep in shadow I stood. €Ugly work! ’ thought I, Holding my breath. €Men must
How to Die
Dark clouds are smouldering into red While down the craters morning burns. The dying soldier shifts his head To watch the glory that returns; He lifts his fingers toward the skies Where holy brightness
A Wanderer
When Watkin shifts the burden of his cares And all that irked him in his bound employ, Once more become a vagrom-hearted boy, He moves to roundelays and jocund airs; Loitering with dusty harvestmen,
Together
Splashing along the boggy woods all day, And over brambled hedge and holding clay, I shall not think of him: But when the watery fields grow brown and dim, And hounds have lost their