Dead Musicians
I From you, Beethoven, Bach, Mozart, The substance of my dreams took fire. You built cathedrals in my heart, And lit my pinnacled desire. You were the ardour and the bright Procession of my
Counter-Attack
We’d gained our first objective hours before While dawn broke like a face with blinking eyes, Pallid, unshaved and thirsty, blind with smoke. Things seemed all right at first. We held their line, With
Daybreak In A Garden
I heard the farm cocks crowing, loud, and faint, and thin, When hooded night was going and one clear planet winked: I heard shrill notes begin down the spired wood distinct, When cloudy shoals
Parted
Sleepless I listen to the surge and drone And drifting roar of the town’s undertone; Till through quiet falling rain I hear the bells Tolling and chiming their brief tune that tells Day’s midnight
Secret Music
I keep such music in my brain No din this side of death can quell; Glory exulting over pain, And beauty, garlanded in hell. My dreaming spirit will not heed The roar of guns
Morning-Land
Old English songs, you bring to me A simple sweetness somewhat kin To birds that through the mystery Of earliest morn make tuneful din, While hamlet steeples sleepily At cock-crow chime out three and
Absolution
The anguish of the earth absolves our eyes Till beauty shines in all that we can see. War is our scourge; yet war has made us wise, And, fighting for our freedom, we are
A Working Party
Three hours ago he blundered up the trench, Sliding and poising, groping with his boots; Sometimes he tripped and lurched against the walls With hands that pawed the sodden bags of chalk. He couldn’t
Nimrod in September
When half the drowsy world’s a-bed And misty morning rises red, With jollity of horn and lusty cheer, Young Nimrod urges on his dwindling rout; Along the yellowing coverts we can hear His horse’s
Morning-Glory
In this meadow starred with spring Shepherds kneel before their king. Mary throned, with dreaming eyes, Gowned in blue like rain-washed skies, Lifts her tiny son that he May behold their courtesy. And green-smocked
To a Childless Woman
You think I cannot understand. Ah, but I do… I have been wrung with anger and compassion for you. I wonder if you’d loathe my pity, if you knew. But you shall know. I’ve
Ancestors
Behold these jewelled, merchant Ancestors, Foregathered in some chancellery of death; Calm, provident, discreet, they stroke their beards And move their faces slowly in the gloom, And barter monstrous wealth with speech subdued, Lustreless
The Death-Bed
He drowsed and was aware of silence heaped Round him, unshaken as the steadfast walls; Aqueous like floating rays of amber light, Soaring and quivering in the wings of sleep. Silence and safety; and
Falling Asleep
Voices moving about in the quiet house: Thud of feet and a muffled shutting of doors: Everyone yawning. Only the clocks are alert. Out in the night there’s autumn-smelling gloom Crowded with whispering trees;
The Heritage
Cry out on Time that he may take away Your cold philosophies that give no hint Of spirit-quickened flesh; fall down and pray That Death come never with a face of flint: Death is