“EVERYONE suddenly burst out singing; And I was filled with such delightAs prisoned birds must find in freedom,Winging wildly across the white Orchards and dark-green fields; on—on—and out of sight. Everyone’s voice was suddenly lifted; And beauty came like the setting sun: My heart was shaken with tears; and horror Drifted away ... O, but EveryoneWas a bird; and the song was wordless; the singing will never be done.”

“O, but EveryoneWas a bird; and the song was wordless; the singing will never be done.”

“Before the Battle:Music of whispering treesHushed by the broad-winged breezeWhere shaken water gleams;And evening radiance fallingWith reedy bird-notes calling.O bear me safe through dark, you low-voiced streams.I have no need to prayThat fear may pass away;I scorn the growl and rumble of the fightThat summons me from coolSilence of marsh and pool,And yellow lilies islanded in light.O river of stars and shadows, lead me through the night.”

“They march from safety, and the bird-sung joyOf grass-green thickets, to the land where allIs ruin, and nothing blossoms but the sky”

“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 thenHear the gruff muttering voices of the menCrouching in cabins candle-chinked with light.Hark! There's the big bombardment on our rightRumbling and bumping; and the dark's a glareOf flickering horror in the sectors whereWe raid the Boche; men waiting, stiff and chilled,Or crawling on their bellies through the wire."What? Stretcher-bearers wanted? Some one killed?"Five minutes ago I heard a sniper fire:Why did he do it?... Starlight overhead--Blank stars. I'm wide-awake; and some chap's dead.”

“Dim, gradual thinning of the shapeless gloomShudders to drizzling daybreak that revealsDisconsolate men who stamp their sodden bootsAnd turn dulled, sunken faces to the skyHaggard and hopeless. They, who have beaten downThe stale despair of night, must now renewTheir desolation in the truce of dawn,Murdering the livid hours that grope for peace.Yet these, who cling to life with stubborn hands,Can grin through storms of death and find a gapIn the clawed, cruel tangles of his defence.They march from safety, and the bird-sung joyOf grass-green thickets, to the land where allIs ruin, and nothing blossoms but the skyThat hastens over them where they endureSad, smoking, flat horizons, reeking woods,And foundered trench-lines volleying doom for doom.O my brave brown companions, when your soulsFlock silently away, and the eyeless dead,Shame the wild beast of battle on the ridge,Death will stand grieving in that field of warSince your unvanquished hardihood is spent.And through some mooned Valhalla there will passBattalions and battalions, scarred from hell;The unreturning army that was youth;The legions who have suffered and are dust.”

“I am banished from the patient men who fight.They smote my heart to pity, built my pride.Shoulder to aching shoulder, side by side,They trudged away from life's broad wealds of light.Their wrongs were mine; and ever in my sightThey went arrayed in honour. But they died,--Not one by one: and mutinous I criedTo those who sent them out into the night.The darkness tells how vainly I have strivenTo free them from the pit where they must dwellIn outcast gloom convulsed and jagged and rivenBy grappling guns. Love drove me to rebel.Love drives me back to grope with them through hell;And in their tortured eyes I stand forgiven.”