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WE first saw fire on the tragic slopes The charge her heroes left us, we assumed, Winter came down on us. The low clouds, torn In rain, and fog that on the withered hill Or the long clouds would end. Intensely fair, And the lone sentinel would start and soar And ever down the curving front, aglow Rumors, reverberant indistinct, remote, Craonne, before thy cannon-swept plateau, For that high fellowship was ours then There we drained deeper the deep cup of life, There where we faced under those frowning heights There where, firm links in the unyielding chain, |
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IN the glad revels, in the happy fêtes, Drink sometimes, you whose footsteps yet may tread Here, by devoted comrades laid away, And round the city whose cathedral towers Under the little crosses where they rise That other generations might possess--- Esteeming less the forfeit that he paid Obscurely sacrificed, his nameless tomb, There the grape-pickers at their harvesting I love to think that if my blood should be And faces that the joys of living fill So shall one coveting no higher plane And that strong need that strove unsatisfied Alas, how many an adept for whose arms Honor them not so much with tears and flowers, Rather when music on bright gatherings lays Drink to them-amorous of dear Earth as well, CHAMPAGNE, FRANCE July, 1915 |
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PURGED, with the life they left, of all Comrades in arms there---friend or foe--- |
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A SHELL surprised our post one day I dug about the place he fell, I melted it, and made a mould, And when my ring was smooth and bright. Maktoob ! "'Tis written!". . . So they think, Within the book of Destiny, Are marked, they say; and you shall not Learn to drive fear, then, from your heart. And, seeing that through the ebon door Guard that not bowed nor blanched with fear So die as though your funeral And it shall all depend therein So, when the order comes: "Attack!" Or in a ditch that they seem near When, not to hear, some try to talk, And nerves relax that were most tense, And it brings, quieting like balm |
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I HAVE a rendezvous with Death It may be he shall take my hand God knows 'twere better to be deep |
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SIDNEY, in whom the heyday of romance
Came to its precious and most perfect flower, Whether you tourneyed with victorious lance Or brought sweet roundelays to Stella's bower, I give myself some credit for the way I have kept clean of what enslaves and lowers, Shunned the ideals of our present day And studied those that were esteemed in yours; For, turning from the mob that buys Success By sacrificing all Life's better part, Down the free roads of human happiness I frolicked, poor of purse but light of heart, And lived in strict devotion all along To my three idols---Love and Arms and Song. |
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NOT that I always struck the proper mean Of what mankind must give for what they gain, But, when I think of those whom dull routine And the pursuit of cheerless toil enchain, Who from their desk-chairs seeing a summer cloud Race through blue heaven on its joyful course Sigh sometimes for a life less cramped and bowed, I think I might have done a great deal worse; For I have ever gone untied and free, The stars and my high thoughts for company; Wet with the salt-spray and the mountain showers, I have had the sense of space and amplitude, And love in many places, silver-shoed, Has come and scattered all my path with flowers. |
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WHY should you be astonished that my heart,
Plunged for so long in darkness and in dearth, Should be revived by you, and stir and start As by warm April now, reviving Earth? I am the field of undulating grass And you the gentle perfumed breath of Spring, And all my lyric being, when you pass, Is bowed and filled with sudden murmuring. I asked you nothing and expected less, But, with that deep, impassioned tenderness Of one approaching what he most adores, I only wished to lose a little space All thought of my own life, and in its place To live and dream and have my joy in yours. |
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IF I was drawn here from a distant place, BIARRITZ, Sunday, March 26, 1916. |
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SEEING you have not come with me, nor spent
This day's suggestive beauty as we ought, I have gone forth alone and been content To make you mistress only of my thought. And I have blessed the fate that was so kind In my life's agitations to include This moment's refuge where my sense can find Refreshment, and my soul beatitude. Oh, be my gentle love a little while! Walk with me sometimes. Let me see you smile. Watching some night under a wintry sky, Before the charge, or on the bed of pain, These blessed memories shall revive again And be a power to cheer and fortify. |
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OH, you are more desirable to me Than all I staked in an impulsive hour, Making my youth the sport of chance, to be Blighted or torn in its most perfect flower; For I think less of what that chance may bring Than how, before returning into fire, To make my dearest memory of the thing That is but now my ultimate desire. And in old times I should have prayed to her Whose haunt the groves of windy Cyprus were, To prosper me and crown with good success My will to make of you the rose-twined bowl From whose inebriating brim my soul Shall drink its last of earthly happiness. |
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THERE have been times when I could storm and
plead, But you shall never hear me supplicate. These long months that have magnified my need Have made my asking less importunate, For now small favors seem to me so great That not the courteous lovers of old time Were more content to rule themselves and wait, Easing desire with discourse and sweet rhyme. Nay, be capricious, willful; have no fear To wound me with unkindness done or said, Lest mutual devotion make too dear My life that hangs by a so slender thread, And happy love unnerve me before May For that stern part that I have yet to play. |
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OH, love of woman, you are known to be A passion sent to plague the hearts of men; For every one you bring felicity Bringing rebuffs and wretchedness to ten. I have been oft where human life sold cheap And seen men's brains spilled out about their ears And yet that never cost me any sleep; I lived untroubled and I shed no tears. Fools prate how war is an atrocious thing; I always knew that nothing it implied Equalled the agony of suffering Of him who loves and loves unsatisfied. War is a refuge to a heart like this; Love only tells it what true torture is. |
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WELL, seeing I have no hope, then let us part; Having long taught my flesh to master fear, I should have learned by now to rule my heart, Although, Heaven knows, 'tis not so easy near. Oh, you were made to make men miserable And torture those who would have joy in you, But I, who could have loved you, dear, so well, Take pride in being a good loser too; And it has not been wholly unsuccess, For I have rescued from forgetfulness Some moments of this precious time that flies, Adding to my past wealth of memory The pretty way you once looked up at me, Your low, sweet voice, your smile, and your dear eyes. |
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I HAVE sought Happiness, but it has been A lovely rainbow, baffling all pursuit, And tasted Pleasure, but it was a fruit More fair of outward hue than sweet within. Renouncing both, a flake in the ferment Of battling hosts that conquer or recoil, There only, chastened by fatigue and toil, I knew what came the nearest to content. For there at least my troubled flesh was free From the gadfly Desire that plagued it so; Discord and Strife were what I used to know, Heartaches, deception, murderous jealousy; By War transported far from all of these, Amid the clash of arms I was at peace. |
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APART sweet women (for whom Heaven be blessed),
Comrades, you cannot think how thin and blue Look the leftovers of mankind that rest, Now that the cream has been skimmed off in you. War has its horrors, but has this of good--- That its sure processes sort out and bind Brave hearts in one intrepid brotherhood And leave the shams and imbeciles behind. Now turn we joyful to the great attacks, Not only that we face in a fair field Our valiant foe and all his deadly tools, But also that we turn disdainful backs On that poor world we scorn yet die to shield--- That world of cowards, hypocrites, and fools. |
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CLOUDS rosy-tinted in the setting sun, Depths of the azure eastern sky between, Plains where the poplar-bordered highways run, Patched with a hundred tints of brown and green,--- Beauty of Earth, when in thy harmonies The cannon's note has ceased to be a part, I shall return once more and bring to these The worship of an undivided heart. Of those sweet potentialities that wait For my heart's deep desire to fecundate I shall resume the search, if Fortune grants; And the great cities of the world shall yet Be golden frames for me in which to set New masterpieces of more rare romance. |
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DEEP in the sloping forest that surrounds Here, where in happier times the huntsman's horn May 22,1916. |
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I WHO, conceived beneath another star, I know not if in risking my best days Truth or delusion, be it as it may, |
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EXILED afar from youth and happy love, If Death should ravish my fond spirit hence I have no doubt but, like a homing dove, It would return to its dear residence, And through a thousand stars find out the road Back into earthly flesh that was its loved abode. |
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You have the grit and the guts, I know; You are proud in the pride that feels its might; And you, in the depths of your easy-chair--- Not by rough tongues and ready fists You have a leader who knows---the man I have been too long from my country's shores O friends, in your fortunate present ease |
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I HAVE gone sometimes by the gates of Death Therefore, sweet friends, as often as by Love I know that there are those whose idle tongues |
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(To have been read before the statue of Lafayette and Washington in Paris, on Decoration Day, May 30, 1916.)
Ay, it is fitting on this holiday, Be they remembered here with each reviving spring, Yet sought they neither recompense nor praise, O friends! I know not since that war began There, holding still, in frozen steadfastness, |