THE 
 )THRR 
 
 POEMS BY 
 
 ILBERT FRANKAV

 
 The 
 
 Other Side 
 
 And Other Poems
 
 NEW POETRY : FALL 1918 
 
 By Robert Graves 
 
 FAIRIES AND FUSILIERS 
 
 By Gilbert Frankau 
 THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 By Max Eastman 
 COLORS OF LIFE 
 
 By Kahili Gibran 
 THE MADMAN
 
 Other Side 
 
 And Other Poems 
 
 By 
 
 Gilbert Frankau 
 
 New York 
 
 Alfred A. Knopf 
 MCMXVIII
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY 
 GILBERT FRANKAU 
 
 PRINTED IN THK UNITED STATES OT AMERICA
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE OTHER SIDE 3 
 
 THE JUDGEMENT OF VALHALLA 
 
 (1) The Deserter 13 
 
 (2) The Eye and the Truth 14 
 
 (3) The Song of the Red-Edged Steel 16 
 
 (4) The Song of the Crashing Wing 20 
 
 (5) The Song of the Gunner-Dead 24 
 
 (6) Valhalla's Verdict 27 
 
 AIMEE 
 
 (1) Wife and Country 31 
 
 (2) Mother and Mate 32 
 
 (3) Meeting 33 
 
 (4) Music and Wine 36 
 
 (5) The Gamble 38 
 
 (6) Ninon and Roses 40 
 
 (7) Parting 42 
 
 THE CITY OF FEAR 47 
 How RIFLEMAN BROWN CAME TO VALHALLA 59 
 
 THE INN OF A THOUSAND DREAMS 69 
 
 2083119
 
 The Other Side 
 
 Being a letter from Major Average of the Royal Field 
 Artillery in Flanders, acknowledging a presentation copy 
 of a book of <war-<verse, ivritten by a former subaltern of 
 his battery now in England. 
 
 THE BARN 
 
 31/10/17
 
 The Other Side 
 
 Just got your letter and the poems. Thanks. 
 
 You always were a brainy sort of chap: 
 
 Though pretty useless as a subaltern 
 
 Too much imagination, not enough 
 
 Of that rare quality, sound commonsense. 
 
 And so you've managed to get on the Staff : 
 
 Influence, I suppose: a Captain, too! 
 
 How do tabs suit you ? Are they blue or green ? 
 
 About your book. I've read it carefully, 
 
 So has Macfaddyen; (you remember him, 
 
 The light-haired chap who joined us after Loos?) ; 
 
 And candidly, we don't think much of it. 
 
 The piece about the horses isn't bad; 
 
 But all the rest, excuse the word, are tripe 
 
 The same old tripe we've read a thousand times. 
 
 My grief, but we're fed up to the back-teeth 
 With war-books, war-verse, all the eye-wash stuff 
 That seems to please the idiots at home. 
 You know the kind of thing, or used to know: 
 [3]
 
 " Heroes who laugh while Fritz is strafing them " 
 (I don't remember that you found it fun, 
 The day they shelled us out of Blauwpoort Farm!) 
 " After the fight. Our cheery wounded. Note 
 The smile of victory: it won't come off " 
 (Of course they smile; so'd you, if you'd escaped, 
 And saw three months of hospital ahead. . . . 
 They don't smile, much, when they're shipped back 
 
 to France!) 
 
 " Out for the Great Adventure " (twenty-five 
 Fat, smirking wasters in some O. T. C., 
 Who just avoided the Conscription Act!) 
 " A strenuous woman-worker for the Cause " 
 (Miss Trixie Toogood of the Gaiety, 
 Who helped to pauperize a few Belgiques 
 In the great cause of self-advertisement!) . . . 
 
 Lord knows, the newspapers are bad enough ; 
 But they've got some excuse the censorship 
 Helping to keep their readers' spirits up 
 Giving the public what it wants: (besides, 
 One mustn't blame the press, the press has done 
 More than its share to help us win this war 
 More than some other people I could name) : 
 But what's the good of war-books, if they fail 
 To give civilian-readers an idea 
 Of what life is like in the firing-line. . . . 
 
 [4]
 
 You might have done that much; from you, at 
 
 least, 
 
 I thought we'd get an inkling of the truth. 
 But no; you rant and rattle, beat your drum, 
 And blow your two-penny trumpet like the rest: 
 " Red battle's glory," " honour's utmost task," 
 " Gay jesting faces of undaunted boys," . . . 
 The same old Boy's-Own-Paper balderdash! 
 
 Mind you, I don't deny that they exist, 
 These abstract virtues that you gas about 
 (We shouldn't stop out here long, otherwise!) 
 Honour and humour, and that sort of thing; 
 (Though heaven knows where you found the glory- 
 touch, 
 
 Unless you picked it up at G. H. Q.) ; 
 But if you'd commonsense, you'd understand 
 That humour's just the Saxon cloak for fear, 
 Our English substitute for " Vive la France" 
 Or else a trick to keep the folk at home 
 From being scared to death as we are scared; 
 That honour . . . damn it, honour's the one 
 
 thing 
 
 No soldier yaps about, except of course 
 A soldier-poet three-and-sixpence net. 
 Honest to God, it makes me sick and tired 
 To think that you, who lived a year with us, 
 [5]
 
 Should be content to write such tommy-rot. 
 
 I feel as though I'd sent a runner back 
 
 With news that we were being strafed like 
 
 Hell . . . 
 
 And he'd reported: "Everything O. K." 
 Something's the matter: either you can't see, 
 Or else you see, and cannot write that's worse. 
 
 Hang it, you can't have clean forgotten things 
 You went to bed with, woke with, smelt and felt, 
 All those long months of boredom streaked with 
 
 fear: 
 
 Mud, cold, fatigue, sweat, nerve-strain, sleepless- 
 ness, 
 
 And men's excreta viscid in the rain, 
 And stiff-legged horses lying by the road, 
 Their bloated bellies shimmering, green with 
 flies. . . . 
 
 Have you forgotten? you who dine to-night 
 In comfort at the Carlton or Savoy. 
 (Lord, but I'd like a dart at that myself 
 Oysters, creme something, sole inn blanc, a bird, 
 And one cold bottle of the very best 
 A girl to share it: afterwards, a show 
 Lee White and Alfred Lester, Nelson Keys; 
 Supper to follow. 
 
 [6]
 
 . . . Our Brigade's in rest 
 The usual farm. I've got the only bed. 
 The men are fairly comfy three good barns. 
 Thank God, they didn't have to bivouac 
 After this last month in the Salient.) . . . 
 
 You have forgotten; or you couldn't write 
 This sort of stuff all cant, no guts in it, 
 Hardly a single picture true to life. 
 
 Well, here's a picture for you : Montauban 
 
 Last year the flattened village on our left 
 
 On our right flank, the razed Briqueterie, 
 
 Their five-nines pounding bits to dustier bits 
 
 Behind, a cratered slope, with batteries 
 
 Crashing and flashing, violet in the dusk, 
 
 And prematuring every now and then 
 
 In front, the ragged Bois de Bernafay, 
 
 Bosche whizz-bangs bursting white among its trees. 
 
 You had been doing F.O.O. that day; 
 
 (The Staff knows why we had an F.O.O. : 
 
 One couldn't flag-wag through Trones Wood; the 
 
 wires 
 
 Went down as fast as one could put them up ; 
 And messages by runner took three hours.) 
 I'd got the wind up rather: you were late, 
 And they'd been shelling like the very deuce. 
 [7]
 
 However, back you came. I see you now, 
 Staggering into "mess" a broken trench, 
 Two chalk-walls roofed with corrugated iron, 
 And, round the traverse, Driver Noakes's stove 
 Stinking and smoking while we ate our grub. 
 Your face was blue-white, streaked with dirt; your 
 
 eyes 
 
 Had shrunk into your head, as though afraid 
 To watch more horrors ; you were sodden-wet 
 With greasy coal-black mud and other things. 
 Sweating and shivering, speechless, there you stood. 
 I gave you whisky, made you talk. You said : 
 " Major, another signaller's been killed." 
 "Who?" 
 
 " Gunner Andrews, blast them. O my Christ ! 
 His head split open when his brains oozed out, 
 They looked like bloody sweetbreads, in the muck." 
 
 And you're the chap who writes this clap-trap verse ! 
 
 Lord, if I'd half your brains, I'd write a book: 
 None of your sentimental platitudes, 
 But something real, vital; that should strip 
 The glamour from this outrage we call war, 
 Shewing it naked, hideous, stupid, vile 
 One vast abomination. So that they 
 Who, coming after, till the ransomed fields 
 [8]
 
 Where our lean corpses rotted in the ooze, 
 
 Reading my written words, should understand 
 
 This stark stupendous horror, visualize 
 
 The unutterable foulness of it all. . . . 
 
 I'd shew them, not your glamorous " glorious 
 
 game," 
 Which men play " jesting " " for their honour's 
 
 sake " 
 
 (A kind of Military Tournament, 
 With just a hint of danger bound in cloth!) 
 But War, as war is now, and always was : 
 A dirty, loathsome, servile murder-job: 
 Men, lousy, sleepless, ulcerous, afraid, 
 Toiling their hearts out in the pulling slime 
 That wrenches gum-boot down from bleeding heel 
 And cakes in itching arm-pits, navel, ears : 
 Men stunned to brainlessness, and gibbering: 
 Men driving men to death and worse than death: 
 Men maimed and blinded : men against machines 
 Flesh versus iron, concrete, flame and wire: 
 Men choking out their souls in poison-gas: 
 Men squelched into the slime by trampling feet: 
 Men, disembowelled by guns five miles away, 
 Cursing, with their last breath, the living God 
 Because He made them, in His image, men. . . . 
 
 [9]
 
 So were your talent mine I'd write of war 
 
 For those who, coming after, know it not. 
 
 And if posterity should ask of me 
 
 What high, what base emotions keyed weak flesh 
 
 To face such torments, I would answer: "You! 
 
 Not for themselves, O daughters, grandsons, sons, 
 
 Your tortured forebears wrought this miracle; 
 
 Not for themselves, accomplished utterly 
 
 This loathliest task of murderous servitude; 
 
 But just because they realized that thus, 
 
 And only thus, by sacrifice, might they 
 
 Secure a world worth living in for you." . . . 
 
 Good-night, my soldier-poet. Dormez blen! 
 
 [10]
 
 The Judgement 
 of Valhalla 
 
 THE BARN 
 
 6/12/17
 
 The Deserter 
 
 " I'm sorry I done it, Major." 
 We bandaged the livid face; 
 And led him out, ere the wan sun rose, 
 To die his death of disgrace. 
 
 The bolt-heads locked to the cartridge; 
 The rifles steadied to rest, 
 As cold stock nestled at colder cheek 
 And foresight lined on the breast. 
 
 " Fire! " called the Sergeant-Major. 
 The muzzles flamed as he spoke: 
 And the shameless soul of a nameless man 
 Went up in the cordite-smoke. 
 
 [13]
 
 The Rye and the Truth 
 
 Up from the fret of the earth-world, through the 
 
 Seven Circles of Flame, 
 With the seven holes in Its tunic for sign of the 
 
 death-in-shame, 
 To the little gate of Valhalla the coward-spirit 
 
 came. 
 
 Cold, It couched in the man-strong wind that sweeps 
 
 Valhalla's floor; 
 Weak, It pawed and scratched on the wood; and 
 
 howled, like a dog, at the Door 
 Which is shut to the souls who are sped in shame, 
 
 for ever and evermore: 
 
 For It snuffed the Meat of the Banquet-boards 
 
 where the Threefold Killers sit, 
 Where the Free Beer foams to the tankard-rim, 
 
 and the Endless Smokes are lit. . . . 
 And It saw the Naked Eye come out above the 
 
 lintel-slit. 
 
 [14]
 
 And now It quailed at Naked Eye which judges 
 
 the naked dead; 
 And now It snarled at Naked Truth that broodeth 
 
 overhead ; 
 And now It looked to the earth below where the 
 
 gun-flames flickered red. 
 
 It muttered words It had learned on earth, the 
 
 words of a black-coat priest 
 Who had bade It pray to a pulpit god but ever 
 
 Eye's Wrath increased; 
 And It knew that Its words were empty words, 
 
 and It whined like a homeless beast: 
 
 Till, black above the lintel-slit, the Naked Eye went 
 
 out; 
 Till, loud across the Killer-Feasts, It heard the 
 
 Killer-Shout - 
 The three-fold song of them that slew, and died 
 
 . . . and had no doubt. 
 
 [15]
 
 The Song of the Red-Edged 
 Steel 
 
 Below your black priest's heaven, 
 
 Above his tinselled hell, 
 Beyond the Circles Seven, 
 
 The Red-Steel Killers dwell 
 The men who drove, to blade-ring home, behind 
 the marching shell. 
 
 We knew not good nor evil, 
 Save only right of blade; 
 Yet neither god nor devil 
 
 Could hold us from our trade, 
 When once we watched the barrage lift, and 
 splendidly afraid 
 
 Came scrambling out of cover, 
 
 And staggered up the hill. . . . 
 The bullets whistled over; 
 
 Our sudden dead lay still; 
 
 And the mad machine-gun chatter drove us fight- 
 ing-wild to kill. 
 
 [16]
 
 Then the death-light lit our faces, 
 
 And the death-mist floated red 
 O'er the crimson cratered places 
 
 Where his outposts crouched in dread . . . 
 And we stabbed or clubbed them as they crouched; 
 and shot them as they fled; 
 
 And floundered, torn and bleeding, 
 Over trenches, through the wire, 
 With the shrapnel-barrage leading 
 
 To the prey of our desire 
 To the men who rose to meet us from the blood- 
 soaked battle-mire; 
 
 Met them; gave and asked no quarter; 
 
 But, where we saw the Gray, 
 Plunged the edged steel of slaughter, 
 
 Stabbed home, and wrenched away . . . 
 Till red wrists tired of killing-work, and none were 
 left to slay. 
 
 Now while his fresh battalions 
 
 Moved up to the attack 
 Screaming like angry stallions, 
 
 His shells came charging back, 
 And stamped the ground with thunder-hooves and 
 pawed it spouting-black, 
 [17]
 
 And breathed down poison-stenches 
 
 Upon us, leaping past . . . 
 Panting, we turned his trenches; 
 
 And heard each time we cast 
 From parapet to parados the scything bullet- 
 blast. 
 
 Till the whistle told his coming; 
 
 Till we flung away the pick, 
 Heard our Lewis guns' crazed drumming, 
 
 Grabbed our rifles, sighted quick, 
 Fired . . . and watched his wounded writhing 
 back from where his dead lay thick. 
 
 So we laboured while we lasted : 
 Soaked in rain or parched in sun; 
 Bullet-riddled ; fire-blasted ; 
 
 Poisoned; fodder for the gun: 
 So we perished, and our bodies rotted in the ground 
 they won. 
 
 [18]
 
 It heard the song of the First of the Dead, as It 
 
 couched by the lintel-post; 
 And the coward-soul would have given Its soul to 
 
 be back with the Red-Steel host . . . 
 But Eye peered down; and It quailed at the Eye; 
 
 and Naked Truth said: "Lost." 
 
 And Eye went out. But It might not move; for, 
 
 droned in the dark, It heard 
 The Second Song of the Killer-Men word upon 
 
 awful word 
 Cleaving the void with a shrill keen sound like the 
 
 wings of a pouncing bird. 
 
 [19]
 
 The Song of the Crashing 
 Wing 
 
 Higher than tinselled heaven, 
 Lower than angels dare, 
 
 op to the fray, swoop on their prey, 
 
 The Killers of the Air. 
 
 We scorned the Galilean, 
 We mocked at Kingdom-Come: 
 The old gods knew our paean 
 Our dawn-loud engine-hum: 
 
 The old red gods of slaughter, 
 The gods before the Jew! 
 We heard their cruel laughter, 
 Shrill round us, as we flew: 
 
 When, deaf to earth and pity, 
 Blind to the guns beneath, 
 We loosed upon the city 
 
 Our downward-plunging death. 
 [20]
 
 The Sun-God watched our flighting; 
 No Christian priest could tame 
 Our deathly stuttered fighting: 
 The whirled drum, spitting flame; 
 
 The roar of blades behind her; 
 The banking plane up-tossed; 
 The swerve that sought to blind her; 
 Masked faces, glimpsed and lost; 
 
 The joy-stick wrenched to guide her; 
 The swift and saving zoom, 
 What time the shape beside her 
 Went spinning to its doom. 
 
 No angel-wings might follow 
 Where, poised behind the fray, 
 We spied our Lord Apollo 
 
 Stoop down to mark his prey 
 
 The hidden counter- forces ; 
 The guns upon the road; 
 The tethered transport-horses, 
 Stampeding, as we showed 
 
 [21]
 
 Dun hawks of death, loud-roaring 
 A moment to their eyes: 
 And slew; and passed far-soaring; 
 And dwindled up the skies. 
 
 But e'en Apollo's pinions 
 Had faltered where we ran, 
 Low through his veiled dominions, 
 To lead the charging van! 
 
 The tree-tops slathered under; 
 The Red-Steel Killers knew, 
 Hard overhead, the thunder 
 And backwash of her screw; 
 
 The blurred clouds raced above her; 
 The blurred fields streaked below, 
 Where waited, crouched to cover, 
 The foremost of our foe; 
 
 Banking, we saw his furrows 
 Leap at us, open wide: 
 Hell-raked the man-packed burrows; 
 And crashed and crashing, died. 
 
 [22]
 
 It heard the song of the Dead in Air, as It huddled 
 
 against the gate; 
 And once again the Eye peered down red-rimmed 
 
 with scorn and hate 
 For the shameless soul of the nameless one who had 
 
 neither foe nor mate. 
 
 And Eye was shut. But Naked Truth bent down 
 to mock the Thing : 
 
 " Thou hast heard the Song of the Red-edged Steel, 
 and the Song of the Crashing Wing: 
 
 Shall the word of a black-coat priest avail at Val- 
 halla's harvesting? 
 
 Shalt thou pass free to the Seven Halls whose 
 
 life in shame was sped ? " 
 And Truth was dumb. But the brooding word 
 
 still echoed overhead, 
 As roaring down the void outburst the last loud 
 
 song of the dead. 
 
 [23]
 
 The Song of the Gunner- 
 Dead 
 
 In Thor's own red Valhalla, 
 Which priest may not unbar; 
 But only Naked Truth and Eye, 
 Last arbiters of War; 
 Feast, by stark right of courage, 
 The Killers from Afar. 
 
 We put no trust in heaven, 
 We had no fear of hell; 
 But lined, and ranged, and timed to clock, 
 Our barrage-curtains fell, 
 When guns gave tongue and breech-blocks 
 
 swung 
 And palms rammed home the shell. 
 
 The Red-Steel ranks edged forward, 
 And vanished in our smoke; 
 Back from his churning craters, 
 The Gray Man reeled and broke; 
 While, fast as sweat could lay and set, 
 Our rocking muzzles spoke. 
 
 [24]
 
 We blew him from the village; 
 
 We chased him through the wood: 
 Till, tiny on the crest-line 
 
 Where once his trenches stood, 
 
 We watched the wag of sending flag 
 That told our work was good : 
 
 Till, red behind the branches, 
 The death-sun sank to blood; 
 And the Red-Steel Killers rested. . . . 
 But we, by swamp and flood, 
 
 Through mirk and night his shells for light 
 Blaspheming, choked with mud, 
 
 Roped to the tilting axles, 
 Man-handled up the crest; 
 And wrenched our plunging gun-teams 
 Foam-flecked from jowl to breast, 
 Downwards, and on, where trench-lights shone 
 For we, we might not rest! 
 
 Shell-deafened; soaked and sleepless; 
 Short-handed; under fire; 
 Days upon nights unending, 
 We wrought, and dared not tire 
 With whip and bit from dump to pit, 
 From pit to trench with wire. 
 [25]
 
 The Killers in the Open, 
 
 The Killers down the Wind, 
 They saw the Gray Man eye to eye 
 But we, we fought him blind, 
 
 Nor knew whence came the screaming flame 
 
 That killed us, miles behind. 
 
 Yet, when the triple rockets 
 
 Flew skyward, blazed and paled, 
 
 For sign the lines were broken; 
 When the Red Steel naught availed; 
 
 When, through the smoke, on shield and spoke 
 
 His rifle-bullets hailed; 
 
 When we waited, dazed and hopeless, 
 
 Till the layer's eye could trace 
 
 Helmets, bobbing just above us 
 
 Like mad jockeys in a race. . . . 
 Then loaded, laid, and unafraid, 
 
 We met him face to face; 
 
 Jerked the trigger; felt the trunnions 
 Rock and quiver; saw the flail 
 
 Of our zero-fuses blast him ; 
 Saw his gapping ranks turn tail; 
 
 Heard the charging-cheer behind us ... 
 And dropped dead across the trail. 
 [26]
 
 Valhalla's Verdict 
 
 It heard the Song of the Gunner-Dead die out to 
 
 a sullen roar: 
 But Naked Truth said never a word; and Eye 
 
 peered down no more. 
 For Eye had seen; and Truth had judged . . . 
 
 and It might not pass the Door! 
 
 And now, like a dog in the dark, It shrank from 
 
 the voice of a man It knew : 
 " There are empty seats at the Banquet-board, but 
 
 there's never a seat for you; 
 For they will not drink with a coward soul, the 
 
 stark red men who slew. 
 
 There's meat and to spare, at the Killer-Feasts 
 where Thor's swung hammer twirls; 
 
 There's beer and enough, in the Free Canteen 
 where the Endless Smoke upcurls; 
 
 There are lips and lips, for the Killer-Men, in the 
 Hall of the Dancing-Girls. 
 [27]
 
 There's place for any that passes clean but for 
 
 you there's never a place: 
 The Endless Smoke would blacken your lips, and 
 
 the Girls would spit in your face, 
 And the Beer and the Meat go sour on your guts : 
 
 for you died the death of disgrace. 
 
 We were pals on earth: but by God's brave Son 
 and the bomb that I reached too late, 
 
 I damn the day and I blast the hour when first I 
 called you mate; 
 
 And I'd sell my soul for one of my feet, to hack 
 you from the gate 
 
 To hack you hence to the lukewarm hells that the 
 
 priest-made ovens heat, 
 Or the faked-pearl heaven of pulpit gods, where 
 
 the sheep-faced angels bleat 
 And the halo's rim is as hard to the head as the 
 
 gilded floor to the feet." 
 
 It heard the stumps of Its one-time mate go wad- 
 dling back to the Feast. 
 
 And, once and again, It whined for the Meat; ere 
 It slunk, like a tongue-lashed beast, 
 
 To the tinselled heaven of pulpit gods and the 
 tinselled hell of their priest. 
 [28]
 
 Aimee 
 
 FLANDERS 
 
 1916
 
 Wife and Country 
 
 Dear, let me thank you for this: 
 That you made me remember, in fight, 
 England all mine at your kiss, 
 At the touch of your hands in the night : 
 England your giving's delight. 
 
 [31]
 
 Mother and Mate 
 
 Lightly she slept, that splendid mother mine 
 Who faced death, undismayed, two hopeless 
 
 years . . . 
 
 (" Think of me sometimes, son, but not with tears 
 Lest my soul grieve," she writes. Oh, this divine 
 Unselfishness!) . . . 
 
 Her favourite print smiled down 
 The stippled Cupid, Bartolozzi-brown 
 Upon my sorrow. Fire-gleams, fitful, played 
 Among her playthings Toby mugs and jade. . . . 
 
 And then I dreamed that suddenly, strangely 
 
 clear 
 
 A voice I knew not, faltered at my ear: 
 "Courage!" . . . Your own dear voice, loved 
 
 since, and known! 
 
 And now that she sleeps well, come times her 
 voice 
 
 Whispers in day-dreams : " Courage, son ! Re- 
 joice 
 
 That, leaving you, I left you not alone." 
 [32]
 
 Meeting 
 
 I came from the City of Fear, 
 
 From the scarred brown land of pain, 
 
 Back into life again . . . 
 
 And I thought, as the leave-boat rolled 
 
 Under the veering stars 
 
 Wind a-shriek in her spars 
 
 Shivering there, and cold, 
 
 Of music, of warmth, and of wine 
 
 To be mine 
 
 For a whole short week . . . 
 
 And I thought, adrowse in the train, 
 
 Of London, suddenly near; 
 
 And of how small doubt I should find 
 
 There, as of old, 
 
 Some woman foolishly kind : 
 
 Fingers to hold, 
 
 A cheek, 
 
 A mouth to kiss and forget, 
 
 Forget in a little while, 
 
 Forget 
 
 When I came again 
 
 [33]
 
 To the scarred brown land of pain, 
 To the sodden things and the vile, 
 And the tedious battle-fret. 
 
 My dear, 
 
 I cannot forget! 
 
 Not even here 
 
 In this City of Fear. 
 
 I remember the poise of your head, 
 
 And your look, and the words you said 
 
 When we met, 
 
 And the waxen bloom at your breast, 
 
 And the sable fur that caressed 
 
 Your smooth white wrists, and your hands 
 
 Remember them yet, 
 
 Here 
 
 In the desolate lands; 
 
 Remember your shy 
 
 Strange air, 
 
 And growing aware 
 
 I, 
 
 Who had reckoned love 
 Man's toy for an hour 
 Of love's hidden power: 
 A thrill 
 
 That moved me to touch and adore 
 Some intimate thing that you wore 
 [341
 
 A glove, 
 
 Or the flower 
 
 A-glow at your breast, 
 
 The frill 
 
 Of fur that circled your wrist 
 
 These, had my hands caressed; 
 
 These, not you, had I kissed 
 
 I, 
 
 Who had thought love's fires 
 Only desires. 
 
 Dear, 
 
 That hidden power 
 
 Thrills in me yet. 
 
 There is never one hour 
 
 Not even here 
 
 In this City of Fear 
 
 When I quite forget. 
 
 [35]
 
 Music and Wine 
 
 When the ink has dried on the pen, 
 
 When the sword returns to its sheath; 
 
 When the world of women and men, 
 
 And the waters around and beneath, 
 
 Char and shrivel and burn 
 
 What will God give in return? . . . 
 
 Has He better to offer in heaven above 
 
 Than wine and music, laughter and love? 
 
 Laughter, music and wine, 
 
 The promise of love in your eyes . . . 
 
 Sleeping, I dream them mine; 
 
 Waking, my spirit cries 
 
 Here, in the mud and the rain 
 
 " God, give me London again ! 
 I would lose all earth and the heavens above 
 For just one banquet of laughter and love." 
 
 [36]
 
 When my flesh returns to its earth, 
 
 When my pen is dust as my sword; 
 
 If one thing I wrought find worth 
 
 In the eyes of our kindly Lord, 
 
 I will only ask of His grace 
 
 That He grant us a lowly place 
 Where his warriors toast Him, in heaven above, 
 With wine and music, laughter and love. 
 
 [37]
 
 The Gamble 
 
 If man backs horses, plays cards or dice, 
 
 Or bets on an ivory ball, 
 He knows the rules, and he reckons the price 
 
 Be it one half-crown, or his all. 
 (And it isn't sense, and it isn't pluck, 
 To double the stakes when you're out of luck!) 
 
 If he plays with his life for a limit here, 
 
 It's an even-money game: 
 He can lay on the Red which is Conquered 
 
 Fear, 
 
 Or the Black which is Utter Shame. 
 (And there isn't much choice between Reds and 
 
 Blacks, 
 For Death throws "zero" whichever he backs.) 
 
 [38]
 
 So that whether man plays for the red gold's 
 wealth 
 
 Where the little ball clicks and spins, 
 Or hazards his life in the black night's stealth 
 
 When machine-gun fire begins 
 It's a limited gamble; and each of us knows 
 What he stands to lose ere the tables close. 
 
 But woman's gamble (there's only one: 
 
 And it takes some pluck to play, 
 When the rules are broke ere the game's begun; 
 
 When, lose or win, you must pay!) 
 Is a double wager on human kind, 
 A limitless risk and she goes it blind. 
 
 For she stakes, at love, on a single throw, 
 Pride, Honour, Scruples and Fears, 
 
 And dreams no lover can hope to know, 
 And the gold of the after-years. 
 
 (And all for a man; and there's no man lives 
 
 Who is worth the odds that a woman gives.) 
 
 So that since you hazarded this for me 
 
 On the day love's die was cast, 
 I'll love you gambler! while "fours" beat 
 
 three ; 
 
 And I'll lay on our love to last, 
 So long as a man will wager a price 
 On a horse or a card or the ball or the dice. 
 [39]
 
 Ninon and Roses 
 
 Here, in a land where hardly a rose is, 
 Silkiest blossoms of broidered flowers 
 
 Brush my cheek as each tired eye closes, 
 
 Haunt my sleep through the desolate hours. 
 
 Roses never of nature's making, 
 
 Roses loved for a rose-red night, 
 Roses visioned at dawn-light's breaking 
 
 Veiling a bosom as roses white! 
 
 Why does the ghost of you linger and stay with 
 
 me 
 
 Ghost of the rose-buds that perfumed our bed, 
 Ghost of a rose-girl who blossomed to play with 
 
 me 
 Here in a land where the roses are dead? 
 
 [40]
 
 Day-time and night-time the death-flower blazes, 
 
 Saffron at gun-lip and orange and red, 
 Here where June's rose-tree lies shattered as May's 
 
 is, 
 
 Here where I dream of the nights that are 
 dead 
 
 Nights that were sweet with the scent and the 
 
 touch of you, 
 
 Rose-girl in ninon with buds at your breast, 
 Rose-girl who promised and granted so much of 
 
 you, 
 All that was tender and all that was best. 
 
 Growl of the guns cannot shatter the dream of you, 
 Banish the thought of one exquisite hour, 
 
 Or the scent of your hair in the dawn, or the gleam 
 
 of you 
 White as white roses through roses a-flower. 
 
 [41]
 
 Parting 
 
 Times more than once, all ways about the world, 
 
 Have I clasped hands; waved sorrowful good- 
 bye; 
 Watched far cliffs fading, till my sea-wake swirled 
 
 To mingle bluely with a landless sky: 
 Then even as the sea-drowned cliffs behind 
 
 Felt sorrow drowning into memory; 
 And heard, in every thrill of every wind, 
 
 New voices welcoming across the sea. 
 
 Until it seemed nor land nor love had power 
 
 To hold my heart in any firm duress: 
 Grieving, I sorrowed but a little hour; 
 
 Loving, I knew desire's sure faithlessness: 
 Until, by many a love dissatisfied, 
 
 Of each mistrustful and to each untrue, 
 I found as one who, having long denied, 
 
 Finds faith at last this greater Love, in you. 
 [42]
 
 Parting? We are not parted, woman mine! 
 
 Though hands have clasped, though lips have 
 
 kissed good-bye; 
 
 Though towns glide past, and fields, and fields of 
 brine 
 
 My body takes the warrior-way, not I. 
 I am still with you; you, with me; one heart; 
 
 One equal union, soul to certain soul: 
 Time cannot sever us, nor sorrow part, 
 
 Nor any sea, who keep our vision whole. 
 
 How can I grieve, who know your spirit near; 
 
 Who watch with newly understanding eyes 
 This England of your giving, newly dear, 
 
 Sink where my sea-wake swirls to darkling 
 
 skies? 
 Lilac, her cliffs have faded into mist . . . 
 
 Yet still I hold them white in memory, 
 Feeling, against these lips your lips have kissed, 
 
 The home-wind thrilling down an English sea. 
 
 [43]
 
 The City of Fear 
 
 YPRES 
 January, igi6
 
 The City of Fear 
 
 This was a city once: women lived here; 
 
 Their voices were low to their lovers, o' nights by 
 
 the murmuring waters; 
 Their hands were busied with home mothers 
 
 and daughters, 
 Sisters and wives: 
 Now, the shell dives 
 To scatter anew the shattered remains of the homes 
 
 that their hands made dear; 
 Fear 
 
 Walks naked at noonday's clear 
 Where the shopman proffered his wares to the 
 
 loitering street, 
 Where the Mass was read. 
 Above, 
 
 The war-birds beat 
 And whistle: and love 
 And laughter and work and the hum of the city 
 
 are utterly dead. 
 
 [47]
 
 Never a barge 
 
 Ruffles the long canals: the lock-gates rot, 
 
 Letting thin runnels spout : 
 
 Never the plash of a rope in the reeds nor the pash 
 of a hoof on the marge, 
 
 Ciack of whip, nor the shout 
 
 Of driver gladdens the quiet: the foul weeds knot, 
 
 Strangling the sluggish flow of the waterway; 
 
 Slime of decay 
 
 Clots on the banks where the shell-holes cut deep 
 and the shored edges crumble, 
 
 Clots on the piers of the bridges that echo to trans- 
 port wheels' rumble 
 
 At fall of the night 
 
 When no light 
 
 Is a-gleam 
 
 Till the sudden flame from a gun-muzzle crimsons 
 the ebon glass of the stream. 
 
 Here, where the rails 
 
 Ran straight and glittering, linking city to teeming 
 
 prosperous plain, 
 Mist and the rain 
 And long disuse have rusted the glint of the steel 
 
 that the wheels made shining; 
 Flame and steel have twisted the steel from the 
 
 lines of its fair designing: 
 [48]
 
 Gold with grain, 
 
 Shone the fields once when the harvest of peace- 
 time was ripe to the sun for the flails; 
 
 Green and red, 
 
 Gleamed the lights once when the track was 
 a-quiver, a-roar with the freight and the 
 mails 
 
 But the life of the farm and the life of the field and 
 the traffic of peacetime are utterly dead. 
 
 The brown roads run 
 
 Bare to the sun; 
 
 Not a cart 
 
 Jingles in through the gates that our torn graves 
 guard 
 
 To the mart ; 
 
 Never a peasant girl passes and smiles with raised 
 eyes for a greeting, 
 
 Never men clink at the cottage the cup of the way- 
 farers' meeting; 
 
 (Strown 
 
 Into heaps by the roadside the cottages, blown 
 
 And riven by shell-fire, and scarred!) 
 
 Only at night, when the dank mists arise and the 
 gaze of our watchers is hidden, 
 
 Comes tramp and muttered cursing of infantry, 
 rush of horse ridden 
 
 [49]
 
 In fear of the dark 
 
 For who knows how the far shell may swerve or 
 the blind bullet hiss to its mark! 
 
 Roadway, water or rail, the life has died in the 
 
 veins, 
 
 As life is dead at the breast; 
 Only remains 
 The hollow corpse of a city, slashed and gutted of 
 
 war, 
 
 A grinning skeleton-city, mocking the eye from afar 
 With a hangman's jest 
 With tower and chimney and gable where scarcely 
 
 swallows might rest. 
 Look well, 
 
 Ye that shall die as we died! 
 Is there roof of these roofs to guard your heads 
 
 from the wind or the rain or the sun? 
 Is there wall unholed of the gun, 
 Or street unpitted of shell? 
 Is there place where Man might abide . . . 
 Has the house he built for his scornful gods been 
 
 proof 'gainst the shafts of Hell? 
 Ruin is over it all, hideous, complete: 
 Street upon street; 
 House upon house that was gay with the patter 
 
 of lost children's feet, 
 [50]
 
 Whose windows were mirrors of lamp-light to 
 beckon its worker returning 
 
 To welcome of arms and of eyes, to the warmth of 
 the home-fires bright burning; 
 
 Palace and cot; 
 
 Their charred beams rot 
 
 And their rent walls gape as they totter, betraying 
 the havoc within 
 
 Iron and tin, 
 
 Brickwork and stone, 
 
 Glasswork and tilework and woodwork to refuse- 
 heaps battered and spilt and o'erthrown. 
 
 Through the storied square 
 
 Where aforetime the belfry spired 
 
 In a moonbeam-fretted splendour of stone that was 
 
 pride of a guild long dead, 
 Where the glory of glass 
 Was fired 
 By the orange flames of a thousand candles ablaze 
 
 on altar and shrine, 
 Till the quiet beauty of perfect things was warm to 
 
 the soul as wine 
 Men pass 
 Hurriedly, fearfully, quickening the footstep, barely 
 
 averting the head
 
 To vision in dread 
 
 A gleaming, terrible desert, pit-failed with shadow- 
 wells, 
 
 Blasted and bored by the shells, 
 
 Jagged with rocks: 
 
 For the steel has stripped 
 
 And ravished the splendours of graven stone, the 
 ruby glory of glass, 
 
 Till apse and gargoyle, buttress and nave, 
 
 Reredos, pillar, and crypt, 
 
 Lie tumbled and crumbled to monstrous ruins of 
 splintering granite-blocks . . . 
 
 Over the grave 
 
 Of the work that was spared for the sake of the 
 work by the Vandals of elder wars, 
 
 Only one tattered pinnacle leers to the calm of the 
 outraged stars. 
 
 This is the City of Fear! 
 
 Death 
 
 Has ringed her walls with his sickle, has choked 
 
 her streets with his breath ; 
 In her cellars the rat feeds red 
 On the bodies of those whom their own roofbeams 
 
 betrayed to him as they fled 
 For none live here 
 
 [52]
 
 Save you that shall die, as we died, for the city, 
 
 and we, your dead 
 Whom God for the sake of our one brave dream 
 
 has garnered into His hand . . . 
 Will He give them to understand, 
 The proud and the thankless cities we left in a 
 
 sheltered land? 
 
 Should we care at all? 
 
 Should we not turn and take rest from our labours ; 
 
 Here, where you buried us, sleep? 
 
 Forget the dream that was cheap at life, forget the 
 
 wounds and the pain; 
 Never again 
 Remember the call 
 That came to our souls in the sheltered cities, 
 
 drawing us over the deep? 
 Remember in vain! 
 
 Gladly we came 
 
 From peaceful homeland village; from the raw dun 
 dusty town, 
 
 Where sun of the North drops down 
 
 In purple behind the prairie; from the pulsing 
 plate-glass streets, 
 
 That are bright with the girls of our younger na- 
 tions at southern rim of the sea; 
 [53]
 
 From lazy tropic townships, where light of day is 
 
 a flame, 
 
 And the night wave beats 
 In fire on the scented foreshores, and the cicad sings 
 
 in the tree; 
 From the gay gray mother of all our cities, at ease 
 
 on her banks of Thame 
 Came and died, 
 Here 
 In the City of Fear. 
 
 Gladly we died, 
 
 But in death is no peace for us, 
 
 Rest nor release for us. 
 
 Had you buried us deep 
 
 You whom we left to fulfill us the task that was 
 
 stricken out of our power 
 Had you rolled the battle-tide back from our city, 
 
 till only the growl of your guns 
 Fell faint on our ears as the baying of hounds that 
 
 were hunting over the hill, 
 Perchance we might sleep: 
 But day upon day that grows weary, and hour upon 
 
 slow-footed hour, 
 The long year runs; 
 
 [54]
 
 And ever the foeman beats at the gates and batters 
 
 at rampart and tower, 
 And our souls are unquiet, for the voice of our 
 
 dreaming will neither rest nor be still. 
 
 Our spirits fret 
 
 Through the troubled night 
 
 To each sputter of rifle-fire, 
 
 To each clink of your transport wheels; 
 
 Fret 
 
 To the roar and flash of your sleepless guns, to 
 
 the tread of your feet in the mire, 
 To each soaring light 
 That reveals, 
 In a silvern silhouette, 
 House and tree and the hump of a crest and the 
 
 broken tooth of a spire; 
 Fret, 
 
 By day when the high planes drone, 
 And the great shells throb through the void, 
 And the trenches blur in the gray; 
 Fret, and pray 
 That the hour be near 
 When the bonds of the foeman that hold us be 
 
 utterly broke and destroyed, 
 And ours alone, 
 The City of Fear. 
 
 [55]
 
 How can we rest, 
 
 Knowing it all unaccomplished, the vow that was 
 
 dear to us dying? 
 How can we sleep or be still 
 In our tombs that are spattered and ploughed by the 
 
 shell-bursts and shaken by salvoes replying, 
 Till dead bones thrill; 
 
 Till our souls break forth from the grave 
 Unshriven, unblest 
 To flutter and shrill 
 Down the winds that murmur and moan in the 
 
 ruins our bodies were tortured to save. 
 
 Ye that remain, 
 
 Have ye no pity 
 
 For us that are sped? 
 
 Was it then vain, 
 
 Vain that we bartered our youth for the walls of 
 
 the desolate city, 
 Bartered the red 
 Life's blood, and the hopes that were dearer than 
 
 blood and the uttermost faith that was given 
 
 us? 
 
 Death hath not shriven us ... 
 Shrive ye your dead! 
 
 [56]
 
 How Rifleman Brown 
 Came to Valhalla 
 
 NEU7E EGLISE 
 June, igi6
 
 How Rifleman Brown Came 
 to Valhalla 
 
 To the lower Hall of Valhalla, to the heroes of no 
 
 renown, 
 Relieved from his spell at the listening-post, came 
 
 Rifleman Joseph Brown. 
 With never a rent in his khaki nor smear of blood 
 
 on his face, 
 He flung his pack from his shoulders, and made for 
 
 an empty place. 
 
 The Killer-men of Valhalla looked up from the 
 
 banquet-board 
 At the unfouled breech of his rifle, at the unfleshed 
 
 point of his sword; 
 And the unsung dead of the trenches, the kings 
 
 who have never a crown, 
 Demanded his pass to Valhalla from Rifleman 
 
 Joseph Brown. 
 
 [59]
 
 " Who comes, unhitj to the party? " A one-legged 
 Corporal spoke, 
 
 And the gashed heads nodded approval through the 
 rings of the Endless Smoke: 
 
 " Who comes for the beer and the Woodbines of 
 the never-closed Canteen, 
 
 " With the barrack-shine on his bayonet and a full- 
 charged magazine? " 
 
 Then Rifleman Brown looked round him at the 
 
 nameless men of the Line 
 At the wounds of the shell and the bullet, at the 
 
 burns of the bomb and the mine; 
 At the tunics, virgin of medals but crimson-clotted 
 
 with blood; 
 At the ankle-boots and the puttees, caked stiff with 
 
 the Flanders mud; 
 At the myriad short Lee-Enfields that crowded the 
 
 rifle-rack, 
 Each with its blade to the sword-boss brown, and 
 
 its muzzle powder-black: * 
 
 And Rifleman Brown said never a word; yet he 
 
 felt in the soul of his soul 
 His right to the beer of the lower Hall, though he 
 
 came to drink of it, whole; 
 
 [60]
 
 His right to the fags of the free Canteen, to a 
 
 seat at the banquet-board, 
 Though he came to the men who had killed their 
 
 man, with never a man to his sword. 
 
 " Who speaks for the stranger Rifleman, O boys 
 
 of the free. Canteen? 
 Who passes the chap with the unmaimed limbs and 
 
 the kit that is far too clean?" 
 The gashed heads eyed him above their beers, the 
 
 gashed lips sucked at their smoke: 
 There were three at the board of his own platoon, 
 
 but not a man of them spoke. 
 
 His mouth was mad for the tankard froth and the 
 
 biting whiff of a fag, 
 But he knew that he might not speak for himself 
 
 to the dead men who do not brag. 
 
 A gun-butt crashed on the gateway, a man came 
 
 staggering in; 
 His head was cleft with a great red wound from 
 
 the temple-bone to the chin, 
 His blade was dyed to the bayonet-boss with the 
 
 clots that were scarcely dry; 
 
 And he cried to the men who had killed their man : 
 "Who passes the Rifleman? I! 
 [61]
 
 By the four I slew, by the shell I stopped, if my 
 
 feet be not too late, 
 I speak the word for Rifleman Brown that a chap 
 
 may speak for his mate." 
 
 The dead of lower Valhalla, the heroes of dumb 
 
 renown, 
 They pricked their ears to a tale of the earth as 
 
 they set their tankards down. 
 " My mate was on sentry this evening when the 
 
 General happened along, 
 And as,ked what he'd do in a gas-attack. Joe told 
 
 him : ' Beat on the gong.' 
 'What else?' 
 
 ' Open fire, Sir,' Joe answered. 
 
 ' Good God, man,' our General said, 
 ' By the time you'd beaten that bloodstained gong 
 
 the chances are you'd be dead. 
 Just think, lad.' ' Gas helmet, of course, Sir.' 
 
 ' Yes, damn it, and gas helmet first.' 
 So Joe stood dumb to attention, and wondered why 
 
 he'd been cursed." 
 
 The gashed heads turned to the Rifleman, and now 
 
 it seemed that they knew 
 Why the face that had never a smear of blood was 
 
 stained to the jawbones, blue. 
 [62]
 
 " He was posted again at midnight." The scarred 
 
 heads craned to the voice, 
 As the man with the blood-red bayonet spoke up 
 
 for the mate of his choice. 
 " You know what it's like "in a listening-post, the 
 
 Very candles aflare, 
 Their bullets smacking the sand-bags, our Vickers 
 
 combing your hair, 
 How your ears and your eyes get jumpy, till each 
 
 known tuft that you scan 
 Moves and crawls in the shadows till you'd almost 
 
 swear it was man; 
 You know how you peer and snuff at the night 
 
 when the North-East gas-winds blow." 
 " By the One who made us and maimed us" quoth 
 
 lower Valhalla, " we know! " 
 
 " Sudden, out of the blackness, sudden as Hell, 
 
 there came 
 Roar and rattle of rifles, spurts of machine-gun 
 
 flame; 
 And Joe stood up in the forward sap to try and 
 
 fathom the game. 
 Sudden, their shells come screaming; sudden, his 
 
 nostrils sniff 
 The sickening reek of the rotten pears, the death 
 
 that kills with a whiff. 
 [63]
 
 Death! and he knows it certain, as he bangs on his 
 
 cartridge-case, 
 With the gas-cloud's claws at his windpipe and the 
 
 gas cloud's wings on his face. . . . 
 We heard his gong in our dug-out, he only whacked 
 
 on it twice, 
 We whipped our gas-bags over our heads, and 
 
 manned the step in a trice 
 For the cloud would have caught us as sure as 
 
 Fate if he'd taken the Staff's advice." 
 
 His head was cleft with a great red wound from 
 
 the chin to the temple-bone, 
 But his voice was as clear as a sounding gong, 
 
 " I'll be damned if I'll drink alone, 
 Not even in lower Valhalla! Is he free of your 
 
 free Canteen, 
 My mate who comes with the unfleshed point and 
 
 the full-charged magazine?" 
 
 The gashed heads rose at the Rifleman o'er the 
 
 rings of the Endless Smoke, 
 And loud as the roar of a thousand guns Valhalla's 
 
 answer broke, 
 And loud as the crash of a thousand shells their 
 
 tankards clashed on the board: 
 
 [64]
 
 " He is free of the mess of the Killer-men, your 
 
 mate of the unfleshed sword; 
 For we know the worth of his deed on earth; as 
 
 we know the speed of the death 
 Which catches its man by the back of the throat 
 
 and gives him water for breath; 
 As we know how the hand at the helmet-cloth may 
 
 tarry seconds too long, 
 When the very life of the front-line trench is staked 
 
 on the beat of a gong. 
 By the four you slew, by the case he smote, by the 
 
 gray gas-cloud and the green, 
 We pass your mate for the Endless Smoke and the 
 
 beer of the free Canteen" 
 
 In the lower hall of Valhalla, with the heroes of no 
 
 renown, 
 With our nameless dead of the Marne and the 
 
 Aisne, of Mons, and of Wipers town, 
 With the men who killed ere they died for us, sits 
 
 Rifleman Joseph Brown. 
 
 [65]
 
 The Inn of a Thousand 
 Dreams 
 
 NEUVE EGLISE 
 
 June, 1916
 
 Where the road climbs free from the marsh and the 
 sea 
 
 To the last rose sunset-gleams, 
 Twixt a fold and a fold of the Kentish wold 
 
 Stands the Inn of a Thousand Dreams. 
 
 No man may ride with map for guide 
 
 And win that tavern-door; 
 As none shall come by rule of thumb 
 
 To our blue-bells' dancing-floor: 
 For no path leads through Churchyard Meads 
 
 And the fringes of Daffodil Wood, 
 To the heart of the glade where the flower-folk 
 played 
 
 In the days when the gods were good. 
 
 [69]
 
 Who hastes our wold with naught but gold, 
 
 Who seeks but food and wine, 
 The wood-folk wise shall blind his eyes 
 
 To the creaking tavern-sign; 
 He shall know the goad of the folk of the road, 
 
 And his led wheels shall not find 
 The gabled beams that sheltered our dreams 
 
 In the nights when the gods were kind. 
 
 We had never a chart save our own sure heart 
 
 And the summoning sunset-gleams, 
 When you rode with me from the marsh and the 
 sea 
 
 To the Inn of a Thousand Dreams. 
 
 No sign-post showed the curved hill-road 
 
 Our purring engines clomb, 
 From where dead forts of dying ports 
 
 Loomed gray against gray foam: 
 We had never a book for the way we took, 
 
 But the oast-house chimney-vanes 
 Stretched beckoning hands o'er the lambing-lands 
 
 To point us their Kentish lanes. 
 
 [70]
 
 As certain-true our track we flew, 
 
 As nesting swiftsures flit; 
 By stream and down and county town, 
 
 And orchards blossom-lit: 
 For Pan's own heels were guiding our wheels, 
 
 And Pan's self checked our speed 
 In the spire-crowned street where the by-ways meet, 
 
 For a sign of the place decreed. 
 
 Rose-impearled o'er a wonder-world 
 Glowed the last of the sunset-gleams; 
 
 And we knew that fate had led to the gate 
 Of the Inn of our Thousand Dreams. 
 
 Who needs must pique with kitchen-freak 
 
 His jaded appetite, 
 He shall not know jur set cloth's snow, 
 
 Our primrose candle-light: 
 We had never a need of the waiter-breed 
 
 Or an alien bandsman's blare, 
 When we pledged a toast to our landlord host 
 
 As he served us his goodwife's fare.
 
 In right of guest, they gave their best: 
 
 No hireling hands outspread 
 White bridal-dress from linen-press, 
 
 To drape our marriage-bed : 
 They had never a thought for the price we brought, 
 
 The simple folk and the fine, 
 Who made us free of their hostelry 
 
 In the nights when all dreams were mine. 
 
 When the trench-lights rise to the storm-dark skies 
 Where the gun-flash flickers and gleams, 
 
 My soul flies free o'er an English sea 
 To the Inn of a Thousand Dreams. 
 
 Once more we flit, hands passion-knit, 
 
 By marsh and murmuring shore, 
 By Tenterden and Bennenden, 
 
 To our own tavern-door; 
 And again we go, where the sunsets glow 
 
 On the beech-tree's silvern plinth, 
 Down woodpaths set with violet 
 
 And Spring's wild hyacinth. 
 
 [72]
 
 Once more we pass, by roads of grass, 
 
 To find for our delight 
 Trim garden-plots, and shepherds' cots 
 
 Half-timbered, black-and-white . . . 
 There is never one gash of a shrapnel-splash 
 
 On the walls of the street we roam, 
 Where the forge-irons ring for our welcoming 
 
 As the twilight calls us home. 
 
 Till the trench-lights pale on the gray dawn-veil 
 
 Of the first wan sunrise-gleams, 
 My soul would bide with its spirit-bride 
 
 At the Inn of a Thousand Dreams. 
 
 Once more I press, in tenderness, 
 
 (Dear God, that dreams were true!) 
 Your finger-tips against these lips 
 
 Your own red-rose lips knew, 
 
 In the middle night when your throat gleamed 
 white 
 
 On your dark hairs' pillowed sheen, 
 And your eyes were the pools that a moonbeam cools 
 
 For the feet of a faery queen. 
 
 [73]
 
 Woman o'mine, heart's anodyne 
 
 Against unkindly fate, 
 Love's aureole about my soul, 
 
 Wife, mistress, comrade, mate! 
 I stretch ghost-hands from the stricken lands 
 
 Where my earth-bound body lies, 
 To touch your fair smooth brow, your hair, 
 
 Your lips, your sleeping eyes: 
 
 You are living-warm in the crook of my arm, 
 You are pearl in the firelight-gleams . . . 
 
 Till the blind night rocks with the cannon-shocks 
 That shatter a thousand dreams. 
 
 [74]
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
 Los Angeles 
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