No More Learning

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ONCE
By Mary Morris Duane
Once to lay my head on your heart again, Once to hear you say you are brave, dear heart! Once to know the fight had not been in vain, And in life dead hope would arise and start—
Start and bring visions of thy lost face
Bring ecstasies we alone could share;
But the leaves are falling on that still place, And on my heart falls the old despair.
THE SONG OF THE AIRMAN By Phoebe Hoffman
In the moonless night when the searchlight goes sneaking over the sky, I rise with a whirr of engines from the foam-tracked gloom of the sea, And shoot alone through the midnight where each star seems an Argos eye, To fence with Death in the darkness where the swift Valkyrie fly.
There are howling shells below me, and my bursting bombs reply. And the still Valkyrie hover panting for hallowed souls.
I soar up into the coldness as the air-hounds wheel on high,
And slip away in the dimness as they hunt where I circled by.
I am coming, Valkyr, I am coming, where the channel fog-banks lie;
I can see your signals blinking through the mist of their changing smoke; When I rush with the speed of a whirlwind I feel you are riding nigh;
I am counting the days, beloved, the days that I live to die.
When my wounded engines shall plunge me through the vacant depth of the sky,
And my body goes falling, falling, to my lonely mother, the sea,
You will watch for my joyous signal and swoop in swift reply,
And snatch me against your breastplate where my waking soul shall lie!
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TO A NEW PASSION By William Laird
O newcome Passion, furious charioteer,
With whip, reins, voice ruling the steeds diverse
That whirl along my life, what height or gulf
Gave birth to thee, what Might poured forth thy strength?
Headlong into the mist we ride, our course Not unattended: all-but-voiceless shades, Wind-swift, accompany —wan Memories; Eyes from the black that pity me; pale lips Ill-boding at my ear; and feeble ghosts
Of dead and gone Desires: thou heedest none. Alas! those less imperious voices, hands
Not half so cruel as thine, those earthlier forms! Erst in thy place, now perished, some by shame, And more by time, and one by Death himself.
Master, must thou too die, thou beautiful
As Lucifer unstained, fearless as Michael helmed
For war? Must thou too fall, surrendering me
To flat, dull, ever-slackening courses to
A dusty grave?
Nay, rather shalt thou die
Only with me; one bolt will do for both:
Or, if the gold of solemn dreams stand proof,
Thou shalt be heard through sounding streets of Heaven In new-taught words, at one with utter joy:
Or otherwhere, unconquered still, thy voice
A little shall make faint the din of Hell.
O newborn Passion, glorious charioteer,
Goading, restraining, swerving these the steeds That draw my life, what founts of. deathless flame Gave thee thine aureole, what Lord thy strength?
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THE RETURN By Scudder Middleton
Hold me, O hold me, love—your lips are life! Here on your heart my heart now understands; Home have I come at last from alien lands— A pilgrim through the darkness to your eyes!
Hold me, my love — I know the answer now, O wayward, ever wandering feet of man— Always the journey ends where it began ! . . . Out of my mother's arms into your own!
Hold me, O love, serene against your breast The sun takes up the wave and gives the rain. Over the dead the grass is green again.
The lark is singing on the ruined wall.
ON BEING ASKED FOR A POEM By "A. G. H.