No More Learning

The dark departs
A winged death has smitten dumb thy bells
All that a man might ask thou hast given me, England
All the hills and vales along
Alone amid the battle-din untouched
Ambassador of Christ you go
Around no fire the soldiers sleep to-night
As I lay in the trenches
As when the shadow of the sun's eclipse
At last there'll dawn the last of the long year
Awake, ye nations, slumbering supine

Because for once the sword broke in her hand
Before I knew, the Dawn was on the road
Beneath fair Magdalen's storied towers
Blow out, you bugles, over the rich Dead
Broken, bewildered by the long retreat
Brothers in blood! They who this wrong began
Burned from the ore's rejected dross
By all the deeds to Thy dear glory done
By all the glories of the day
By day, by night, along the lines their dull boom rings

Champion of human honour, let us lave
Come, Death, I'd have a word with thee
Courage came to you with your boyhood's grace

Dark, dark lay the drifters, against the red west
Dawn off the Foreland--the young flood making
Dear son of mine, the baby days are over
Dreary lay the long road, dreary lay the town

Endless lanes sunken in the clay
England, in this great fight to which you go
England! where the sacred flame

Facing the guns, he jokes as well
Far fall the day when England's realm shall see
For all we have and are
Franceline rose in the dawning gray
From morn to midnight, all day through
Further and further we leave the scene

Give us a name to fill the mind
Great names of thy great captains gone before
Green gardens in Laventie
Guns of Verdun point to Metz

He said: Thou petty people, let me pass
Hearken, the feet of the Destroyer tread
Here is his little cambric frock
Here lies a clerk who half his life had spent
Here, where we stood together, we three men

I cannot quite remember. . . . There were five
I feel the spring far off, far off
I have a rendezvous with Death
I heard the rumbling guns, I saw the smoke
I know a beach road
I never knew you save as all men know
I pray for peace; yet peace is but a prayer
I saw her first abreast the Boston Light
I saw the spires of Oxford
I see across the chasm of flying years
I was out early to-day, spying about
I went upon a journey
I will die cheering, if I needs must die
If I should die, think only this of me
In a vision of the night I saw them
In lonely watches night by night
In the face of death, they say, he joked--he had no fear
In the glad revels, in the happy fetes
It is portentous, and a thing of state
It was silent in the street

Land of the desolate, Mother of tears
Land of the Martyrs--of the martyred dead
Led by Wilhelm, as you tell
Lest the young soldiers be strange in heaven
Low and brown barns, thatched and repatched and tattered

Men of my blood, you English men!
Men of the Twenty-first
Moon, slow rising, over the trembling sea-rim
Mother and child! Though the dividing sea
My leg? It's off at the knee
My name is Darino, the poet. You have heard? _Oui, Comedie Francaise_

Nay, nay, sweet England, do not grieve
Near where the royal victims fell
No Man's Land is an eerie sight
No more old England will they see
Not long did we lie on the torn, red field of pain
Not since Wren's Dome has whispered with man's prayer
Not with her ruined silver spires
Now is the midnight of the nations: dark
Now lamp-lit gardens in the blue dusk shine
Now slowly sinks the day-long labouring sun
Now spake the Emperor to all his shining battle forces

O gracious ones, we bless your name
O living pictures of the dead
O race that Caesar knew
Of all my dreams by night and day
Often I think of you, Jimmy Doane
Oh, down by the Millwall Basin as I went the other day
Oh, red is the English rose
Oh! yon hills are filled with sunlight, and the green leaves paled to
gold
Our little hour,--how swift it flies
Out where the line of battle cleaves
Over the twilight field

_Qui vive? _ Who passes by up there?
Quiet thou didst stand at thine appointed place

Robbed mother of the stricken Motherland

Saints have adored the lofty soul of you
See you that stretch of shell-torn mud spotted with pools of mire
Shadow by shadow, stripped for fight
She came not into the Presence as a martyred saint might come
She was binding the wounds of her enemies when they came
Shyly expectant, gazing up at Her
Sometimes I fly at dawn above the sea

The battery grides and jingles
The falling rain is music overhead
The first to climb the parapet
The horror-haunted Belgian plains riven by shot and shell
The naked earth is warm with Spring
The road that runs up to Messines
The starshells float above, the bayonets glisten
There are five men in the moonlight
There is a hill in England
There is wild water from the north
They had hot scent across the spumy sea
They sent him back to her.
The letter came
This is my faith, and my mind's heritage
This is the ballad of Langemarck
This was the gleam then that lured from far
Those who have stood for thy cause when the dark was around thee
Thou warden of the western gate, above Manhattan Bay
Thou, whose deep ways are in the sea
Three hundred thousand men, but not enough
To the Judge of Right and Wrong
'T was in the piping time of peace

Under our curtain of fire
Under the tow-path past the barges
Unflinching hero, watchful to foresee

Was there love once? I have forgotten her
We are here in a wood of little beeches
We challenged Death. He threw with weighted dice
We may not know how fared your soul before
We willed it not. We have not lived in hate
What have I given
What is the gift we have given thee, Sister?
What of the faith and fire within us
What was it kept you so long, brave German submersible?
When battles were fought
When consciousness came back, he found he lay
When first I saw you in the curious street
When the fire sinks in the grate, and night has bent
When there is Peace our land no more
Whence not unmoved I see the nations form
Wherever war, with its red woes
With arrows on their quarters and with numbers on their hoofs
With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children

Ye sleepers, who will sing you
You dare to say with perjured lips
You have become a forge of snow-white fire






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