Verses of a V.A.D. 2

Verses of a V.A.D. 2

THE ONLY SON

 

 

THE storm beats loud, and you are far away,

The night is wild,

On distant fields of battle breaks the day,

My little child?

 

I sought to shield you from the least of ills

In bygone years,

I soothed with dreams of manhood’s far-off hills

Your baby fears,

 

But could not save you from the shock of strife;

With radiant eyes

You seized the sword and in the path of Life

You sought your prize.

 

The tempests rage, but you are fast asleep;

Though winds be wild

They cannot break your endless slumbers deep,

My little child.

 

 

 

 

PERHAPS----

 

(TO R.A.L. DIED OF WOUNDS IN FRANCE, DECEMBER 23RD, 1915)

 

 

PERHAPS some day the sun will shine again,

And I shall see that still the skies are blue,

And feel once more I do not live in vain,

Although bereft of You.

 

Perhaps the golden meadows at my feet

Will make the sunny hours of Spring seem gay,

And I shall find the white May blossoms sweet,

Though You have passed away.

 

Perhaps the summer woods will shimmer bright,

And crimson roses once again be fair,

And autumn harvest fields a rich delight,

Although You are not there.

 

Perhaps some day I shall not shrink in pain

To see the passing of the dying year,

And listen to the Christmas songs again,

Although You cannot hear.

 

But, though kind Time may many joys renew,

There is one greatest joy I shall not know

Again, because my heart for loss of You

Was broken, long ago.

 

1ST LONDON GENERAL HOSPITAL,

_February 1916._

 

 

 

 

A MILITARY HOSPITAL

 

 

A MASS of human wreckage, drifting in

Borne on a blood-red tide,

Some never more to brave the stormy sea

Laid reverently aside,

And some with love restored to sail again

For regions far and wide.

 

1ST LONDON GENERAL HOSPITAL, _1916_.

 

 

 

 

LOOKING WESTWARD

 

“For a while the quiet body

Lies with feet toward the Morn.”

HYMN 499, A. & M.

 

 

WHEN I am dead, lay me not looking East,

But towards the verge where daylight sinks to rest,

For my Beloved, who fell in War’s dark year,

Lies in a foreign meadow, facing West.

 

He does not see the Heavens flushed with dawn,

But flaming through the sunset’s dying gleam;

He is not dazzled by the Morning Star,

But Hesper soothes him with her gentle beam.

 

He faces not the guns he thrilled to hear,

Nor sees the skyline red with fires of Hell;

He looks for ever towards that dear home land

He loved, but bade a resolute farewell.

 

So would I, when my hour has come for sleep,

Lie watching where the twilight shades grow grey;

Far sooner would I share with him the Night

Than pass without him to the Splendid Day.

 

 

 

 

THEN AND NOW

 

“πάντα ῤει καἰ ούδένα μένει”

 

 

ONCE the black pine-trees on the mountain side,

The river dancing down the valley blue,

And strange brown grasses swaying with the tide,

All spoke to me of you.

 

But now the sullen streamlet creeping slow,

The moaning tree-tops dark above my head,

The weeds where once the grasses used to grow

Tell me that you are dead.

 

 

 

 

MAY MORNING

 

(_Note._--At Oxford on May 1st a Latin hymn is sung at sunrise by the

Magdalen choristers from the top of the tower.)

 

 

THE rising sun shone warmly on the tower,

Into the clear pure Heaven the hymn aspired

Piercingly sweet. This was the morning hour

When life awoke with Spring’s creative power,

And the old City’s grey to gold was fired.

 

Silently reverent stood the noisy throng;

Under the bridge the boats in long array

Lay motionless. The choristers’ far song

Faded upon the breeze in echoes long.

Swiftly I left the bridge and rode away.

 

Straight to a little wood’s green heart I sped,

Where cowslips grew, beneath whose gold withdrawn

The fragrant earth peeped warm and richly red;

All trace of Winter’s chilling touch had fled,

And song-birds ushered in the year’s bright morn.

 

I had met Love not many days before,

And as in blissful mood I listening lay

None ever had of joy so full a store.

I thought that Spring must last for evermore,

For I was young and loved, and it was May.

 

* * * * *

 

Now it is May again, and sweetly clear

Perhaps once more aspires the Latin hymn

From Magdalen tower, but not for me to hear.

I toil far distant, for a darker year

Shadows the century with menace grim.

 

I walk in ways where pain and sorrow dwell,

And ruin such as only War can bring,

Where each lives through his individual hell,

Fraught with remembered horror none can tell,

And no more is there glory in the Spring.

 

And I am worn with tears, for he I loved

Lies cold beneath the stricken sod of France;

Hope has forsaken me, by Death removed,

And Love that seemed so strong and gay has proved

A poor crushed thing, the toy of cruel Chance.

 

Often I wonder, as I grieve in vain,

If when the long, long future years creep slow,

And War and tears alike have ceased to reign,

I ever shall recapture, once again,

The mood of that May morning, long ago.

 

1ST LONDON GENERAL HOSPITAL,