Verses of a V.A.D. 4

Verses of a V.A.D. 4

TO THEM

 

 

I HEAR your voices in the whispering trees,

I see your footprints on each grassy track,

Your laughter echoes gaily down the breeze--

But you will not come back.

 

The twilight skies are tender with your smile,

The stars look down with eyes for which I yearn,

I dream that you are with me all the while--

But you will not return.

 

The flowers are gay in gardens that you knew,

The woods you loved are sweet with summer rain,

The fields you trod are empty now, but you

Will never come again.

 

_June 1917._

 

 

 

 

OXFORD REVISITED

 

 

THERE’S a gleam of sun on the grey old street

Where we used to walk in the Oxford days,

And dream that the world lay beneath our feet

In the dawn of a summer morning.

 

Now the years have passed, and it’s we who lie

Crushed under the burden of world-wide woe,

But the misty magic will never die

From the dawn of an Oxford morning.

 

And the end delays, and perhaps no more

I shall see the spires of my youth’s delight,

But they’ll gladden my eyes as in days of yore

At the dawn of Eternal Morning.

 

_June 1917._

 

 

 

 

THAT WHICH REMAINETH

 

(IN MEMORY OF CAPTAIN E. H. BRITTAIN, M.C.)

 

 

ONLY the thought of a merry smile,

The wistful dreaming of sad brown eyes--

A brave young warrior, face aglow

With the light of a lofty enterprise.

 

Only the hope of a gallant heart,

The steady strife for a deathless crown,

In Memory’s treasures, radiant now

With the gleam of a goal beyond renown.

 

Only the tale of a dream fulfilled,

A strenuous day and a well-fought fight,

A fearless leader who laughed at Death,

And the fitting end of a gentle knight.

 

Only a Cross on a mountain side,

The close of a journey short and rough,

A sword laid down and a stainless shield--

No more--and yet, is it not enough?

 

 

 

 

THE GERMAN WARD

 

(“INTER ARMA CARITAS”)

 

 

WHEN the years of strife are over and my recollection fades

Of the wards wherein I worked the weeks away,

I shall still see, as a vision rising ’mid the War-time shades,

The ward in France where German wounded lay.

 

I shall see the pallid faces and the half-suspicious eyes,

I shall hear the bitter groans and laboured breath,

And recall the loud complaining and the weary tedious cries,

And sights and smells of blood and wounds and death.

 

I shall see the convoy cases, blanket-covered on the floor,

And watch the heavy stretcher-work begin,

And the gleam of knives and bottles through the open theatre door,

And the operation patients carried in.

 

I shall see the Sister standing, with her form of youthful grace,

And the humour and the wisdom of her smile,

And the tale of three years’ warfare on her thin expressive face--

The weariness of many a toil-filled while.

 

I shall think of how I worked for her with nerve and heart and mind,

And marvelled at her courage and her skill,

And how the dying enemy her tenderness would find

Beneath her scornful energy of will.

 

And I learnt that human mercy turns alike to friend or foe

When the darkest hour of all is creeping nigh,

And those who slew our dearest, when their lamps were burning low,

Found help and pity ere they came to die.

 

So, though much will be forgotten when the sound of War’s alarms

And the days of death and strife have passed away,

I shall always see the vision of Love working amidst arms

In the ward wherein the wounded prisoners lay.

 

FRANCE,

_September 1917._

 

 

 

 

THE TROOP-TRAIN

 

(FRANCE, 1917)

 

 

AS we came down from Amiens,

And they went up the line,

They waved their careless hands to us,

And cheered the Red Cross sign.

 

And often I have wondered since,

Repicturing that train,

How many of those laughing souls

Came down the line again.

 

 

 

 

TO MY WARD-SISTER

 

NIGHT DUTY, DECEMBER 1917

 

 

THROUGH the night-watches of our House of Sighs

In capable serenity of mind

You steadily achieve the tasks designed

With calm, half-smiling, interested eyes;

Though all-unknowing, confidently wise

Concerning pain you never felt, you find

Content from uneventful years arise

As you toil on, mechanically kind.

 

So thus far have your smooth days passed, but when

The tempest none escape shall cloud your sky,

And Life grow dark around you, through your pain

You’ll learn the meaning of your mercy then

To those who blessed you as you passed them by,

Nor seek to tread the untroubled road again.

 

FRANCE.

 

 

 

 

TO ANOTHER SISTER

 

 

I KNEW that you had suffered many things,

For I could see your eyes would often weep

Through bitter midnight hours when others sleep;

And in your smile the lurking scorn that springs

From cruel knowledge of a love, once deep,

Grown gradually cold, until the stings

Pierce mercilessly of a past that clings

Undying to your lonely path and steep.

 

So, loved and honoured leader, I would pray

That hidden future days may hold in store

Some solace for your yearning even yet,

And in some joy to come you may forget

The burdened toil you will not suffer more,

And see the War-time shadows fade away.

 

FRANCE, _1918_.