Now light your pipe; look, what a steady hand, Draw a deep breath; stop thinking, count fifteen, And you're as right as rain... Why won't it rain? ... I wish there'd be a thunder-storm to-night, With bucketsful of water to sluice the dark, And make the roses hang their dripping heads. Books; what a jolly company they are, Standing so quiet and patient on their shelves, Dressed in dim brown, and black, and white, and green, And every kind of colour. Which will you read? Come on; O _do_ read something; they're so wise. I tell you all the wisdom of the world Is waiting for you on those shelves; and yet You sit and gnaw your nails, and let your pipe out, And listen to the silence: on the ceiling There's one big, dizzy moth that bumps and flutters; And in the breathless air outside the house The garden waits for something that delays. There must be crowds of ghosts among the trees,-- Not people killed in battle,--they're in France,-- But horrible shapes in shrouds--old men who died Slow, natural deaths,--old men with ugly souls, Who wore their bodies out with nasty sins. * * * * * You're quiet and peaceful, summering safe at home; You'd never think there was a bloody war on! ... O yes, you would ... why, you can hear the guns. Hark! Thud, thud, thud,--quite soft ... they never cease-- Those whispering guns--O Christ, I want to go out And screech at them to stop--I'm going crazy; I'm going stark, staring mad because of the guns. THE TRIUMPH When life was a cobweb of stars for Beauty who came In the whisper of leaves or a bird's lone cry in the glen, On dawn-lit hills and horizons girdled with flame I sought for the triumph that troubles the faces of men. With death in the terrible flickering gloom of the fight I was cruel and fierce with despair; I was naked and bound; was stricken: and Beauty returned through the shambles of night; In the faces of men she returned; and their triumph I found. SURVIVORS No doubt they'll soon get well; the shock and strain Have caused their stammering, disconnected talk. Of course they're "longing to go out again,"-- These boys with old, scared faces, learning to walk, They'll soon forget their haunted nights; their cowed Subjection to the ghosts of friends who died,-- Their dreams that drip with murder; and they'll be proud Of glorious war that shatter'd all their pride ... Men who went out to battle, grim and glad; Children, with eyes that hate you, broken and mad. CRAIGLOCKART, Oct. 1917. JOY-BELLS Ring your sweet bells; but let them be farewells To the green-vista'd gladness of the past That changed us into soldiers; swing your bells To a joyful chime; but let it be the last. What means this metal in windy belfries hung When guns are all our need? Dissolve these bells Whose tones are tuned for peace: with martial tongue Let them cry doom and storm the sun with shells.