Bells are like fierce-browed prelates who proclaim That "if our Lord returned He'd fight for _us_." So let our bells and bishops do the same, Shoulder to shoulder with the motor bus. REMORSE Lost in the swamp and welter of the pit, He flounders off the duck-boards; only he knows Each flash, and spouting crash,--each instant lit When gloom reveals the streaming rain. He goes Heavily, blindly on. And, while he blunders, "Could anything be worse than this!"--he wonders, Remembering how he saw those Germans run, Screaming for mercy among the stumps of trees: Green-faced, they dodged and darted: there was one Livid with terror, clutching at his knees... Our chaps were sticking 'em like pigs... "O hell!" He thought--"there's things in war one dare not tell Poor father sitting safe at home, who reads Of dying heroes and their deathless deeds." DEAD MUSICIANS I From you, Beethoven, Bach, Mozart, The substance of my dreams took fire. You built cathedrals in my heart, And lit my pinnacled desire. You were the ardour and the bright Procession of my thoughts toward prayer. You were the wrath of storm, the light On distant citadels aflare. II Great names, I cannot find you now In these loud years of youth that strives Through doom toward peace: upon my brow I wear a wreath of banished lives. You have no part with lads who fought And laughed and suffered at my side. Your fugues and symphonies have brought No memory of my friends who died. III For when my brain is on their track, In slangy speech I call them back. With fox-trot tunes their ghosts I charm. _"Another little drink won't do us any harm." I think of rag-time; a bit of rag-time; And see their faces crowding round To the sound of the syncopated beat. They've got such jolly things to tell, Home from hell with a Blighty wound so neat..._ * * * * * And so the song breaks off; and I'm alone. They're dead... For God's sake stop that gramophone. THE DREAM I Moonlight and dew-drenched blossom, and the scent Of summer gardens; these can bring you all Those dreams that in the starlit silence fall: Sweet songs are full of odours. While I went Last night in drizzling dusk along a lane, I passed a squalid farm; from byre and midden Came the rank smell that brought me once again A dream of war that in the past was hidden. II Up a disconsolate straggling village street I saw the tired troops trudge: I heard their feet. The cheery Q.M.S. was there to meet And guide our Company in ... I watched them stumble Into some crazy hovel, too beat to grumble; Saw them file inward, slipping from their backs Rifles, equipment, packs. On filthy straw they sit in the gloom, each face Bowed to patched, sodden boots they must unlace, While the wind chills their sweat through chinks and cracks. III