Out of a silence The voice of music speaks. When words have no more power, When tears can tell no more, The heart of all regret Is uttered by a falling wave Of melody. No more, no more The voice that gathered us Shall hush us with deep joy; But in this hush, Out of its silence, In the awaking of music, It shall return. For music can renew Its gladness and communion, Until we also sink, Where sinks the voice of music, Into a silence. * * * * * MAURICE BARING IN MEMORIAM, A. H. (Auberon Herbert, Captain Lord Lucas, R. F. C. killed November 3, 1916) [Greek: Nômâtai d'en atrugetou chaei] The wind had blown away the rain That all day long had soaked the level plain. Against the horizon's fiery wrack, The sheds loomed black. And higher, in their tumultuous concourse met, The streaming clouds, shot-riddled banners, wet With the flickering storm, Drifted and smouldered, warm With flashes sent From the lower firmament. And they concealed-- They only here and there through rifts revealed A hidden sanctuary of fire and light, A city of chrysolite. We looked and laughed and wondered, and I said: That orange sea, those oriflammes outspread Were like the fanciful imaginings That the young painter flings Upon the canvas bold, Such as the sage and the old Make mock at, saying it could never be; And you assented also, laughingly. I wondered what they meant, That flaming firmament, Those clouds so grey so gold, so wet so warm, So much of glory and so much of storm, The end of the world, or the end Of the war--remoter still to me and you, my friend. Alas! it meant not this, it meant not that: It meant that now the last time you and I Should look at the golden sky, And the dark fields large and flat, And smell the evening weather, And laugh and talk and wonder both together. The last, last time. We nevermore should meet In France or London street, Or fields of home. The desolated space Of life shall nevermore Be what it was before. No one shall take your place. No other face Can fill that empty frame. There is no answer when we call your name. We cannot hear your step upon the stair. We turn to speak and find a vacant chair. Something is broken which we cannot mend. God has done more than take away a friend In taking you; for all that we have left Is bruised and irremediably bereft. There is none like you. Yet not that alone Do we bemoan; But this; that you were greater than the rest, And better than the best. O liberal heart fast-rooted to the soil, O lover of ancient freedom and proud toil, Friend of the gipsies and all wandering song, The forest's nursling and the favoured child Of woodlands wild-- O brother to the birds and all things free, Captain of liberty!