All of Rupert Brooke’s work has been collected and issued, a rich though slender sheaf. The book is fervently commended to people whose own souls are in the key that responds to notes so spiritually fine and clear as those he sounds in all his lines. * * * * * “But a Short Time to Live” was written by Serg’t Leslie Coulson, whose “little hour” came to an end at Arras, in France, October 7, 1916: BUT A SHORT TIME TO LIVE Our little hour--how swift it flies-- When poppies flare and lilies smile; How soon the fleeting minute dies, Leaving us but a little while To dream our dreams, to sing our song, To pick the fruit, to pluck the flower. The gods--they do not give us long-- One little hour. * * * * * Our little hour--how soon it dies; How short a time to tell our beads, To chant our feeble litanies, To think sweet thoughts, to do good deeds. The altar lights grow pale and dim, The bells hang silent in the tower-- So passes with the dying hymn Our little hour. These songs, with others that have lilted so bravely, so gravely, through the world’s most bitter years of travail, will live long in literature, with many more as strong or as sweet. Had all the writers lived, we would have had a wealth of splendid gifts from them, especially, maybe, from that “poor bird-hearted singer of a day,” Francis Ledwidge, who fell in battle in Flanders, July 31, 1917. Ledwidge was discovered by Lord Dunsany, himself a soldier-poet and a patron of poets. He was lance corporal in Lord Dunsany’s company in the 5th Battalion of the Royal Inniskillen Fusileers. He wrote quite touchingly to a friend shortly before the end, “I mean to do something great if I am spared, but out here one may at any moment be hurled out of life.” There is no doubt he would have done “something great,” for here is a swan song not unworthy to bear his name to later times: THE LOST ONES Somewhere is music from the linnets’ bills, And through the sunny flowers the bee wings drone, And white bells of convolvulus on hills Of quiet May make silent ringing blown Hither and thither by the wind of showers, And somewhere all the wandering birds have flown; And the brown breath of Autumn chills the flowers. But where are all the loves of long ago? O little twilight ship blown up the tide, Where are the faces laughing in the glow Of morning years, the lost ones scattered wide? Give me your hand, O brother; let us go Crying about the dark for those who died. THE FLAG SPEAKS WALTER E. PECK IN THE HAMILTON LITERARY MAGAZINE