“And I pray each hour for your soul’s repose In gratitude for your joining those No lover will clasp when his campaigns close.” Away she turned, when arose to her eye A martial phantom of gory dye, That said, with a thin and far-off sigh: “O sweetheart, neither shall I clasp you, For the foe this day has pierced me through, And sent me to where she is. Adieu!— “And forget not when the night-wind’s whine Calls over this turf where her limbs recline, That it travels on to lament by mine.” There was a cry by the white-flowered mound, There was a laugh from underground, There was a deeper gloom around. 1915. A NEW YEAR’S EVE IN WAR TIME I PHANTASMAL fears, And the flap of the flame, And the throb of the clock, And a loosened slate, And the blind night’s drone, Which tiredly the spectral pines intone! II And the blood in my ears Strumming always the same, And the gable-cock With its fitful grate, And myself, alone. III The twelfth hour nears Hand-hid, as in shame; I undo the lock, And listen, and wait For the Young Unknown. IV In the dark there careers— As if Death astride came To numb all with his knock— A horse at mad rate Over rut and stone. V No figure appears, No call of my name, No sound but “Tic-toc” Without check. Past the gate It clatters—is gone. VI What rider it bears There is none to proclaim; And the Old Year has struck, And, scarce animate, The New makes moan. VII Maybe that “More Tears!— More Famine and Flame— More Severance and Shock!” Is the order from Fate That the Rider speeds on To pale Europe; and tiredly the pines intone. 1915–1916. “I MET A MAN” I MET a man when night was nigh, Who said, with shining face and eye Like Moses’ after Sinai:— “I have seen the Moulder of Monarchies, Realms, peoples, plains and hills, Sitting upon the sunlit seas!— And, as He sat, soliloquies Fell from Him like an antiphonic breeze That pricks the waves to thrills. “Meseemed that of the maimed and dead Mown down upon the globe,— Their plenteous blooms of promise shed Ere fruiting-time—His words were said, Sitting against the western web of red Wrapt in His crimson robe. “And I could catch them now and then: —‘Why let these gambling clans Of human Cockers, pit liege men From mart and city, dale and glen, In death-mains, but to swell and swell again Their swollen All-Empery plans,