On the edge of the wild-wood Grey doves fluttering: Grey doves of Astarte To the woods at daybreak Lazily uttering Their murmured enchantment, Old as man’s childhood; While she, pale divinity Of hidden evil, Silvers the regions chaste Of cold sky, and broodeth Over forests primeval And all that thorny waste’s Wooded infinity. ’Lovely goddess of groves,’ Cried I, ’what enchanted Sinister recesses Of these lone shades May still be haunted By thy demon caresses, Thy unholy loves?’ But clear day quelleth Her dominion lonely, And the soft ring-dove, Murmuring, telleth That dark sin only From man’s lust springeth, In man’s heart dwelleth. SONG I made a song in my love’s likeness From colours of my quietude, From trees whose blossoms shine no less Than butterflies in the wild-wood. I laid claim on all beauty Under the sun to praise her wonder, Till the noise of war swept over me, Stopp’d my singing mouth with thunder. The angel of death hath swift wings, I heard him strip the huddled trees Overhead, as a hornet sings, And whip the grass about my knees. Down we crouched in the parchèd dust, Down beneath that deadly rain: Dead still I lay, as lie one must Who hath a bullet in his brain. Dead they left me: but my soul, waking, Quietly laughed at their distress Who guessed not that I still was making That new song in my love’s likeness. BEFORE ACTION Now the wind of the dawn sighs, Now red embers have burned white, Under the darkness faints and dies The slow-beating heart of night. Into the darkness my eyes peer Seeing only faces steel’d, And level eyes that know not fear; Yet each heart is a battlefield Where phantom armies foin and feint And bloody victories are won From the time when stars are faint To the rising of the sun. With banners broken, and the roll Of drums, at dawn the phantoms fly: A man must commune with his soul When he marches out to die. O day of wrath and of desire! For each may know upon this day Whether he be a thing of fire Or fettered to the traitor clay. Such is the hazard that is thrown: We know not how the dice may fall: All the secrets shall be known Or else we shall not know at all. ON A SUBALTERN KILLED IN ACTION