In bitter London’s heart of stone, Under the lamplight’s shielded glare. I saw a soldier’s body thrown Unto the drabs that traffic there Pacing the pavements with slow feet: Those old pavements whose blown dust Throttles the hot air of the street, And the darkness smells of lust. The chaste moon, with equal glance, Looked down on the mad world, astare At those who conquered in sad France And those who perished in Leicester Square. And in her light his lips were pale: Lips that love had moulded well: Out of the jaws of Passchendaele They had sent him to this nether hell. I had no stone of scorn to fling, For I know not how the wrong began-- But I had seen a hateful thing Masked in the dignity of man: And hate and sorrow and hopeless anger Swept my heart, as the winds that sweep Angrily through the leafless hanger When winter rises from the deep.... * * * * * I would that war were what men dream: A crackling fire, a cleansing flame, That it might leap the space between And lap up London and its shame. To LYDIA LOPOKOVA HER GARLAND O thou who comest to our wintry shade Gay and light-footed as the virgin Spring, Before whose shining feet the cherries fling Their moony tribute, when the sloe is sprayed With light, and all things musical are made: O thou who art Spring’s daughter, who can bring Blossom, or song of bird, or anything To match the youth in which you stand arrayed? Not that rich garland Meleager twined In his sun-guarded glade above the blue That flashes from the burning Tyrian seas: No, you are cooler, sweeter than the wind That wakes our woodlands; so I bring to you These wind-blown blossoms of anemones. HER VARIETY Soft as a pale moth flitting in moonshine I saw thee flutter to the shadowy call That beckons from the strings of Carneval, O frail and fragrant image of Columbine: So, when the spectre of the rose was thine, A flower wert thou, and last I saw thee fall In Cleopatra’s stormy bacchanal Flown with the red insurgence of the vine. O moth, O flower, O mænad, which art thou? Shadowy, beautiful, or leaping wild As stormlight over savage Tartar skies? Such were my ancient questionings; but now I know that you are nothing but a child With a red flower’s mouth and hazel eyes. HER SWIFTNESS