Are the bluebells chaste and mute Dancing in each dale and hollow Dew-sprinkled, with a glad salute To omnipotent Apollo? Tell me, do the feathered creatures Flutter as in days of yore, What are the “distinctive features” Of the Swallow’s Flying Corps? Here there is no magic, Stranger. Save within our merry souls-- For some wanton god in anger Punches earth with gaping holes. Yet the stifled land is showing Here and there a touch of grace, And the marshalled clouds are blowing Through the aerodromes of space. Hate is strong, but Love is stronger, And the world shall wake to birth When the touch of man no longer Stays the touch of God from Earth. Tell me, Stranger, is it true There is magic happening, Are _all_ the dappled fields of Kew Bowing to their Lord the Spring? B. E. F., _April, 1917_. SPRING IN THE TRENCHES The racing clouds have borne her message down And blown a thrilling rumour, from the far Heart-centres of each crowded port and town, And up the flowing arteries of War. Life, life, green tales of corn in sprouting blades, Of swallows crowding with sea-sprinkled wings And ash-buds amber-gummed round close-furled green. High blossom mantling murmurous orchard glades In air a-tingle April-sweet and keen-- Ah, we have heard of wondrous happenings. For now the magic carnivals begin The lilac broods in honeyed secrecy, And dappled lawns are changed: a Harlequin Has brushed the tangled carpet silently. We know how white narcissus fills the lake With dancing shadows; how in open blue A chestnut builds her clustered pyramids, And down below anemones awake; Long-hushed the violets open wide their lids And all the dreamed-of fantasy comes true. Glad tidings thrill the re-awakened earth By daffodils and blue-bells heralded; Spring with her van imperial comes forth To herald Summer proudly canopied Beneath the bowing leaves. Persistent Spring Bestirs the seed enshrined in Winter’s store; And even round the parapet a breath Of far-flung prophecy is clamouring: “Behold new life within the tomb of death “Importunate and vivid as before.” ON THE ROAD We halted, with the urgent Spring behind Our straining teams, where all the land was black, And huddled woods lay beaten, starkly blind: Their mangled branches loomed athwart the track Grotesque and terrible. Yet near the way, A river, scatheless as the open sea, Flowed like a breathing hope that cannot die In desolation. Now, at setting day, Moored water lilies, pale as argent sky, Cling to the twilight fading silently.