From peace through war my waters flow To peace again at sea, The peopled land I used to know Now all belongs to me. Though battling armies come and go I toil and spin, I reap and sow, And poppy-mantled meadows blow In murdered Picardy. SOMME FLOWER TALK Said the Cornflower to the Pimpernel, “O sudden scarlet eyes, You never bloomed till ploughing shell Laid bare earth’s sanctities!” Then upward cried the Pimpernel: “Blue head in deeper blue, ’Tis strange this former waste of Hell Is Paradise anew. “But who is Lord of Paradise And Commandant; and who Commands sky-faring butterflies All camouflaged in blue? “Are dandelion parachutes His messages, and do Those armoured beetles clamber roots With news from Army Q? “Above each water-lily ship The feathered red caps pipe. Because the pear has earned a pip, The tiger-moth a stripe. “The gorse artillery has eyes We never knew before. And lady bees can organise The Honey Service Corps. “Field-marshals rule the war behind The guns, but Summer shields Here in the clash of human kind Her marshal of the fields.” TO THE UTTERMOST FARTHING. “He too! He too!” The veteran paused, the sound Of a light paper fluttering to the ground Rustled the twilight peace. “He--too--is--dead--” His wife, scarce faltering from the words she read, Stared at the glowing sun, the while her eyes Shone mistily in nameless agonies. Five sons, and four were dead! The clock ticked desolation to their ears And silence gripped the moments as they passed Too terrible, too passionless for tears. At last, Stronger than he, she curbed herself and smiled And held him weeping like a weary child Before the first immensity of pain. Yet once again She conjured scenes beyond the darkened cloud That blurred the soul’s horizon, as aloud She spoke his name, and whispered little things More pregnant than the utterance of kings. That night she moved, Spurred by devotion for the man she loved, Without a pause for sorrow, or a breath To murmur at the closing walls of death; Love-steeled and queenly every step she trod; She climbed unfaltering, serenely browed, Until she touched the very feet of God Undaunted and unbowed. And there in mystic awe Slow-turning wheels of evolution spun The poised and pulsing universe. She saw All life and death synonymous, and birth The dawn of human wonderment begun (Birth of all birth) in other realms afar. Below, ice pivoted revolved the earth, A traveller’s joy it seemed, a mile-stone star, Half-glowing, bathed in sun....