So back I went with my Boches, as gay as a two-year-old colt, And it suddenly struck me as rummy, I still was a-humming "Ben Bolt". And now, by Jove! how I've bored you. You've just let me babble away; Let's talk of the things that _MATTER_--your car or the newest play. . . . The Mourners I look into the aching womb of night; I look across the mist that masks the dead; The moon is tired and gives but little light, The stars have gone to bed. The earth is sick and seems to breathe with pain; A lost wind whimpers in a mangled tree; I do not see the foul, corpse-cluttered plain, The dead I do not see. The slain I _WOULD_ not see . . . and so I lift My eyes from out the shambles where they lie; When lo! a million woman-faces drift Like pale leaves through the sky. The cheeks of some are channelled deep with tears; But some are tearless, with wild eyes that stare Into the shadow of the coming years Of fathomless despair. And some are young, and some are very old; And some are rich, some poor beyond belief; Yet all are strangely like, set in the mould Of everlasting grief. They fill the vast of Heaven, face on face; And then I see one weeping with the rest, Whose eyes beseech me for a moment's space. . . . Oh eyes I love the best! Nay, I but dream. The sky is all forlorn, And there's the plain of battle writhing red: God pity them, the women-folk who mourn! How happy are the dead! L'Envoi My job is done; my rhymes are ranked and ready, My word-battalions marching verse by verse; Here stanza-companies are none too steady; There print-platoons are weak, but might be worse. And as in marshalled order I review them, My type-brigades, unfearful of the fray, My eyes that seek their faults are seeing through them Immortal visions of an epic day. It seems I'm in a giant bowling-alley; The hidden heavies round me crash and thud; A spire snaps like a pipe-stem in the valley; The rising sun is like a ball of blood. Along the road the "fantassins" are pouring, And some are gay as fire, and some steel-stern. . . . Then back again I see the red tide pouring, Along the reeking road from Hebuterne. And once again I seek Hill Sixty-Seven, The Hun lines grey and peaceful in my sight; When suddenly the rosy air is riven-- A "coal-box" blots the "boyou" on my right. Or else to evil Carnoy I am stealing, Past sentinels who hail with bated breath; Where not a cigarette spark's dim revealing May hint our mission in that zone of death.