Here we go sore of shoulder, Sore of foot, by quiet streams; But these are not my rivers.... And these are useless dreams. TO THE POET BEFORE BATTLE NOW, youth, the hour of thy dread passion comes: Thy lovely things must all be laid away; And thou, as others, must face the riven day Unstirred by rattle of the rolling drums, Or bugles’ strident cry. When mere noise numbs The sense of being, the fear-sick soul doth sway, Remember thy great craft’s honour, that they may say Nothing in shame of poets. Then the crumbs Of praise the little versemen joyed to take Shall be forgotten: then they must know we are, For all our skill in words, equal in might And strong of mettle as those we honoured; make The name of poet terrible in just war, And like a crown of honour upon the fight. MAISEMORE O WHEN we swung through Maisemore, The Maisemore people cheered, And women ran from farmyards, And men from ricks, afeared To lose the sight of soldiers Who would, ’fore Christmas Day, Blow Kaiser William’s Army Like mist of breath away! The war it was but young then! And we were young, unknowing The path we were to tread, The way the path was going. And not a man of all of us, Marching across the bridge, Had thought how Home would linger In our hearts, as Maisemore Ridge. When the darkness downward hovers Making trees like German shadows, How our souls fly homing, homing Times and times to Maisemore meadows, By Aubers ridge that Maisemore men Have died in vain to hold.... The burning thought but once desires Maisemore in morning gold! O when we marched through Maisemore Past many a creaking cart, We little thought we had in us Love so hot at heart. AFTERWARDS THOSE dreadful evidences of Man’s ill-doing The kindly Mother of all shall soon hide deep, Covering with tender fingers her children asleep, Till Time’s slow cycle turns them to renewing In other forms their beauty--no grief, no rueing Irrevocable woe. They’ll lie, they’ll steep Their hearts in peace unfathomed, till they leap Quick to the light of the sun, as flowers strewing, Maybe, their own friends’ paths. And that’s not all. When men who knew them walk old ways alone, The paths they loved together, at even-fall, The troubled heart shall know a presence near, Friendly, familiar, and the old grief gone, The new keen joy shall make all darkness clear. CAROL WINTER now has bared the trees, Killed with tiny swords the jolly Leafage that mid-summer sees, But left the ivy and the holly. Hold them high And make delight For Christë’s joy that’s born to-night.