Sweet as the lawn beneath his sandalled tread, Or the scarce rippled stream beneath his oar, So gently buffeted it laughed the more, His life was, and the few blithe words he said. One or two poets read he, and reread; One or two friends with boyish ardour wore Close to his heart, incurious of the lore Dodonian woods might murmur overhead. Ah, demons of the whirlwind, have a care, What, trumpeting your triumphs, ye undo! The earth once won, begins your long despair That never, never is his bliss for you. He breathed betimes this clement island air And in unwitting lordship saw the blue. THE DARKEST HOUR _Oxford_, 1917 Smother thy flickering light, the vigil's o'er. Hope, early wounded, of his wounds is dead. Many a night long he smiled, his drooping head Laid on thy breast, and that brave smile he wore Not yet from his unbreathing lips is fled. Enough: on mortal sweetness look no more, Pent in this charnel-house, fling wide the door And on the stars that killed him gaze instead. The world's too vast for hope. The unteachable sun Rises again and will reflood his sphere, Blotting with light what yesterday was done; But the unavailing truth, though dead, lives on, And in eternal night, unkindly clear, A cold moon gilds the waves of Acheron. SOLILOQUIES IN ENGLAND 1914-1918 1 ATMOSPHERE The stars lie above all countries alike, but the atmosphere that intervenes is denser in one place than in another; and even where it is purest, if once its atoms catch the sunlight, it cuts off the prospect beyond. In some climates the veil of earthly weather is so thick and blotted that even the plodder with his eyes on the ground finds its density inconvenient, and misses his way home. The advantage of having eyes is neutralized at such moments, and it would be better to have retained the power of going on all fours and being guided by scent. In fact human beings everywhere are like marine animals and live in a congenial watery medium, which like themselves is an emanation of mother earth; and they are content for the most part to glide through it horizontally at their native level. They ignore the third, the vertical dimension; or if they ever get some inkling of empty heights or rigid depths where they could not breathe, they dismiss that speculative thought with a shudder, and continue to dart about in their familiar aquarium, immersed in an opaque fluid that cools their passions, protects their intellect from mental dispersion, keeps them from idle gazing, and screens them from impertinent observation by those who have no business in the premises.