Here slow decay with creeping finger peels The yellow plaster from the grimy walls, Like leprous lichen, day by day which falls, And, day by day, more rotting stone reveals! Here are old mournful squares through which there steals No cheerful music, or the heedless calls Of laughing children; and the smoke, which crawls Across the sky, the heavy silence seals! Lean, blackened trees stretch up their withered boughs Behind the rusty railings, prison-bound, In vain they seek the summer sunlight's gold In which their long-dead fathers used to drowse: For pallid terraces lie far around, In gloomy sadness ever growing old. _Ochey-les-Bains, 1917._ _The Country Beautiful_ I love the little daisies on the lawn Which contemplate with wide and placid eyes The blue and white enamel of the skies-- The larks which sing their mattin-song at dawn, High o'er the earth, and see the new Day born, All stained with amethyst and amber dyes. I love the shadowy woodland's hidden prize Of fragrant violets, which the dewy morn Doth open gently underneath the trees To cast elusive perfume on each hour-- The waving clover, full of drowsy bees, That take their murmurous way from flower to flower. Who could but think--deep in some sun-flecked glade-- How God must love these things that He has made? _Eastchurch, 1916._ _Chelsea_ How many of those youths who consecrate Their lives to art, and worship at her shrine, And sacrifice their early hours and late In serving her exacting whims divine Have gathered in old Chelsea's shaded peace, Whose faint, elusive charm, and gentle airs, Bring inspiration fresh, and sweet release From Trouble's haunting shapes and goblin cares? O! tree-embowered hamlet, whose demesne Sleeps in the arms of London quietly, Whose sparrow-haunted roads, and squares serene, From all the stress of life seem ever free-- O! are you more than just a passing dream Beside the city's slim and lovely stream? _Luxeuil-les-Bains, 1917._ _K.L.H._ DIED OF WOUNDS RECEIVED AT THE DARDANELLES. Where stern grey busts of gods and heroes old Frown down upon the corridors' chill stone, On which the sunbeam's amber pale is thrown From leaf-fringed windows, one of quiet mould Gazed long at those white chronicles which told Of honours that the stately School had known. He read the names: and wondered if his own Would ever grace the walls in letters bold. He knew not that he for the School would gain A greater honour with a greater price-- That, no long years of work, but bitter pain And his rich life, he was to sacrifice-- Not in a University's grey peace, But on the hilly sun-baked Chersonese. _H.M.S. "Manica," Dardanelles, 1915._ _The Fringe of Heaven_