For I’d have run as desperately Behind some log to settle, And sit me down beside my theft, The big, old Russian kettle. But dead he lies; the snow piles high And winter fills the land, And only spring will move the thing And take it from his hand. _NOCTURNE_ Beside you while you slumbered, lad, My restless heart had lain Through all the hours of the night Aware of love and pain. Aware of love and morning’s light And eyes that must betray When someday you should look in mine Then ever look away. I’ll come to where you slumber, lad, If death shall mark me not And say the prayer that now I pray, And thought I had forgot. _THE SWING_ The crooked swing that hung beneath The crooked willow tree Brought all his laughter to my ears When school was out at three. When later years and afternoons Their symphony had sung Beneath the crooked willow tree An idle swing had hung. Then war came on. There’s always war To readjust the past, And he got leave and I got leave, And home we came at last. But I alone return tonight And naught to battle bring, For he is dead beneath the tree And broken hangs the swing. _SOMEWHERE ON LEAVE_ Unfurrowed field and lonely plow, The laughing lad has fled, Sweet-throated, unaccompanied lark, The laughing lad is dead. I found him on a barren tract, Stretched out and lying still, And on his lips the blood had dried, And on the blasted hill. Oh, that was far from hills like these, A hundred thousand guns Are booming, bursting in his ears And he does not hear a one. A soldier’s thoughts and a soldier’s laugh And a soldier’s boyish grin Are dead on a lonely battlefield, And the war is yet to win. _THE SENTRY_ The night wind hums a lullaby, A watchful bivouac keep. The guns are silent now awhile, Yet, soldier, do not sleep. Though weary with the force of night, And weary with the war, Sleep not, be watchful, quick alert, Or sleep forever more. But words are nought to tired eyes, And what are words of praise To minds that long to dream a bit Of other, saner days. He sleeps, unmindful of his oath, And then they find him dead, The other soldier stands his guard Who shot him through the head. The night wind hums a lullaby, A watchful bivouac keep. The guns are silent now awhile, Yet, soldier, do not sleep! _I WATCHED HIM IN THE TOURNAMENT_ I watched him in the tournament, And when he bowled a line I saw the way his eyes would smile When things were going fine. I saw the lonely little frown That made him look so grave And older than his twenty years When things would not behave.