The flame of summer droops and fades and closes, While autumn thins the embers of the copse, And evermore the violent life of roses Grows keener as the roseate foliage drops: O strong young hearts within whose veins was leaping Love like a fount, hate like a dart shot high, My heart o'er yours, its dolorous vigil keeping, Is pierced with sorrow, while in joy you die! Your ashes o'er the flats of France are scattered, But hold a fire more hot than flesh of ours; The stainless flag that flutters, frayed and tattered, Shall wave and wave like spring's immortal flowers. You die, but in your death life glows intenser; You shall not know the shame of growing old: In endless joy you swing the holy censer, And blow the trumpet tho' your lips are cold. Life was to us a mist of intimations, Death is a flash that shows us where we trod; You, falling nobly for the righteous nations, Reveal the unknown, the unhoped-for face of God. After long toil your labours shall not perish; Through grateful generations yet to come Your ardent gesture, dying, Love shall cherish, And like a beacon you shall guide us home. EDMUND GOSSE _By permission of the Author_ THE DEAD Blow out, you bugles, over the rich Dead! There's none of these so lonely and poor of old, But, dying, has made us rarer gifts than gold. These laid the world away; poured out the red Sweet wine of youth; gave up the years to be Of work and joy, and that unhoped serene, That men call age; and those who would have been, Their sons, they gave, their immortality. Blow, bugles, blow! They brought us, for our dearth, Holiness, lacked so long, and Love, and Pain. Honour has come back, as a king, to earth, And paid his subjects with a royal wage; And Nobleness walks in our ways again; And we have come into our heritage. RUPERT BROOKE _From "Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke". Reprinted by permission of McClelland & Stewart, Ltd., Publishers, Toronto, and of the Executor of the Author, and Sidgwick & Jackson, Ltd., London, England_ IN A BELGIAN GARDEN Once in a Belgian garden, (Ah, many months ago!) I saw, like pale Madonnas, The tall, white lilies blow. Great poplars swayed and trembled Afar against the sky, And green with flags and rushes, The river wandered by. Amid the waving wheat-fields Glowed poppies blazing red, And showering strange wild music A lark rose overhead. . . . . . .