Parting? We are not parted, woman mine! Though hands have clasped, though lips have kissed good-bye; Though towns glide past, and fields, and fields of brine-- My body takes the warrior-way, not I. I am still with you; you, with me; one heart; One equal union, soul to certain soul: Time cannot sever us, nor sorrow part, Nor any sea, who keep our vision whole. How can I grieve, who know your spirit near; Who watch with newly understanding eyes This England of your giving, newly dear, Sink where my sea-wake swirls to darkling skies? Lilac, her cliffs have faded into mist.... Yet still I hold them white in memory, Feeling, against these lips your lips have kissed, The home-wind thrilling down an English sea. The Other Side _THE OTHER SIDE_ Just got your letter and the poems. Thanks. You always were a brainy sort of chap: Though pretty useless as a subaltern-- Too much imagination, not enough Of that rare quality, sound commonsense And so you’ve managed to get on the Staff: Influence, I suppose: a Captain, too! How do tabs suit you? Are they blue or green? About your book. I’ve read it carefully, So has Macfaddyen (you remember him, The light-haired chap who joined us after Loos?); And candidly, we don’t think much of it. The piece about the horses isn’t bad; But all the rest, excuse the word, are tripe-- The same old tripe we’ve read a thousand times. My grief, but we’re fed up to the back-teeth With war-books, war-verse, all the eye-wash stuff That seems to please the idiots at home. You know the kind of thing, or used to know: “Heroes who laugh while Fritz is strafing them”-- (I don’t remember that _you_ found it fun, The day they shelled us out of Blouwpoort Farm!) “After the fight. Our cheery wounded. Note The smile of victory: it won’t come off”-- (Of course they smile; so’d you, if you’d escaped, And saw three months of hospital ahead.... They don’t smile, much, when they’re shipped back to France!) “Out for the Great Adventure”--(twenty-five Fat, smirking wasters in some O.T.C., Who just avoided the Conscription Act!) “A strenuous woman-worker for the Cause”-- (Miss Trixie Toogood of the Gaiety, Who helped to pauperize a few Belgiques In the great cause of self-advertisement!) ... Lord knows, the newspapers are bad enough; But they’ve got some excuse--the censorship-- Helping to keep their readers’ spirits up-- Giving the public what it wants: (besides, One mustn’t blame the press, the press has done More than its share to help us win this war-- More than some other people I could name): But what’s the good of war-books, if they fail To give civilian-readers an idea Of what life _is_ like in the firing-line?...