A little lad was he Who loved a fisher maid in Brittany, Where sands stretch flat and wide When ebbs the tide, Smooth as a threshing floor, And there they played, young Véronique and Pierre, Along the shore. Often they used to walk Hand fast in hand, And laughed and kissed, Lost in such heavenly talk That spirits there, Who dwelt in sunny places in the mist, Drew very near to Véronique and Pierre, And the shrill curlews cried, And there were rainbow castles in the foam Where seawites died. Mornings, dear Véronique brought shells And laid them on the stone beside Pierre's door, Sea-shapes of beauty, magic as the stars, Washed from old ocean's dragon-haunted floor, And Pierre would dream that she was sitting there And hoped that he would find her when he woke; And so he did--and she would look at Pierre And he at her--and neither of them spoke. So passed July, whose molten hours flow, The sun laughed hot and high, And then they said good-bye, For Pierre must go. He left her standing dumbly in the lane, Her lips a-tremble with his parting kiss, And had her farewell gift, a twisted shell, _Bewitched! Bewitched!_ With melancholy spell, For in that shell it was that little Pierre First heard love's secret whispered thus, "De-ssspairr." THE WINGLESS VICTORY. Nike of Samothrace, Thy godlike wings Cleft windy space Above the ships of kings, Fain of thy lips, By hope made glorious, Time kissed thy grand, Greek face Away from us. Our Nike has no wings; She has not known Clean heights, and from her lips Comes starvèd moan. Mints lie that coin her grace, And Time will hate her face, For it has turned the world's hope Into stone. POEMS WRITTEN IN FRANCE AT THE FRONT 1918 THE BLINDMAN. A Ballad of Nogent l'Artaud. At Nogent, on the river Marne, I passed a burning house and barn. I went into the public square Where pigeons fluttered in the air And empty windows gaped a-stare. There crouched a blindman by the wall A-shivering in a ragged shawl, Who gave a hopeless parrot screech And felt the wall with halting reach. He went around as in a trap. He had a stick to feel and rap. _A-rap-a-tap, a-rap-a-tap_. I strode across the public square. I stopped and spoke him full and fair. I asked him what he searched for there. There came a look upon his face That made me want to leave the place. He could not answer for a space. He moved his trembling hands about And in-and-out, and in-and-out. "Kind sir," he said, "I scarcely know-- A week ago there fell a blow-- I think it was a week ago. I sent my little girl to school, With kisses and her book and rule, A week ago she went to school." The pigeons all began to coo, "_A-cock-a-loo, a-cock-a-loo._"