WAR VERSE.

YOU from Givenchy, since no years can harden The beautiful dead, when holy twilight reaches The sleeping cedar and the copper beeches, Return to walk again in Wadham Garden. We, growing old, grow stranger to the College, Symbol of youth, where we were young together, But you, beyond the reach of time and weather, Of youth in death for ever keep the knowledge. We hoard our youth, we hoard our youth, and fear it, But you, who freely gave what we have hoarded, Are with the final goal of youth rewarded The road to travel and the traveller’s spirit. And, therefore, when for us the stars go down, Your star is steady over Oxford Town.

DEAR English heart, the open waterways, The sea that is aware of liberty, And your great ships, her servitors, the sea Deep, as your depths, saying of pomp and blaze, “These things are not for us,” since other days Return, and when the flag is shaken free, Cold captains, Drake and Nelson, watch with thee, Whose eyes, of boastings cleared and empty praise, Beyond the wrecked armadas find the soul That unto battle brings our captains’ test: “Triumph is good, but honour still is best. Conquest of what is evil, and no goal Of self-advancement. For the world set free The ships of England keep the English sea.”

SOLDIERS that after struggle in the night See the cold stars assume their shining place, Watch the sweet moon and her unaltered grace Mocking with peace the battle-tortured sight, Think these not careless. These were not less white Long years ago upon the upturned face Of other soldiers also of your race Who on those fields fought such another fight, These stars, this moon, in their high citadel Of heaven are witness in the Low Country, Whose lights are the mere lights of history Falling on you, these on your fathers fell. See through the reek and horror, shining through, Cold lights indeed, but lights of Waterloo!

THIS then was love of women. O how little Remembered, being free! Say she was tender And had a lure of the hands. Here ruthless splendour Outlures that lure. And, look you, love was brittle That broke, and none could heal it, being sated. But this is lasting, this is always stranger Each terrible new dawn, for each new danger May be the last of all. O, we have waited On love like cowards, and the worshipped woman Enslaved and shamed us. But that shame is over. We are with death acquainted, and to riot And call of blood and tenderness and human Regrets, he does succeed this final lover Whose love is freedom and whose gift is quiet.

THE chestnut trees in Bushey Park are lit This year as always since the spring knows naught Of war and death, and still the shadows flit Across the dappled grass and burnish it. And still at night the moon in stately sort Is tranquil with the avenues, and lights The sleeping palace, as on other nights Of springs long past; but searching for the rose In vain, the dawn a little whisper knows: “Where are the flowers that were at Hampton Court?” Two years ago when all the trees were green The old red walls were unto to summer brought, By joyous bands of lilies and the lean Daffodils danced before or ran between. Where are they gone these blooms of good report? And where the lad and where the laughing maid Who came to wonder and to love who stayed? For a lost flower is a little thing But a lost lover is the end of spring. “Where are the flowers that were at Hampton Court?” Ah! spring these flowers are growing otherwhere, In a new soil a changing radiance taught, Born of the soul and nourished of the air, Sweeter though scentless and unseen more fair. Where are they gone these blooms of good report? Is it perhaps that where the Tigris flows There blooms an unaccustomed English rose? And where the guns have killed the spring in France The English lilies break a silver lance? “Where are the flowers that were at Hampton Court?” If thus the flowers, where are those who here Themselves fresh flowers with the springtime fraught, Saw the first leaves in Bushey Park appear The dead swept leaves the leaves of yesteryear? Where are they gone those lads of good report? It may be they are sleeping; it may be Strange lands have taken them or a strange sea. But wheresoever in the world they lie An English voice till that world ends will cry “Here are the flowers that were at Hampton Court?”