Sorties and sieges spun of the trickling

moon

And such a rousing ghost-catastrophe You need no concrete marvels to be saved?

Or live you here too lustily for change? Sail you such pirate seas on such high quests,

Hunt you thick gold or striped and spotted beasts,

Or tread the lone ways of the swan-like mountains?

Excused. But if, as I think, breeched in blue,

Stalled at a counter, cramped upon a desk,

You drive a woman's pencraft-or a slave's,

What chain shall hold you when the trumpets play,

Calling from the blue hill behind your

RUPERT BROOKE (1887-1915)

The Great Lover

I HAVE been so great a lover: filled my days

So proudly with the splendour of Love's praise,

The pain, the calm, and the astonishment,

Desire illimitable, and still content, And all dear names men use, to cheat despair,

For the perplexed and viewless streams that bear

Our hearts at random down the dark of life.

Now, ere the unthinking silence on that strife

Steals down, I would cheat drowsy Death so far,

My night shall be remembered for a star That outshone all the suns of all men's days.

Shall I not crown them with immortal praise

Whom I have loved, who have given me,

In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;

A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,

Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways

to roam,

A body of England's, breathing English

air,

Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.

And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by
England given;

Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;

And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,

In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.

JULIAN GRENFEL (1888-1915)

Into Battle

THE naked earth is warm with Spring,
And with green grass and bursting trees
Leans to the sun's gaze glorying,
And quivers in the sunny breeze;

And life is Colour and Warmth and
Light,

And a striving evermore for these;
And he is dead who will not fight,
And who dies fighting has increase.

The fighting man shall from the sun Take warmth, and life from the glowing earth;

Speed with the light-foot winds to run And with the trees to newer birth;

And find, when fighting shall be done, Great rest, and fulness after dearth.

All the bright company of Heaven
Hold him in their high comradeship,
The Dog star, and the Sisters Seven,
Orion's belt and sworded hip:

The woodland trees that stand together,
They stand to him each one a friend;
They gently speak in the windy weather;
They guide to valley and ridge's end.
The kestrel hovering by day,
And the little owls that call by night,
Bid him be swift and keen as they,
As keen of ear, as swift of sight.

The blackbird sings to him: "Brother, brother,

If this be the last song you shall sing,
Sing well, for you may not sing another;
Brother, sing."

In dreary doubtful waiting hours,
Before the brazen frenzy starts,
The horses show him nobler powers;-
O patient eyes, courageous hearts!

And when the burning moment breaks,
And all things else are out of mind,
And only joy of battle takes
Him by the throat and makes him blind,

Through joy and blindness he shall know,
Not caring much to know, that still
Nor lead nor steel shall reach him, so
That it be not the Destined Will.

The thundering line of battle stands, And in the air Death moans and sings; But Day shall clasp him with strong hands,

And Night shall fold him in soft wings.