Page:A treasury of war poetry, British and American poems of the world war, 1914-1919.djvu/235

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Homesickness and his weariness

Shook from him then and fell;

For he was again with d'Artagnan;

With Alan Breck and d'Artagnan;

And the pipes before him gleefully

Were playing airs of Pan.

Through dust that in a mist uprose

From under the trampling feet,

He saw old storied places, dim

In the haze of the summer heat.

Menace and ambush, wounds and death,

Lurked in the ditch and wood,

But he, high-breasted, walked in joy

With a glorious multitude;

Great hearts that never perish,

Nor grow old with the aches of Time,

Marched through the morning with him,

All in a magic clime;

But loved of all was d'Artagnan,

And Alan the kith of kings,

Fond comrades of his childhood's days,

Still on their wanderings.

From miry clefts of the wintry plain

He leapt with his platoon,

The morion on his forehead,

And the soul of him at noon;

With head high to the hurricane

He walked, and in his breast

He knew himself immortal,

And that death was but a jest

A smile was on his visage

When they found him where he fell,

The gallant old companions,

In an amaranthine dell.

"Lad o' my heart!" cried Alan Breck,

"Well done thy first campaign!"

"Sleep thou till morn," said d'Artagnan,

"When we three march again!" Neil Munro