Page:A treasury of war poetry, British and American poems of the world war, 1914-1919.djvu/310

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Such mirth as flashes from the eyes

Of Gabriel in Paradise,

Such melody as when he sings,

Such movement as his flaming wings,

For woods and Paradise are one

When seen beneath an autumn sun.

I shall be home again and hear

Sounds that subdue the soul's worst fear.

I shall be home again and find

All that is pitiful and kind,

Healing for nerves left torn and sore

By red monotony of War.

O Wood by Highgate on the Hill,

When fighting's over be there still! Ronald Lewis Carton

EFORE our trenches at Cambrai

We saw their columns cringe away.

We saw their masses melt and reel

Before our line of leaping steel.

A handful to their storming hordes

We scourged them with the scourge of swords,

And still, the more we slew, the more

Came up, for every slain a score.

Between the hedges and the town

Their cursing squadrons we rode down.

To stay them we outpoured our blood

Between the beetfields and the wood.

In that red hell of shrieking shell

Unfaltering our gunners fell.

They fell, or ere the day was done,

Beside the last unshattered gun.