Page:A treasury of war poetry, British and American poems of the world war, 1914-1919.djvu/370

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I think it like that signpost in my land,

Hoary and tall, which pointed me to go

Upward, into the hills, on the right hand,

Where the mists swim and the winds shriek and blow,

A homeless land and friendless, but a land

I did not know and that I wished to know.

II

Such, such is Death: no triumph: no defeat:

Only an empty pail, a slate rubbed clean,

A merciful putting away of what has been.

And this we know: Death is not Life effete,

Life crushed, the broken pail. We who have seen

So marvellous things know well the end not yet.

Victor and vanquished are a-one in death:

Coward and brave: friend, foe. Ghosts do not say,

"Come, what was your record when you drew breath?"

But a big blot has hid each yesterday

So poor, so manifestly incomplete.

And your bright Promise, withered long and sped,

Is touched, stirs, rises, opens and grows sweet

And blossoms and is you, when you are dead.

Charles Hamilton Sorley

June 12, 1915.

THE DEAD

HEN you see millions of the mouthless dead

Across your dreams in pale battalions go,

Say not soft things as other men have said,

That you'll remember. For you need not so.

Give them not praise. For, deaf, how should they know

It is not curses heaped on each gashed head?

Nor tears. Their blind eyes see not your tears flow.

Nor honour. It is easy to be dead.