Page:A treasury of war poetry, British and American poems of the world war, 1914-1919.djvu/390

 390 TO OUR DEAD

TELLING THE BEES

HEY dug no grave for our soldier lad, who fought and who died out there:

Bugle and drum for him were dumb, and the padre said no prayer;

The passing bell gave never a peal to warn that a soul was fled,

And we laid him not in the quiet spot where cluster his kin that are dead.

But I hear a foot on the pathway, above the low hum of the hive,

That at edge of dark, with the song of the lark, tells that the world is alive:

The master starts on his errand, his tread is heavy and slow,

Yet he cannot choose but tell the news—the bees have a right to know.