Page:A treasury of war poetry, British and American poems of the world war, 1914-1919.djvu/391

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Bound by the ties of a happier day, they are one with us now in our worst;

On the very morn that my boy was born they were told the tidings the first:

With what pride they will hear of the end he made, and the ordeal that he trod—

Of the scream of shell, and the venom of hell, and the flame of the sword of God.

Wise little heralds, tell of my boy; in your golden tabard coats

Tell the bank where he slept, and the stream he leapt, where the spangled lily floats:

The tree he climbed shall lift her head, and the torrent he swam shall thrill,

And the tempest that bore his shouts before shall cry his message still. G. E. Rees

THE HOUSE OF DEATH

EES hummed and rooks called hoarsely outside the quiet room

Where by an open window Gervais, the restless boy,

Fretting the while for cricket, read of Patroclos' doom

And flower of youth a-dying by far-off windy Troy.