Page:A treasury of war poetry, British and American poems of the world war, 1914-1919.djvu/57



All day the gulls are crying round the rocks,

And spray is leaping white against their face;

The child is shouting, and the wind is sweet;

Above our heads the flying cloudlets race,

Where we are on the hillside cutting peat.

The sun glints on the waves. I have no fear;

My heart is filled with ancient battle songs;

But when the winter seas are crying loud,

Phantoms of eld, and marching faery throngs,

From strange old tales into my fancy crowd.

They hold before my eyes a bloody plaid—

A wail of warning hurries down the gust,

The door blows open, and the baby cries,

And dark-red drops are trickling in the dust.

Kneeling I fall and cover up my eyes.

O turn ye homeward in the night-tide dusk!

The door stands open, and the sea growls low.

Ah, lad, my candle shines across the night.

The sea-bird hath her mate, but none I know;

Turn ye to me before the morning light. Isabel Westcott Harper