Page:More songs by the fighting men, soldier poets, second series, 1917.djvu/115

Murray McClymont To a Fallen Comrade

HEARD the voice of Spring come softly pleading

Across the fresh and breathing wold to-day:

The sun, set free from cloudy bonds, was speeding

To greet the earth with each impassioned ray.

Wide-flung my casement in the cool I listened!

The birds were busy toying with a song,

And far afield where dappled grasses glistened

The meadow brook was murmuring along.

And then there came a bee with yet the numbing

Languors of the winter on its wings:

It turned to gold the quiet with its humming—

And then resumed its drowsy wanderings.

I looked upon the fields and trees and hedges

And saw before mine eyes a world reborn,

And on beyond the green world's utmost edges. ..

Where Hope retreated bleeding and forlorn!

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