Page:More songs by the fighting men, soldier poets, second series, 1917.djvu/120

More Songs by the Fighting Men And left me breathing still the air of men

On this sweet earth. Yet in my daily creed

Shall be deep thanks to War that touched my eyes

With sight to see in you my priceless prize.

Return is sweet to one who hath been far

On pilgrimage or war's stern business, and

Hath oft at evening watched the evening star

Beckon to him beyond the desert sand,

Whispering of those green lands of memory's home,

Fertile with bliss that was and is to be,

Until, no more inconstantly to roam

With a sweet pain at heart then voweth he.

But doubly happy in my happiness

Am I who to anticipate made glad

Drear days of trial, and find each cheerful guess

So true, I gained such glad days from such sad:

You are my home, and I find home confirm

The hopes most glad of my sad exile-term.

And yet if I unto my verse would wed

Fair Truth, who stands with grave unfaltering gaze,

Reading where late my labouring pen hath sped

In halting periods o'er my checkered days,

Let me not write so of the present joy

Of my home-coming that one could infer 116