Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1918.djvu/1123

 LAURENCE BINYON

They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;

They sit no more at familiar tables of home;

They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;

They sleep beyond England's foam.

But where our desires are and our hopes profound,

Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,

To the innermost heart of their own land they are known

As the stars are known to the Night;

As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,

Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain,

As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,

To the end, to the end, they remain.

LORD ALFRED DOUGLAS

p/p Impression de Nuit

LONDON

SEE what a mass of gems the city wears Upon her broad live bosom 1 row on row Rubies and emeralds and amethysts glow. See' that huge circle, like a necklace, stares With thousands of bold eyes to heaven, and dares The golden stars to dim the lamps below, And in the mirror of the mire I know The moon has left her image unawares. That 's the great town at night I sec her breasts,

Prick'd out with lamps they stand like huge black towers,

I think they move 1 I hear her panting breath. And that 's her head where the tiara rests.

And in her brain, through lanes as dark as death, Men creep like thoughts. . . The lamps are like pale flowers.

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