Page:Poems of the Great War - Cunliffe.djvu/148

 122 HERMANN HAGEDORN

��THE PYRES

Pyres in the night, in the night !

And the roaring yellow and red. Trooper, trooper, why so white ?

We are out to gather our dead. We have brought dry boughs from the bloody wood

And the torn hill-side ; We have felled great trunks, wet with blood

Of brothers that died ; We have piled them high for a flaming bed, Hemlock and ash and pine for a bed, A throne in the night, a throne for a bed — And we go to gather our dead.

There where the oaks loom, dark and high,

Over the sombre hill.

Body on body, cold and still. Under the stars they lie. There where the silver river runs.

Careless and calm as fate, Mowed, mowed by the terrible guns,

The stricken brothers wait. There by the smoldering house, and there Where the red smoke hangs on the heavy air.

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