Page:Poems of the Great War - Cunliffe.djvu/31

 RICHARD ALDINGTON

��And the dead men buried

And the rest gone back to their jobs.

It'll be more fun for them to make their patterns,

Their word-patterns and color-patterns.

And after all, there is always war and always peace,

Always the war of the crowds,

Always the great peace of the arts.

Even now.

With the war beating in great waves overhead,

Beating and roaring like great winds and mighty

waters. The sea-gods still pattern the red seaweed fronds. Still chip the amber into neck-chains For Leucothea and Thetis. Even now.

When the Marseillaise screams like a hurt woman, And Paris — grisette among cities — trembles with

fear, The poets still make their music Which nobodv listens to, Which hardly anyone ever listened to.

The great crowds go by,

Figliting over each other's bodies in peace-time,

Figliting over each other's bodies in war-time.

Something of the strife comes to them

In their little, high rock-citadel of art,

�� �