Page:Poems of the Great War - Cunliffe.djvu/32

 6 RICHARD ALDINGTON

Where they hammer their dreams in gold and

copper, Where they cut them in pine-wood, in Parian stone,

in wax, Where they sing them in sweet bizarre words To the sound of antiquated shrill instruments ; And they are happy.

The little rock-citadel of the artists

Is always besieged ;

There, though they have beauty and silence,

They have always tears and hunger and despair.

But that little citadel has held out

Against all the wars of the world —

Like England, brother Jonathan.

It will not fall during the great war.

There is always war and always peace ;

Always the war of the crowds,

Always the great peace of the arts.

1914. — Richard Aldington.

(No. 24,965, " E" Company, llth Devons.)

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