Page:Poems of the Great War - Cunliffe.djvu/67

 ��THE RETURN

Home across the clover

When the war was over

Came the young men slowly with an air of being old.

On a morning blue and gold

Through the weed-grown meadow-places

Marched young soldiers with old faces,

Marched the columns of the Emperor with dull,

bewildered eyes, And the day was like a rose upon the skies ; But they feared both light and life. Feared the aftermath of strife. Slow they came —

Now that it was over — Silent and sick and lame.

Home across the clover.

A woman knelt in a garden by the road,

Patting a little mound of earth With aimless hands. Along the highway flowed

The gray tide, while the day was at its birth. She heard the drums, looked up, half smiled :

"Why do you march," she said, "and play at soldiers?

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