Page:The Muse in Arms, Osborn (ed), 1917.djvu/333

 CXXIX

WATCH the white dawn gleam,

To the thunder of hidden guns.

I hear the hot shells scream

Through skies as sweet as a dream

Where the silver dawn-break runs.

And stabbing of light

Scorches the virginal white.

But I feel in my being the old, high, sanctified thrill,

And I thank the gods that the dawn is beautiful still.

From death that hurtles by

I crouch in the trench day-long,

But up to a cloudless sky

From the ground where our dead men lie

A brown lark soars in song.

Through the tortured air,

Rent by the shrapnel's flare,

Over the troubleless dead he carols his fill,

And I thank the gods that the birds are beautiful still.

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