Page:The volunteer, and other poems, Asquith, 1916.djvu/12

 THE WESTERN LINE. , 1915.

HOR draws a chord invisible

Across the shaking sky:

I hear the tearing of the shell,

The bullets sing and cry,

As, charging through the flames of hell,

The batteries go by.

The gunners laugh about the task,

That man to man has given:

Like Titans, now the guns unmask

And fire the veils of heaven.

Above the cloud what lights are gleaming?

God's batteries are those,

Or souls of soldiers homeward streaming

To banquet with their foes?

The floods of battle ebb and flow,

The soldiers to Valhalla go!

They say that, when the day awoke

And the dying night was wan,

Harry of England rode the smoke,

And led the English van: 8