Rhymes of a Red-Cross Man/The Mourners

I look into the aching womb of night; I look across the mist that masks the dead; The moon is tired and gives but little light, The stars have gone to bed.

The earth is sick and seems to breathe with pain; A lost wind whimpers in a mangled tree; I do not see the foul, corpse-cluttered plain, The dead I do not see.

The slain I would not see. . . and so I lift My eyes from out the shambles where they lie; When lo! a million woman-faces drift Like pale leaves through the sky.

The cheeks of some are channelled deep with tears; But some are tearless, with wild eyes that stare Into the shadow of the coming years Of fathomless despair.

And some are young, and some are very old; And some are rich, some poor beyond belief; Yet all are strangely like, set in the mould Of everlasting grief.

They fill the vast of Heaven, face on face; And then I see one weeping with the rest, Whose eyes beseech me for a moment's space. . . .            Oh eyes I love the best!

Nay, I but dream. The sky is all forlorn, And there's the plain of battle writhing red: God pity them, the women-folk who mourn! How happy are the dead!