Index of First lines
A bowl of daffodils,
A league and a league from the trenches -- from the traversed maze of the lines,
A song of hate is a song of Hell;
A sudden swirl of song in the bright sky --
A wind in the world! The dark departs;
A wingèd death has smitten dumb thy bells,
All that a man might ask thou has given me, England,
All the hills and vales along
Alone amid the battle-din untouched
Ambassador of Christ you go
Around no fire the soldiers sleep to-night,
As I lay in the trenches
As when the shadow of the sun's eclipse
At last there'll dawn the last of the long year,
Awake, ye nations, slumbering supine,
Because for once the sword broke in her hand,
Before I knew, the Dawn was on the road,
Beneath fair Magdalen's storied towers
Blow out, you bugles, over the rich Dead!
Broken, bewildered by the long retreat
Brothers in blood! They who this wrong began
Burned from the ore's rejected dross,
By all the deeds to Thy dear glory done,
By all the glories of the day,
By day, by night, along the lines their dull boom rings,
Champion of human honor, let us lave
Come, Death, I'd have a word with thee;
Courage came to you with your boyhood's grace
Dark, dark, lay the drifters, against the red west,
Dawn off the Foreland -- the young flood making
Dear son of mine, the baby days are over,
Dreary lay the long road, dreary lay the town,
Endless lanes sunken in the clay,
England, in this great fight to which you go
England! where the sacred flame
Facing the guns, he jokes as well
Far fall the day when England's realm shall see
For all we have and are,
Franceline rose in the dawning gray,
From morn to midnight, all day through,
Further and further we leave the scene
Give us a name to fill the mind
Green gardens in Laventie!
Guns of Verdun point to Metz
He said: "Thou petty people, let me pass.
Hearken, the feet of the Destroyer tread
Here is his little cambric frock
Here lies a clerk who half his life had spent
Here, where we stood together, we three men,
"I cannot quite remember. . . . There were five
I feel the spring far off, far off,
I have a rendezvous with Death
I heard the rumbling guns. I saw the smoke.
I know a beach road,
I never knew you save as all men know
I pray for peace; yet peace is but a prayer.
I saw her first abreast the Boston Light
I saw the spires of Oxford
I see across the chasm of flying years
I was out early to-day, spying about
I went upon a journey
"I will die cheering, if I needs must die;
If I should die, think only this of me:
In a vision of the night I saw them,
In lonely watches night by night
In the face of death, they say, he joked -- he had no fear:
In the glad revels, in the happy fetes,
It is portentous, and a thing of state
It was silent in the street.
Land of the desolate, Mother of tears,
Land of the Martyrs -- of the martyred dead
Led by Wilhelm, as you tell,
Lest the young soldiers be strange in heaven,
Low and brown barns, thatched and repatched and tattered,
Men of my blood, you English men!
Men of the Twenty-first
Moon, slow rising, over the trembling sea-rim,
Mother and child! Though the dividing sea
My leg? It's off at the knee.
My name is Darino, the poet. You have heard? Oui, Com´die Française.
Nay, nay, sweet England, do not grieve!
Near where the royal vicitims fell
No Man's Land is an eerie sight
No more old England will they see --
Not long did we lie on the torn, red field of pain.
Not since Wren's Dome has whispered with man's prayer
Not with her ruined silver spires,
Now is the midnight of the nations: dark
Now lamp-lit gardens in the blue dusk shine
Now slowly sinks the day-long labouring Sun
Now spake the Emperor to all his shining battle forces,
O gracious ones, we bless your name
O living pictures of the dead,
O race that Cæsar knew,
O, red is the English rose,
Of all my dreams by night and day,
Often I think of you, Jimmy Doane, --
Oh, down by Millwall Basin as I went the other day,
Oh! yon hills are filled with sunlight, and the green leaves paled to gold,
Our little hour, -- how swift it flies
Out where the line of battle cleaves
Over the twilight field,
Qui vive? Who passes by up there?
Quiet thou didst stand at thine appointed place,
Robbed mother of the stricken Motherland --
Saints have adored the lofty soul of you.
See you that stretch of shell-torn mud spotted with pools of mire,
Shadow by shadow, stripped for fight,
She came not into the Presence as a martyred saint might come,
She was binding the wounds of her enemies when they came --
Shyly expectant, gazing up at Her,
Sometimes I fly at dawn above the sea,
Such, such is Death: no triumph: no defeat:
The battery grides and jungles,
The falling rain is music overhead,
The first to climb the parapet
The horror-haunted Belgian plains riven by shot and shell
The naked earth is warm with Spring,
The road that runs up to Messines
The starshells float above, the bayonets glisten;
There are five men in the moonlight
There is a hill in England,
There is wild water from the north;
They had hot scent across the spumy sea,
They sent him back to her. The letter came
This is my faith, and my mind's heritage,
This is the ballad of Langemarck,
This was the gleam then that lured from far
Those who have stood for thy cause when the dark was around thee,
Thou, whose deep ways are in the sea,
Thou warden of the western gate, above Manhatten Bay,
Three hundred thousand men, but not enough
To the Judge of Right and Wrong
'Twas in the piping time of peace
Under our curtain of fire,
Under the tow-path past the barges
Unflinching hero, watchful to foresee
Was there love once? I have forgotten her.
We are here in a wood of little beeches:
We challenged Death. He threw with weighted dice.
We may not know how fared your soul before
We willed it not. We have not lived in hate,
What have I given,
What is the gift we have given thee, Sister?
What was it kept you so long, brave German submersible?
What of the faith and fire within us
When battles were fought
When consciousness came back, he found he lay
When first I saw you in the curious street
When the fire sinks in the grate, and night has bent
"When there is Peace our land no more
Whence not unmoved I see the nations form
Wherever war, with its red woes,
With arrows on their quarters and with numbers on their hoofs,
With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
Ye sleepers, who will sing you?
You dare to say with perjured lips,
You have become a forge of snow-white fire,