白酒

TO-NIGHT o'er Bagshot heath the purple heather
Rolls like dumb thunder to the splendid West;
And mighty ragged clouds are massed together
Above the scarred old common's broken breast;

And there are hints of blood between the boulders, Red glints of fiercer blossom, bright and bold; And round the shaggy mounds and sullen shoulders The gorse repays the sun with savage gold.

And now, as in the West the light grows holy,
And all the hollows of the heath grow dim,
Far off, a sulky rumble rolls up slowly

Where guns at practice growl their evening hymn.

And here and there in bare clean yellow spaces
The print of horse-hoofs like an answering cry
Strikes strangely on the sense from lonely places
Where there is nought but empty heath and sky.

The print of warlike hoofs, where now no figure
Of horse or man along the sky's red rim
Breaks on the low horizon's rough black rigour

To make the gorgeous waste less wild and grim;

Strangely the hoof-prints strike, a Crusoe's wonder, Framed with sharp furze amongst the footless fells A menace and a mystery, rapt asunder,

As if the whole wide world contained nought else,

Nought but the grand despair of desolation

Between us and that wild, how far, how near, Where, clothed with thunder, nation grapples nation, And Slaughter grips the clay-cold hand of Fear.

II.

And far above the purple heath the sunset stars awaken, And ghostly hosts of cloud across the West begin to stream, And all the low soft winds with muffled cannonades are shaken, And all the blood-red blossom draws aloof into a dream;

A dream-no more-and round the dream the clouds are curled together;

A dream of two great stormy hosts embattled in the sky; For there against the low red heavens each purple clump of heather

Becomes a serried host of spears around a battle-cry;

Becomes the distant battle-field or brings the dream so near it That, almost, as the purple smoke around them reels and swims,

A thousand grey-lipped faces flash-ah, hark, the heart can hear it

The sharp command, the clash of steel, the sudden sough of limbs.

And through the purple thunders there are silent shadows creeping

With murderous gleams of light, and then—a mighty leaping

roar

Where foe and foe are met; and then-a long low sound of weeping

As Death laughs out from sea to sea, another fight is o'er.

Another fight-but ah, how much is over? Night descending Draws o'er the scene her ghastly moon-shot veil with piteous hands;

But all around the bivouac-glare the shadowy pickets wending See sights, hear sounds that only war's own madness understands.

No circle of the accursed dead where dreaming Dante wandered, No city of death's eternal dole could match this mortal world Where men, before the living soul and quivering flesh are sundered,

Through all the bestial shapes of pain to one wide grave are hurled.

But in the midst for those who dare beyond the fringe to

enter

Be sure one kingly figure lies with pale and blood-soiled face, And round his brows a ragged crown of thorns; and in the

centre

Of those pale folded hands and feet the sigil of his grace.

See, how the pale limbs, marred and scarred in love's lost battle, languish ;

See how the splendid passion still smiles quietly from his

eyes;

Come, come and see a king indeed, who triumphs in his anguish,
Who conquers here in utter loss beneath the eternal skies.

For unto lips so deadly calm what answer shall be given?
Oh pale, pale king so deadly still beneath the unshaken stars,
Who shall deny thy kingdom here, though heaven and earth
were riven

With the last roar of onset in the world's intestine wars?

All round him reeks the obscene red hell-the scream of haggled horses,

The curse, the moan, the tossing arms, the hideous twisted
forms,

Where, as the surgeons call up life's last pitiful resources,
The darkness heaves around them like a mass of mangled

worms.

"Life, doctor, life!" "Be wise; you'd better die: 'twill soon be over,'

The blackened trunk drops guttering back, the mouth is dumb again:

"What use were life to you, my lad? she wouldn't know her

lover,

And cruelty here is pity's best-to put you out of pain."

And far away in lonely homes the lamp of hope is burning,
All night the white-faced women wait with aching eyes of

prayer,

All night the little children dream of father's glad returning;
All night he lies beneath the stars and-dreams no more out

there.

Only the senseless clay-cold hand may clasp some crumpled

letter,

A lantern-see-the big round scrawl, the child's long-studied

She'll be much taller, too; and much more grown-up in her ways."

The laugh is Death's; he laughs as erst o'er hours that England cherished,

"Count up, count up the stricken homes that wail the first

born son,

Count by your starved and fatherless the tale of what hath perished;

Then gather with your foes and ask if you-or I-have won."

III.

O'er Bagshot heath it rolls, the old old story,-
The great moon dawns; the sunset dies away ;
Year strengthens year as glory kindles glory
From its own sad procession of decay.

When shall the sun-dawn of the perfect nation,
England, rise white above the blood-red sea;
When shall war die and by death's new creation
Begin the long-sought world-wide harmony?

Nearer, still nearer creeps the light we hope for,
Yet still eludes our war-worn aching eyes:
Nearer, still nearer, steals the truth we grope for,
Yet, as we think to grasp it, fades and flies.

The world rolls on; and love and peace are mated:
Still on the breast of England, like a star,
The blood-red lonely heath blows, consecrated,
A brooding practice-ground for blood-red war.

Yet is there nothing out of tune with Nature
There, where the skylark showers his earliest song,
Where sun and wind have moulded every feature,
And one world-music bears each note along.