Soldiers
Trees struggling fiercely to the sky, and winds that leap and cry,
Are soldiers of the spinning earth, and images of beauty,
They are the songs of maddened clay, the wild delirious dreams,
That clothed in khaki, storm a hill, and melt away in blood.
Like rocks and crags, their limbs are torn from depths of outward calm,
Let them embrace their agony, and weep and kiss their hands,
And gaily seize what rapture lies in banners and in drums,
For youth was meant to bleed and die, or sorrowfully grow old.
They are but common, anguished men, waked from an opiate dream
To see the lightning flash of life, ere they sink down again,
Securer from its misery, its beauty and its grief—
They are like ancient songs that speak and then lie long unsung.
It matters not what symbols are inscribed upon their van,
They are the symbols and the songs. Gesticulating trees
Thus stand upon the hills and rave towards the speechless sky,
But in the end sink feebly down and fade into the ground.
And from the bodies of sweet girls as fair and white as flowers
The soldiers rise to storm foul hills, in search of words and dreams,
And ebb away among the stones to feed the gleaming corn,
That with their beauty shall arise and quiver in the wind!
O you wise stones that lie and soak the beauteous blood of men,
The loveliness of all earth's crops, the soft entreating eyes
Of fawn-like girls, have you no tale, no sweet consoling hope
To utter as we stand in pain, and gaze upon the dead?
Exultantly you seem to stare, and wilder wave the trees,
There is some joy in this fierce earth that echoes in my soul.
Soldiers, arise! Stand up, you slain! stand up, the silence fills!
The trumpet of immortal Death rings in the crumbling hills.
Are soldiers of the spinning earth, and images of beauty,
They are the songs of maddened clay, the wild delirious dreams,
That clothed in khaki, storm a hill, and melt away in blood.
Like rocks and crags, their limbs are torn from depths of outward calm,
Let them embrace their agony, and weep and kiss their hands,
And gaily seize what rapture lies in banners and in drums,
For youth was meant to bleed and die, or sorrowfully grow old.
They are but common, anguished men, waked from an opiate dream
To see the lightning flash of life, ere they sink down again,
Securer from its misery, its beauty and its grief—
They are like ancient songs that speak and then lie long unsung.
It matters not what symbols are inscribed upon their van,
They are the symbols and the songs. Gesticulating trees
Thus stand upon the hills and rave towards the speechless sky,
But in the end sink feebly down and fade into the ground.
And from the bodies of sweet girls as fair and white as flowers
The soldiers rise to storm foul hills, in search of words and dreams,
And ebb away among the stones to feed the gleaming corn,
That with their beauty shall arise and quiver in the wind!
O you wise stones that lie and soak the beauteous blood of men,
The loveliness of all earth's crops, the soft entreating eyes
Of fawn-like girls, have you no tale, no sweet consoling hope
To utter as we stand in pain, and gaze upon the dead?
Exultantly you seem to stare, and wilder wave the trees,
There is some joy in this fierce earth that echoes in my soul.
Soldiers, arise! Stand up, you slain! stand up, the silence fills!
The trumpet of immortal Death rings in the crumbling hills.
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