Short Poems

There were three friends that buried the fourth,
The mould in his mouth and the dust in his eyes,
And they went south and east and north —
The strong man fights but the sick man dies.
There were three friends that spoke of the dead —
The strong man fights but the sick man dies —
" And would he were here with us now, " they said,
" The sun in our face and the wind in our eyes. "

The wolf-cub at even lay hid in the corn,
When the smoke of the cooking hung grey.
He knew where the doe made a couch for her fawn,
And he looked to his strength for his prey.
But the moon swept the smoke-wreaths away;
And he turned from his meal in the villager's close,
And he bayed to the moon as she rose.

Then we brought the lances down — then the trumpets blew —
When we went to Kandahar, ridin' two an' two.
Ridin' — ridin' — ridin' two an' two!
Ta-ra-ra-ra-ra-ra-a!
All the way to Kandahar,
Ridin' two an' two.

JOURNALISTS

On a Panel in the Hall of the Institute of Journalists

We have served our day.

ACTORS

On a Memorial Tablet in Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-on-Avon

We counterfeited once for your disport
Men's joy and sorrow: but our day has passed.
We pray you pardon all where we fell short —
Seeing we were your servants to this last.

V.A.D. (MEDITERRANEAN)

Ah, would swift ships had never been, for then we ne'er had found,
These harsh Ægean rocks between, this little virgin drowned,
Whom neither spouse nor child shall mourn, but men she nursed through pain
And — certain keels for whose return the heathen look in vain.

SALONIKAN GRAVE

I have watched a thousand days
Push out and crawl into night
Slowly as tortoises.
Now I, too, follow these.
It is fever, and not the fight —
Time, not battle, — that slays.

RAPED AND REVENGED

One used and butchered me: another spied
Me broken — for which thing an hundred died.
So it was learned among the heathen hosts
How much a freeborn woman's favour costs.

UNKNOWN FEMALE CORPSE

Headless, lacking foot and hand,
Horrible I come to land.
I beseech all women's sons
Know I was a mother once.

CONVOY ESCORT

I was a shepherd to fools
Causelessly bold or afraid.
They would not abide by my rules.
Yet they escaped. For I stayed.