That wooden cross beside the road
Marks—as the now-blurred legend showed—
That there a ‘soldat anglais’ dead
Has found betimes his foreign bed—
His last impregnable abode.

'Tis no uncommon episode,
You say, of war's barbaric code,
For which so many men have bled—
That wooden cross!

Nay, but this blood was well bestowed;
'Twas shed for nations 'neath the load
Of mailed oppression fury-fed,
And ruthless rapine, sore bestead.
Surely it needs no funeral ode—
That wooden cross!

All-ADOR'D , all glorious Aphrodita,
Heavn's goddess mysterious, I beseech thee
With thy anguish and terror overwhelm not
My spirit, O queen:

But hither come thou, as, if e'er, aforetime
Thou to my crying from afar attentive
Harkenedst, an' out o' the golden archways
Unto me camest,

Harnessing thy fair flutterers, that earthward
Swiftly drew thee down to the dusky mountains,
Multitudinously winging from unseen
Heights o' the wide air,

And arrivèd, thrice-blessed, I beheld thee
Smiling on me beautiful and triumphant,

O hold no more the prize of wealth before me,
Nor hope of praise;
Nor talk of things men toil for, to deplore me
My dream-filled days!

Give me a fastness distant from the city,
The human sea
Which I would hate, were not I forced to pity,
Because akin to me.

There in the wilds with only you to love me
And none to hate,
I could feel Something good and strong above me,
More kind than Fate.

The Wind would take my hand and lead me kindly
Through the wild;
And teach me to believe in beauty blindly,
Like a child.

His face was like a snake's--wrinkled and loose
And withered--

High-spirited friend,
I send nor balms, nor corsives to your wound;
Your fate hath found
A gentler, and more agile hand, to tend
The cure of that, which is but corporal,
And doubtful days (which were named critical),
Have made their fairest flight,
And now are out of sight.
Yet doth some wholesome physic for the mind,
Wrapped in this paper lie,
Which in the taking if you misapply,
You are unkind.

Your covetous hand,
Happy in that fair honour it hath gained,
Must now be reined.
True valour doth her own renown command

shaking sand off
his bristly hair, a sumo wrestler
who's lost the match

He sang of God, the mighty source
Of all things, the stupendous force
On which all strength depends!
From Whose right arm, beneath Whose eyes,
All period, power and enterprise
Commences, reigns, and ends.

The world, the clustering spheres He made,
The glorious light, the soothing shade,
Dale, champaign, grove and hill;
The multitudinous abyss,
Where secresy remains in bliss
And Wisdom hides her skill.

Tell them I AM, Jehovah said
To Moses! while Earth heard in dread,
And, smitten to the heart,
At once, above, beneath, around,

The night is full of magic, and the moonlit dewdrops glisten
Where the blossoms close in slumber and the questing bullets pass—
Where the bullets hit the level I can hear them as I listen,
Like a little cricket concert, chirping chorus in the grass.

In the dug-out by the traverse there's a candle-flame a-winking
And the fireflies on the sandbags have their torches all aflame.
As I watch them in the moonlight, sure, I cannot keep from thinking,
That the world I knew and this one carry on the very same.

I sat wi' my love, and I drank wi' my love,
And my love she gave me light;
I'll give any man a pint o' wine
To read my riddle right.

I, peregrine of noon.