style="margin-top: 2em">AFTER THE OPERA

DOWN the stone stairs
Girls with their large eyes wide with tragedy
Lift looks of shocked and momentous emotion
  up at me.
And I smile.

Ladies
Stepping like birds with their bright and pointed feet
Peer anxiously forth, as if for a boat to carry them out
  of the wreckage,
And among the wreck of the theatre crowd
I stand and smile.

They take tragedy so becomingly.
Which pleases me.

But when I meet the weary eyes
The reddened aching eyes of the bar-man with thin
  arms,
I am glad to go back to where I came from.

GOING BACK

THE NIGHT turns slowly round,
Swift trains go by in a rush of light;
Slow trains steal past.
This train beats anxiously, outward bound.

But I am not here.
I am away, beyond the scope of this turning;
There, where the pivot is, the axis
Of all this gear.

I, who sit in tears,
I, whose heart is torn with parting;
Who cannot bear to think back to the departure
  platform;
My spirit hears

Voices of men
Sound of artillery, aeroplanes, presences,
And more than all, the dead-sure silence,
The pivot again.

There, at the axis
Pain, or love, or grief
Sleep on speed; in dead certainty;
Pure relief.

There, at the pivot
Time sleeps again.
No has-been, no here-after; only the perfected
Silence of men.

ON THE MARCH

WE are out on the open road.
Through the low west window a cold light
  flows
On the floor where never my numb feet trode
Before; onward the strange road goes.

Soon the spaces of the western sky
With shutters of sombre cloud will close.
But we'll still be together, this road and I,
Together, wherever the long road goes.

The wind chases by us, and over the corn
Pale shadows flee from us as if from their foes.
Like a snake we thresh on the long, forlorn
Land, as onward the long road goes.

From the sky, the low, tired moon fades out;
Through the poplars the night-wind blows;
Pale, sleepy phantoms are tossed about
As the wind asks whither the wan road goes.

Away in the distance wakes a lamp.
Inscrutable small lights glitter in rows.
But they come no nearer, and still we tramp
Onward, wherever the strange road goes.

Beat after beat falls sombre and dull.
The wind is unchanging, not one of us knows
What will be in the final lull
When we find the place where this dead road goes.

For something must come, since we pass and pass
Along in the coiled, convulsive throes
Of this marching, along with the invisible grass
That goes wherever this old road goes.

Perhaps we shall come to oblivion.
Perhaps we shall march till our tired toes
Tread over the edge of the pit, and we're gone
Down the endless slope where the last road goes.

If so, let us forge ahead, straight on
If we're going to sleep the sleep with those
That fall forever, knowing none
Of this land whereon the wrong road goes.

BOMBARDMENT

THE TOWN has opened to the sun.
Like a flat red lily with a million petals
She unfolds, she comes undone.

A sharp sky brushes upon
The myriad glittering chimney-tips
As she gently exhales to the sun.

Hurrying creatures run
Down the labyrinth of the sinister flower.
What is it they shun?

A dark bird falls from the sun.
It curves in a rush to the heart of the vast
Flower: the day has begun.

WINTER-LULL

Because of the silent snow, we are all hushed
          Into awe.
No sound of guns, nor overhead no rushed
          Vibration to draw
Our attention out of the void wherein we are crushed.

A crow floats past on level wings
          Noiselessly.
Uninterrupted silence swings
          Invisibly, inaudibly
To and fro in our misgivings.

We do not look at each other, we hide
          Our daunted eyes.
White earth, and ruins, ourselves, and nothing beside.
          It all belies
Our existence; we wait, and are still denied.

We are folded together, men and the snowy ground
          Into nullity.
There is silence, only the silence, never a sound
          Nor a verity
To assist us; disastrously silence-bound!

THE ATTACK

WHEN we came out of the wood
Was a great light!
The night uprisen stood
In white.

I wondered, I looked around
It was so fair. The bright
Stubble upon the ground
Shone white

Like any field of snow;
Yet warm the chase
Of faint night-breaths did go
Across my face!

White-bodied and warm the night was,
Sweet-scented to hold in my throat.
White and alight the night was.
A pale stroke smote

The pulse through the whole bland being
Which was This and me;
A pulse that still went fleeing,
Yet did not flee.

After the terrible rage, the death,
This wonder stood glistening?
All shapes of wonder, with suspended breath,
Arrested listening

In ecstatic reverie.
The whole, white Night!—
With wonder, every black tree
Blossomed outright.

I saw the transfiguration
And the present Host.
Transubstantiation
Of the Luminous Ghost.

OBSEQUIAL ODE

SURELY you've trodden straight
To the very door!
Surely you took your fate
Faultlessly. Now it's too late
To say more.

    It is evident you were right,
    That man has a course to go
A voyage to sail beyond the charted seas.
You have passed from out of sight
    And my questions blow
Back from the straight horizon that ends all one sees.

    Now like a vessel in port
    You unlade your riches unto death,
And glad are the eager dead to receive you there.
    Let the dead sort
Your cargo out, breath from breath
Let them disencumber your bounty, let them all share.

    I imagine dead hands are brighter,
    Their fingers in sunset shine
With jewels of passion once broken through you as a
  prism
Breaks light into jewels; and dead breasts whiter
    For your wrath; and yes, I opine
They anoint their brows with your blood, as a perfect
  chrism.

    On your body, the beaten anvil,
    Was hammered out
That moon-like sword the ascendant dead unsheathe
Against us; sword that no man will
    Put to rout;
Sword that severs the question from us who breathe.

Surely you've trodden straight
    To