new-born flowers that soldiers must forget,
I'll love, I'll laugh, I'll dream and write undying songs
But with your regiment my marching soul belongs.
Men that have marched with me and men that I have led
Shall know and feel the things that I have only read,
Shall know what thing it is to sleep beneath the skies
And to expect their death what time the sun shall rise.
Men that have marched with me shall march to peace again,
Bringing for plunder home glad memories of pain,
Of toils endured and done, of terrors quite brought under,
And all the world shall be their plaything and their wonder.
Then in that new-born world, unfriendly and estranged,
I shall be quite alone, I shall be left unchanged.

The Pool.

Out of that noise and hurry of large life
    The river flings me in an idle pool:
The waters still go on with stir and strife
    And sunlit eddies, and the beautiful
Tall trees lean down upon the mighty flow,
    Reflected in that movement. Beauty there
Waxes more beautiful, the moments grow
    Thicker and keener in that lovely air
Above the river. Here small sticks and straws
    Come now to harbour, gather, lie and rot,
Out of cross-currents and the water's flaws
    In this unmoving death, where joy is not,
Where war's a shade again, ambition rotten
And bitter hopes and fears alike forgotten.

The Dead Poet.

When I grow old they'll come to me and say:
Did you then know him in that distant day?
Did you speak with him, touch his hand, observe
The proud eyes' fire, soft voice and light lips' curve?
And I shall answer: This man was my friend;
Call to my memory, add, improve, amend
And count up all the meetings that we had
And note his good and touch upon his bad.

When I grow older and more garrulous,
I shall discourse on the dead poet thus:
I said to him ... he answered unto me...
He dined with me one night in Trinity...
I supped with him in King's ... Ah, pitiful
The twisted memories of an ancient fool
And sweet the silence of a young man dead!
Now far in Lemnos sleeps that golden head,
Unchanged, serene, for ever young and strong,
Lifted above the chances that belong
To us who live, for he shall not grow old
And only of his youth there shall be told
Magical stories, true and wondrous tales,
As of a god whose virtue never fails,
Whose limbs shall never waste, eyes never fall,
And whose clear brain shall not be dimmed at all.

PASTORAL PIECES

The Vision in the Wood.

The husht September afternoon was sweet
    With rich and peaceful light. I could not hear
On either side the sound of moving feet
    Although the hidden road was very near.
The laden wood had powdered sun in it,
    Slipped through the leaves, a quiet messenger
To tell me of the golden world outside
Where fields of stubble stretched through counties wide.

And yet I did not move. My head reposed
    Upon a tuft of dry and scented grass
And, with half-seeing eyes, through eyelids closed,
    I watched the languid chain of shadows pass,
Light as the slowly moving shade imposed
    By summer clouds upon a sea of glass,
And strove to banish or to make more clear
The elusive and persistent dream of her.

And then I saw her, very dim at first,
    Peering for nuts amid the twisted boughs,
Thought her some warm-haired dryad, lately burst
    Out of the chambers of her leafy house,
Seeking for nuts for food and for her thirst
    Such water as the woodland stream allows,
After the greedy summer has drunk up
All but a drain within the mossy cup.

Then I, beholding her, was still a space
    And marked each posture as she moved or stood,
Watching the sunlight on her hair and face.
    Thus with calm folded hands and quiet blood
I gazed until her counterfeited grace
    Faded and left me lonely in the wood,
Glad that the gods had given so much as this,
To see her, if I might not have her kiss.

The Idyll.

This is the valley where we sojourn now,
    Cut up by narrow brooks and rich and green
And shaded sweetly by the waving bough
    About the trench where floats the soft serene
Arun with waters running low and low
    Through banks where lately still the tide has been;
Here is our resting-place, you walk with me
And watch the light die out in Amberley.

The light that dies is soft and flooding still,
    Shed from the broad expanse of all the skies
And brimming up the space from hill to hill,
    Where yet the sheep in their sweet exercise,
Roaming the meadows, crop and find their fill
    And to each other speak with moaning cries;
We on the hill-side standing rest and see
The light die out in brook and grass and tree.

Lately we walked upon the lonely downs
    And through the still heat of the heavy day
We heard the medley of low drifting sounds
    And through the matted brambles found a way
Or lightly trod upon enchanted grounds
    Musing, or with rich blackberries made delay,
Where feed such fruit on the rich air, until
We struck like falling stars from Bignor Hill.

Down the vast slope, by chalky roads and steep,
    With trees and bushes hidden here and there,
By circling turns into the valley deep
    We came and left behind the hill-top air
For this cool village where to-night we sleep,
    A country meal, a country bed to share,
With sleepy kisses and contented dreams
Over a land of still and narrow streams.

The light is ebbing in the dusky sky,
    The valley floor is in the shadow. Hark!
With rushing and mysterious noises fly
    The bats already, looking for the dark
With blinking still and unaccustomed eye.
    Now over Rackham Mount a steady spark
Burns, rising slowly in the rising night,
And pledges peace and promises delight.

Now from the east the wheeling shade appears
    And softly night into the valley falls,
Soft on the meadows drop her dewy tears,
    Softly a darkness on the crumbled walls.
Now in the dusk the village disappears,
    Men's songs are hushed there and the children's calls,
While night in passage swallows up the land
And in the shadow your hand seeks my hand.

Only the glimmering stars in heaven lie
    And unseen trees with rustling still betray
How all the valley lives invisibly,
    Where dim sweet odours, remnants of the day,
Float from the sleeping fields to please and die,
    Borne up by roaming airs, that drift away
Beyond our hearing, vagabond and light,
To visit the cool meadows of the night.

The Pursuit of Daphne.

Daphne is running, running through the grass,
    The long stalks whip her ankles as she goes.
I saw the nymph, the god, I saw them pass
    And how a mounting flush of tender