Chapter I: SPOKE with you but seldom, yet there lay

Some nameless glamour in your written word,
And thoughts of you rose often--longings stirred
By dear remembrance of the sad blue-grey
That dwelt within your eyes, the even sway
Of your young god-like gait, the rarely heard
But frank bright laughter, hallowed by a Day
That made of Youth Right’s offering to the sword.

So now I ponder, since your day is done,
Ere dawn was past, on all you meant to me,
And all the more you might have come to be,
And wonder if some state, beyond the sun
And shadows here, may yet completion see
Of intimacy sweet though scarce begun.

MALTA,
_May 1917._

A PARTING WORD

(TO A FORTUNATE FRIEND)

IF you should be too happy in your days
And never know an hour of vain regret,
Do not forget
That still the shadows darken all my ways.

If sunshine sweeter still should light your years,
And you lose nought of all you dearly prize,
Turn not your eyes
From my steep track of anguish and of tears.

And if perhaps your love of me is less
Than I with all my need of you would choose,
Do not refuse
To love enough to lighten my distress.

And if the future days should parting see
Of our so different paths that lately met,
Remember yet
Those days of storm you weathered through with me.

MALTA,
_May 1917._

TO MY BROTHER[A]

(IN MEMORY OF JULY 1ST, 1916)

YOUR battle-wounds are scars upon my heart,
Received when in that grand and tragic “show”
You played your part
Two years ago,

And silver in the summer morning sun
I see the symbol of your courage glow--
That Cross you won
Two years ago.

Though now again you watch the shrapnel fly,
And hear the guns that daily louder grow,
As in July
Two years ago,

May you endure to lead the Last Advance
And with your men pursue the flying foe
As once in France
Two years ago.

[A] Captain E. H. Brittain, M.C. Written four days before his death in action in the Austrian offensive on the Italian Front, June 15th, 1918.

SIC TRANSIT----

(V.R., DIED OF WOUNDS, 2ND LONDON GENERAL HOSPITAL, CHELSEA, JUNE 9TH, 1917)

I AM so tired.
The dying sun incarnadines the West,
And every window with its gold is fired,
And all I loved the best
Is gone, and every good that I desired
Passes away, an idle hopeless quest;
Even the Highest whereto I aspired
Has vanished with the rest.
I am so tired.

LONDON,
_June 1917._

TO THEM