Herbert Asquith Poems

IN domes of dim and ancient gold,
In cloisters, where the lightning plays,
Where gleam the gorgeous saints of old
In aisles of jade and chrysoprase,
...

THE far guns boom: shell-struck the church is rolled
Skyward athunder, dust of rose and gold:
The staring villa stands. So goes the War:
The limelight lives: extinguished is the star.
...

FAREWELL, the village leaning to the hill,
And all the cawing rooks that homeward fly ;
The bees; the drowsy anthem of the mill
The willows winding under April sky !
...

LOVE be thy charioteer:
In all thy brightening and thy darkening hours
May he be at thine ear;
So shalt thou sail at ease above the tow'rs,
...

THOR draws a chord invisible
Across the shaking sky:
I hear the tearing of the shell,
The bullets sing and cry,
...

FRIEND if all these verses die:
Soon will you, and soon will I
But, if any word should live,
Then that word to you I give.
...

These who were children yesterday
Now move in lovely flight,
Swift-glancing as the shooting stars
That cleave the summer night;
...

Hail! O Baby of the May
In the bubbling river-bed,
Playing where the cannon play,
With the shrapnel overhead!
...

In this red havoc of the patient earth,
Though higher yet the tide of battle rise,
Now has the hero cast away disguise,
And out of ruin splendour comes to birth
...

NOW that the soul has left its throne
Behind your mortal eyes,
And light, and colour and sound are gone
From the body's palaces :
...