Here lies a clerk who half his life had spent
Toiling at ledgers in a city grey,
Thinking that so his days would drift away
With no lance broken in life’s tournament:
...
The starshells float above, the bayonets glisten;
We bear our fallen friend without a sound;
Below the waiting legions lie and listen
To us, who march upon their burial-ground.
...
UNDER the stars the armies lie asleep:
Between the lines a quiet river flows
Through brakes of honeysuckle, and of rose,
And fields where poppies droop in languor deep
...
The sea has a laugh
And the cliff a frown;
For the laugh of the sea is wearing him down.
Lipping and lapping
...
A ship sails up to Bideford;
Upon a western breeze,
Mast by mast, sail over sail,
She rises from the seas,
...
Hooded in angry mist, the sun goes down:
Steel-gray the clouds roll out across the sea:
Is this a Kingdom? Then give Death the crown,
For here no emperor hath won, save He.
...
O SILVER one, O silver one,
Above the valley of the Bane:
O stem with snow-water agleam,
And glistening limbs, and trails of pearl.
...
THE spire is gone, that slept for centuries,
Mirrored among the lilies, calm and low:
And now the water holds but empty skies,
Through which the rivers of the thunder flow.
...
UP and down, up and down
They go, the gray rat, and the brown.
The telegraph lines are tangled hair,
Motionless on the sullen air
...
Mourn not for these, the children of the spring :
On Flemish plains and far Aegean sand,
Mourn not for these, who had no perishing !
Hang high their swords in churches greatly spanned !
...
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 :
...
Herbert Asquith was an English poet, novelist and lawyer. Biography He was the second son of H. H. Asquith, British Prime Minister — with whom he is frequently confused — and younger brother of Raymond Asquith. His wife Lady Cynthia Asquith, whom he married in 1910, the daughter of Hugo Richard Charteris, 11th Earl of Wemyss (1857–1937), was also a writer. Asquith was greatly affected by his service with the Royal Artillery in World War I. His poems include "The Volunteer" and "The Fallen Subaltern", the latter being a tribute to fallen soldiers. His books include "Roon" and "Young Orland".)
The Volunteer
Here lies a clerk who half his life had spent
Toiling at ledgers in a city grey,
Thinking that so his days would drift away
With no lance broken in life’s tournament:
Yet ever ’twixt the books and his bright eyes
The gleaming eagles of the legions came,
And horsemen, charging under phantom skies,
Went thundering past beneath the oriflamme.
And now those waiting dreams are satisfied;
From twilight to the halls of dawn he went;
His lance is broken; but he lies content
With that high hour, in which he lived and died.
And falling thus he wants no recompense,
Who found his battle in the last resort;
Nor needs he any hearse to bear him hence,
Who goes to join the men of Agincourt.
Nice profile of this poet.