Last Poems

We first saw fire on the tragic slopesWhere the flood-tide of France's early gain,Big with wrecked promise and abandoned hopes,Broke in a surf of blood along the Aisne.

The charge her heroes left us, we assumed,What, dying, they reconquered, we preserved,In the chill trenches, harried, shelled, entombed,Winter came down on us, but no man swerved.

Winter came down on us. The low clouds, tornIn the stark branches of the riven pines,Blurred the white rockets that from dusk till mornTraced the wide curve of the close-grappling lines.

In rain, and fog that on the withered hillFroze before dawn, the lurking foe drew down;Or light snows fell that made forlorner stillThe ravaged country and the ruined town;

Or the long clouds would end. Intensely fair,The winter constellations blazing forth --Perseus, the Twins, Orion, the Great Bear --Gleamed on our bayonets pointing to the north.

And the lone sentinel would start and soarOn wings of strong emotion as he knewThat kinship with the stars that only WarIs great enough to lift man's spirit to.

And ever down the curving front, aglowWith the pale rockets' intermittent light,He heard, like distant thunder, growl and growThe rumble of far battles in the night, --

Rumors, reverberant, indistinct, remote,Borne from red fields whose martial names have wonThe power to thrill like a far trumpet-note, --Vic, Vailly, Soupir, Hurtelise, Craonne . . .

Craonne, before thy cannon-swept plateau,Where like sere leaves lay strewn September's dead,I found for all dear things I forfeitedA recompense I would not now forego.

For that high fellowship was ours thenWith those who, championing another's good,More than dull Peace or its poor votaries could,Taught us the dignity of being men.

There we drained deeper the deep cup of life,And on sublimer summits came to learn,After soft things, the terrible and stern,After sweet Love, the majesty of Strife;

There where we faced under those frowning heightsThe blast that maims, the hurricane that kills;There where the watchlights on the winter hillsFlickered like balefire through inclement nights;

There where, firm links in the unyielding chain,Where fell the long-planned blow and fell in vain --Hearts worthy of the honor and the trial,We helped to hold the lines along the Aisne.

In the glad revels, in the happy fetes,When cheeks are flushed, and glasses gilt and pearledWith the sweet wine of France that concentratesThe sunshine and the beauty of the world,

Drink sometimes, you whose footsteps yet may treadThe undisturbed, delightful paths of Earth,To those whose blood, in pious duty shed,Hallows the soil where that same wine had birth.

Here, by devoted comrades laid away,Along our lines they slumber where they fell,Beside the crater at the Ferme d'AlgerAnd up the bloody slopes of La Pompelle,

And round the city whose cathedral towersThe enemies of Beauty dared profane,And in the mat of multicolored flowersThat clothe the sunny chalk-fields of Champagne.

Under the little crosses where they riseThe soldier rests. Now round him undismayedThe cannon thunders, and at night he liesAt peace beneath the eternal fusillade. . . .

That other generations might possess --From shame and menace free in years to come --A richer heritage of happiness,He marched to that heroic martyrdom.

Esteeming less the forfeit that he paidThan undishonored that his flag might floatOver the towers of liberty, he madeHis breast the bulwark and his blood the moat.

Obscurely sacrificed, his nameless tomb,Bare of the sculptor's art, the poet's lines,Summer shall flush with poppy-fields in bloom,And Autumn yellow with maturing vines.

There the grape-pickers at their harvestingShall lightly tread and load their wicker trays,Blessing his memory as they toil and singIn the slant sunshine of October days. . . .

I love to think that if my blood should beSo privileged to sink where his has sunk,I shall not pass from Earth entirely,But when the banquet rings, when healths are drunk,

And faces that the joys of living fillGlow radiant with laughter and good cheer,In beaming cups some spark of me shall stillBrim toward the lips that once I held so dear.

So shall one coveting no higher planeThan nature clothes in color and flesh and tone,Even from the grave put upward to attainThe dreams youth cherished and missed and might have known;

And that strong need that strove unsatisfiedToward earthly beauty in all forms it wore,Not death itself shall utterly divideFrom the beloved shapes it thirsted for.

Alas, how many an adept for whose armsLife held delicious offerings perished here,How many in the prime of all that charms,Crowned with all gifts that conquer and endear!

Honor them not so much with tears and flowers,But you with whom the sweet fulfilment lies,Where in the anguish of atrocious hoursTurned their last thoughts and closed their dying eyes,

Rather when music on bright gatherings laysIts tender spell, and joy is uppermost,Be mindful of the men they were, and raiseYour glasses to them in one silent toast.

Drink to them--amorous of dear Earth as well,They asked no tribute lovelier than this --And in the wine that ripened where they fell,Oh, frame your lips as though it were a kiss.