The New School
The halls that were loud with the merry tread of young and careless feet
Are still with a stillness that is too drear to seem like holiday,
And never a gust of laughter breaks the calm of the dreaming street
Or rises to shake the ivied walls and frighten the doves away.
The dust is on book and on empty desk, and the tennis-racquet and balls
Lie still in their lonely locker and wait for a game that is never played,
And over the study and lecture-room and the river and meadow falls
A stern peace, a strange peace, a peace that War has made.
For many a youthful shoulder now is gay with an epaulet,
And the hand that was deft with a cricket-bat is defter with a sword,
And some of the lads will laugh to-day where the trench is red and wet,
And some will win on the bloody field the accolade of the Lord.
They have taken their youth and mirth away
from the study and playing-ground
To a new school in an alien land beneath an alien sky;
Out in the smoke and roar of the fight their lessons and games are found,
And they who were learning how to live are learning how to die.
And after the golden day has come and the war is at an end,
A slab of bronze on the chapel wall will tell of the noble dead.
And every name on that radiant list will be the name of a friend,
A name that shall through the centuries in grateful prayers be said.
And there will be ghosts in the old school,
brave ghosts with laughing eyes,
On the field with a ghostly cricket-bat, by the stream with a ghostly rod;
They will touch the hearts of the living with a flame that sanctifies,
A flame that they took with strong young hands
from the altar-fires of God.
Age Comes A-Wooing
With shameless and incessant lust
Thy tremulous hot hands are thrust
Upon my body's loveliness.
O loathsome Age, thy foul caress
Puts on my heart a deadly blight,
Withers my hair to leprous white,
Binds fetters on my eager feet
That once on Springtime's road were fleet
To bear me to Love's shining goal.
Now bitter tides of sorrow roll
To drown me in a sea of woe
And God looks on, and wills it so!
Give over thy pursuing, Age!
Fearest thou not my lover's rage?
For he is young and strong of limb,
Thou canst not stand a bout with him.
Ah, surely he will laugh to see
So wan a suitor wooing me.
Then with wild scorn his heart will swell
And he will fling thee back to hell.
O Love, that stronger art than Death,
Enfold me from the burning breath
Of Age that has grown amorous,
That sears and blasts me. Even thus,
Men say, his passionate embrace
Spoils maids and flowers of their grace,
And every woman's fate is cast
To be his paramour at last.
And so all lovely things are made
Shameful, and in the ashes laid,
To die alone, uncared for. Such
Is the pollution of his touch.
Stars that have shone since Time began,
Rivers that saw the birth of man,
And mountains that are fair and green,
And were, when Helen was a queen,
White dreams that never can grow old,
Stories of love and glory told
By Homer once, and ballads sung
Eons ago- ye still are young.
Tell me the secret of your youth.
Can any weeping fill with ruth
Age, that is harsh and pitiless?
Nay, they are blind to my distress.
They have not feared the grasping hand
Of Age, and cannot understand.
Love saw my whitened hair and laughed
And bid me drain my bitter draught.
While in my lover's startled eyes
A lurking terror strangely lies.
There is no place in which to hide
When Age comes seeking for his bride.
