II

But the day when it came was a troubled day,

And the road I took was a troubled way.

Then never a will I had of my own,

And never a step did I travel alone.

We marched by day, and we marched by night,

Through the Sun's hot gold, or the Moon's cool light.

We marched with laughter, we marched with song,

Or in dreadful silence we marched along.

The man at my right cursed low at his fate,

The man at my left smiled early and late.

And the faces I saw at the edge of day,

Were young, young faces, turned old and grey.

The field where poppies flashed red in the wheat,

Was a hell we tramped through on stumbling feet.

I forgot I had said “before Life is over,

I will shut my house door, and will be a rover.”

Out on the roads where the guns took toll

I gave little heed to my faith, or my soul.

In the trenches where only the dead could rest,

Life was a candle-flame — Death was a jest.

The stars swung round in a blood-red sky,

And the earth was red where the men reeled by.

I laughed — for I was living and strong,—

And I tossed them the line of a battle song.

May-day came in,— but the sweet o’ the Spring,—

Who should know there was any such thing?

For the lovers were gone, who used to know

The English lanes where the hawthorns blow —

And the lovers from lands far over the sea,—

Ah! The watching moon only, knew where they might be.

I shook my impotent hand at the sky,

And travelled on with a battle cry.