The Mourners

I look into the aching womb of night;

I look across the mist that masks the dead;

The moon is tired and gives but little light,

The stars have gone to bed.

The earth is sick and seems to breathe with pain;

A lost wind whimpers in a mangled tree;

I do not see the foul, corpse-cluttered plain,

The dead I do not see.

The slain I WOULD not see... and so I lift

My eyes from out the shambles where they lie;

When lo! a million woman-faces drift

Like pale leaves through the sky.

The cheeks of some are channelled deep with tears;

But some are tearless, with wild eyes that stare

Into the shadow of the coming years

Of fathomless despair.

And some are young, and some are very old;

And some are rich, some poor beyond belief;

Yet all are strangely like, set in the mould

Of everlasting grief.

They fill the vast of Heaven, face on face;

And then I see one weeping with the rest,

Whose eyes beseech me for a moment's space....

Oh eyes I love the best!

Nay, I but dream. The sky is all forlorn,

And there's the plain of battle writhing red:

God pity them, the women-folk who mourn!

How happy are the dead!