Two Poems From The War

Oh, not the loss of the accomplished thing!

Not dumb farewells, nor long relinquishment

Of beauty had, and golden summer spent,

And savage glory of the fluttering

Torn banners of the rain, and frosty ring

Of moon-white winters, and the imminent

Long-lunging seas, and glowing students bent

To race on some smooth beach the gull's wing:

Not these, nor all we've been, nor all we've loved,

The pitiful familiar names, had moved

Our hearts to weep for them; but oh, the star

The future is! Eternity's too wan

To give again that undefeated, far,

All-possible irradiance of dawn.

Like moon-dark, like brown water you escape,

O laughing mouth, O sweet uplifted lips.

Within the peering brain old ghosts take shape;

You flame and wither as the white foam slips

Back from the broken wave: sometimes a start,

A gesture of the hands, a way you own

Of bending that smooth head above your heart,—

Then these are varied, then the dream is gone.

Oh, you are too much mine and flesh of me

To seal upon the brain, who in the blood

Are so intense a pulse, so swift a flood

Of beauty, such unceasing instancy.

Dear unimagined brow, unvisioned face,

All beauty has become your dwelling place.