C. H. B. KITCHIN

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T. W. Earp
(EXETER)

SOMME FILM, 1916

For you at least, sweet wanderers in the dark,
There is no cause to cry from cypress-trees
To a forgetful world; since you are seen
Of all twice nightly at the cinema,
While the munition-makers clap their hands.

ESCHATOLOGICAL SONNET

Before the final darkness, side by side
We watched the huge red sun glow in the sky
Malevolently dim, longing to die,
As though his dull and sullen face would chide
Slow-footed time that forced him to abide
Unnumbered ages in death-agony,
While at our feet the sea bore sluggishly
The burden of a salt-encumbered tide.
No word we spoke, but gazed with solemn eyes
Where the last sunset slowly passed away
And left the sky a sheet of endless grey,
Seeing the world, God's careful sacrifice,
The victim of an infinite decay,
And thinking of the worm that never dies.

EPILOGUE

We are the silk which other limbs have worn,
Those passive folds admired and kept with care,
Till fashion changes, and, no longer rare,
The garment is dishonoured, swept with scorn
Into the massive wardrobe of the night,
Where neither hands shall fondle preciously
Nor eyes shall gaze on us in charity—
The wasted fabric of an old delight.
The night is huge and rich with hidden song
Of its eternal victims grandly singing
A threnody, whose fragrance ever clinging
To night's embroidery still hands along
The endless chain of unrepentant years,
Rejoicing in the gift of human tears.

Ruler of infinite austerity
From whom, long listening through ecstatic hours,
Men seek a spiritual mutilation
And guidance to the unperturbed serene,
Yours was the voice at which our grasping hands
Refrained from clutching at iniquity
Still warm with flame that licks the roof of hell,
But having will of us you are transfigured
With an attractive aureole whose glare
Is colder than a mist around the moon;
Wherefore in wisdom meditate on this
That when outworn incessantly with kneeling
On penitential stone, the flesh of man,
Delirious with fasting and sweet wounds
Self-loved and self-inflicted, cries for peace,
It is for you the spirit sings with joy
The chant ineffable of hidden spheres;
For you it finds delight voluptuous
In weakness through the curtains of the night,
—Not for the abstract law which you devise.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

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