THE SECRET PLAYROOM (Graudenz, 1918.) To-day has been a holiday; From our high room, with dumb desire, I have been watching through the wire The German boys and girls at play. As music, knitting tongues in one, To each in his own language sings, So echo in their laughter rings Of happy voices I have known. O children I have loved so well, In Hampshire wood or Cornish moor, On many a littered schoolroom floor, In Surrey garden, Yorkshire dell, The friends of long sea holidays, Or playmates of an afternoon, All you whose memories are strewn Like flowers about my ordered ways, Here in my lone heart I have made A playroom worthy of your love, With yellow walls, a frieze above, A tall lamp with a golden shade, And old prints hung on picture-hooks, Red window-curtains, chairs straight-backed, An acting chest, a cupboard stacked With ragged treasures, story-books Jostling the grammars on the shelves, A chipped white service set for three, A broidered cosy for the tea, All, all is there, save you yourselves. But should your hearts recall me yet By any trick of word or thought, Some book I read, some game I taught, Then—in that instant of regret— Your spirit flies across the sea On starry pinions through the night, Into my chamber of delight Your spirit flies to play with me.
THE SONG OF STRENGTH We have washed our hands of the blood, we have turned at length From the strait blind alleys of death to the way of peace; Gladly we labour, singing the song of our strength, The strength of man long-fettered that finds release: The splendid body of man; O hand and eye Working in trained accord! O flying feet! The play of muscle in leg and shoulder and thigh, Strong to endure or to strive, sublime, complete: Man, who has bound the waters, enslaved the wind, Tamed the desolate places, set his span O'er the abyss, unconquered and unconfined, Spending his strength in toil for the glory of man: The climber setting his foot on the perilous slope, The hunter driving the wild thing from its lair, The traveller steering his course by the star of his hope, Never too faint to believe, too weak to dare: The fisherman facing the storm while landsmen sleep, The swimmer—poised for an instant against the sky, Filling the eye with beauty, plunging deep, With wet white shoulders thrusting the billows by: The airman hovering, sweeping above the hill, The engine driving a furrow of flame through the night, The long ships breasting the waves,—they are with us still, The strong clean things we have made for our heart's delight. Strength of the mind and will despising sloth, Seeking the task unfinished, the goal unguessed, Sowing the seed in faith, entrusting the growth To the strength of their children, after their hands have rest: Strength of the maker, serving a distant age, The poet shaping his dream to a deathless rhyme, The doctor fighting disease, the chemist, the sage, Grappling with nature, challenging space and time! So shall we sing as we labour, till faint hearts hear And turn from their sorrow to listen, to cry at length, "Lo, we have put away doubt, and cast off fear; Come, let us fashion the world to the song of our strength!"
THE DESERTED GARDEN Now these are gone, these beautiful playfellows, Gone from the green lawns under my balcony, Gone, and the house no more, the orchard Echoes no more to their happy laughter. How oft I watched them playing, the innocent Boy friend and girl friend under the cedar-tree, Till through the soft dusk rose the twinkling Stars, and the lamps in the lane were shining. Fair head to dark head leaning and whispering, Old games and new games, pirates and Indians, Short skirts and bare knees madly racing, Climbing aloft on the cedar branches. Day comes and night comes, summer and holiday, Swift, ah! the bright hours, merry adventurers! Tears now, a first shy kiss at parting, Tears—and a hand at the corner waving.... White through the dawn-mist, careless of yesterday, Life stretches onward, life the attainable White road along dim hills of dreamland; Childhood is dead, and the leaves drift over. Yet here in bleak house slumbers the memory, Here, here in green lawn, orchard and cedar-tree, Fair head and dark head, laughter, laughter, Evening, and voices across the starlight.
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