The High Wall I will build up a wall for Freedom to dwell therein,
A high wall with towers
And steel fangs for a gate.
For Freedom that lacks a home falleth by pit and gin,
A prey to the alien powers
That lie in wait.
I will build up a house for her where the ways divide,
A house set on a hill,
With a lamp in the topmost tower,
And a trumpet calling to arms, and a flag like a flame blown wide,
And a sword to save and to kill
As her bridal dower.
I will take her to wife, she that is life and death;
Life — for a trumpet calls;
Death — for it calls me still,
And I shall know love — a star, and a fluttering breath
Till the shadow of silence falls
In the house on the hill.
I will build up a house for her where the ways divide,
Four-square on the rock,
A high house and a great;
So, when I fly, spent, back from a broken ride,
Her key shall cry in the lock,
She shall stand in the gate.
She shall stand in the gate — the prize of the world to win,
Stand steel-shod,
Crowned with a cloud of flowers.
I will build up a wall, a wall, for Freedom to dwell therein
In the name of the most high God,
A wall with towers.
Contents / Contents, p. 3
The Broken Sword Soldier, soldier, burnishing your sword,
Is there no place for a wayfaring man in the courts of your lord?
A couch, and a crust, and a song, and a flagon of wine?
Haggard, begrimed though I be, and out at heel,
A lean, grey hop-and-go-one with a crutch of steel,
Brother-at-arms with death? Behold the sign:
I have tasted great weather on high, white, green-turreted cliffs by the sea.
I have tramped the tough heather, the purple, the brown,
By pools of peat water; from the night to the day,
Till the moon has dropped down: the ghost of a minim, low down,
In a high-piping treble of grey.
In shy, dim recesses, mid tresses, green tresses.
Slow dipping, caressing, I've heard
A whisper, a chuckle of laughter, a scamper; and high,
High up in the air the cry, the call of a bird.
And when the night came with a flicker of wings
I have heard the earth breathing quiet and slow
Like a pulse in the tiny, wild tumult of things.
I have sung to the sun, and the moon and the stars,
In valleys uncharted of tumbled sea meadows
I have shouted aloud 'neath a sky whipped to smoke in the fret of my spars
And I fought as I fared; and my couch was a camp; and my songs were my scars.
Soldier! Soldier! Cosetting your sword!
Have you no place for a harper-at-arms in the courts of your lord —
Prim fountains, clipped trees, and trim gardens, and music, and rest?
Nay, keep your sugared delights and your margents embroidered! My life is the best.
In my ears is the sound of a bugle blown, and my pulses like kettle-drums beat
For the hungry blind onset, the rally, the stubborn defeat.
I, too, could have polished, and polished, and jeered at the wayfaring man who passed by.
But I follow the fighting Apollo.
And I stand unashamed; and I raise up my shard of a sword; and I cry the old cry.
Please God they shall find but a hilt in my hand when I die!
silhouetted figures 12 Contents / Contents, p. 3
Night Shapes Dark hurrying shapes beset my path that night —
Pushing and buffeting; and in my brain
Dark hurrying shapes beset my soul. In vain
I struggled; as a fevered dreamer might;
Or some spent, breathless swimmer, in despite
Of desperate stroke, thrust headlong to the main.
The waking nightmare, monstrous and inane,
Whirled, rushed, and huddled in its random flight.
Like a spent swimmer, battling with a swoon,
Silent I fought, yet seemed to cry aloud.
When, at the challenge of a marching tune,
Heard in a sudden stillness of the crowd,
I looked aloft, and saw the great round moon
Steadfast behind her ragged rout of cloud.
Contents / Contents, p. 4
The Silent People The Silent People of No Man's Land
Calm they lie,
With a stare and vacant smile
At the vacant sky.
Over them swept the battle,
And stirred them not.
Armies passed over, beyond them.
They are forgot.
Calmly the earth deals with them,
Melts them away.
Nothing is left of them now but bones,
Bones and clay.
Bones of the Valley of Judgment,
Bones stripped clean.
We fought, day in, day out, and the others,
With this between.
Dawn comes white and finds them
Stark and cold.
Twilight creeps over and covers them,
Fold on fold.
Night cannot hide them from us.
In the dark, again,
We see the Silent People
Who once were men.
The Silent People of No Man's Land,
They rise, they rise,
With the glory of utter loss
In their stary eyes.
Beckoning, beckoning, calling,
Pointing the way.
But the dawn comes white, and finds them
Bones and clay.
Winds of the world blow o'er them
Your serenade!
Touch like a lute the broken earth
Where our dead are laid!
Broken bones of the martyrs,
Reliques of pain,
Anoint them, anoint them with sunlight,
Robe them in rain.
The Silent People of No Man's Land
Calm they lie,
Bones, broken and bleached,
Under the sky.
Over them sweeps the tempest,
And stirs them not.
We pass over, beyond them,
They are forgot.
Contents / Contents, p. 4
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