Poems (Tree)/Of All Who Died in Silence Far Away
OF all who died in silence far awayWhere sympathy was busy with other things,Busy with worlds, inventing how to slay,Troubled with rights and wrongs and governments and kings.
The little dead who knew so large a love,Whose lives were sweet unto themselves a shepherdingOf hopes, ambitions, wonders in a droveOver the hills of time, that now are graves for burying.
Of all the tenderness that flowed to them,A milky way streaming from out their mother's breast,Stars were they to her night, and she the stemFrom which they flowered—now barren and left unblessed.
Of all the sparkling kisses that they gaveSpangling a secret radiance on adoring hands,Now stifled in the darkness of a graveWith kiss of loneliness and death's embracing bands.
No more!—And we, the mourners, dare not wearThe black that folds our hearts in secrecy of pain,But must don purple and bright standards bear,Vermilion of our honour, a bloody train.
We dare not weep who must be brave in battle—"Another death—another day—another inch of land—The dead are cheering and the ghost drums rattle". . .The dead are deaf and dumb and cannot understand. . . .
Of all who died in darkness far awayNothing is left of them but love, who triumphs now,His arms held crosswise to the budding day,The passion-red roses clustering his brow.
1917