A treasury of war poetry, British and American poems of the world war, 1914-1919/To Some Who have Fallen

by Katherine Mary Dalton Renoir

TO SOME WHO HAVE FALLEN

SPRING is God's season; may you see His Spring
Somewhere, the larch and ash buds burgeoning,
Round catkin tassels and the blossomed spine
Of blackthorn, and the golden celandine,
And little rainwashed violet leaves unfurled
To deck young April in another world.

We cannot know how much a dead man hears,
What awful music of the distant spheres,
But you may linger still, you may not be
Too far from us to share the ecstasy
Of all the larks that nest upon our hills,
Or miss the flowering of the daffodils.

Since if, as some folks say, ourselves do make
Our Heaven, yours will hold, for old times' sake,
The farms and orchards that you left behind,
Steep lichened roofs, and rutted lanes that wind
Through green lush meadows up from Wealden towns
To the bare beauty of our Sussex Downs.

Moray Dalton