Rhymes of a Red Cross Man

<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0051" id="link2H_4_0051"></SPAN></p> <br/> <h2> The Mourners </h2> <p>I look into the aching womb of night;<br/> I look across the mist that masks the dead;<br/> The moon is tired and gives but little light,<br/> The stars have gone to bed.<br/> <br/> The earth is sick and seems to breathe with pain;<br/> A lost wind whimpers in a mangled tree;<br/> I do not see the foul, corpse-cluttered plain,<br/> The dead I do not see.<br/> <br/> The slain I <i>WOULD</i> not see . . . and so I lift<br/> My eyes from out the shambles where they lie;<br/> When lo! a million woman-faces drift<br/> Like pale leaves through the sky.<br/> <br/> The cheeks of some are channelled deep with tears;<br/> But some are tearless, with wild eyes that stare<br/> Into the shadow of the coming years<br/> Of fathomless despair.<br/> <br/> And some are young, and some are very old;<br/> And some are rich, some poor beyond belief;<br/> Yet all are strangely like, set in the mould<br/> Of everlasting grief.<br/> <br/> They fill the vast of Heaven, face on face;<br/> And then I see one weeping with the rest,<br/> Whose eyes beseech me for a moment's space. . . .<br/> Oh eyes I love the best!<br/> <br/> Nay, I but dream. The sky is all forlorn,<br/> And there's the plain of battle writhing red:<br/> God pity them, the women-folk who mourn!<br/> How happy are the dead!<br/></p> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />