Poems

<h4><SPAN name="TO_M_E_W" id="TO_M_E_W"></SPAN>TO <i>M. E. W</i>.</h4> <p>Words, for alas my trade is words, a barren burst of rhyme,<br/> <span style="margin-left: 1em;">Rubbed by a hundred rhymesters, battered a thousand times,</span><br/> Take them, you, that smile on strings, those nobler sounds than mine,<br/> <span style="margin-left: 1em;">The words that never lie, or brag, or flatter, or malign.</span><br/> <br/> I give a hand to my lady, another to my friend,<br/> <span style="margin-left: 1em;">To whom you too have given a hand; and so before the end</span><br/> We four may pray, for all the years, whatever suns beset,<br/> <span style="margin-left: 1em;">The sole two prayers worth praying&mdash;to live and not forget.</span><br/> <br/> The pale leaf falls in pallor, but the green leaf turns to gold;<br/> <span style="margin-left: 1em;">We that have found it good to be young shall find it good to be old;</span><br/> Life that bringeth the marriage bell, the cradle and the grave,<br/> <span style="margin-left: 1em;">Life that is mean to the mean of heart, and only brave to the brave.</span><br/> <br/> In the calm of the last white winter, when all the past is ours,<br/> <span style="margin-left: 1em;">Old tears are frozen as jewels, old storms frosted as flowers.</span><br/> Dear Lady, may we meet again, stand up again, we four,<br/> <span style="margin-left: 1em;">Beneath the burden of the years, and praise the earth once more.</span><br/> <br/><br/></p> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <h3><SPAN name="II" id="II"></SPAN>II</h3> <h3>WAR POEMS</h3> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />