Knew that the King was wounded unto death. I saw them fall together, and, drawn near. Put a dread ending to the outworn strife. He shall not live, that wrought the accursed thing,’ “I saw him make on Mordred with his spear,Īnd crying ‘Tide me death, betide me life, His armour and visage fouled with blood and slime,Īnd fading in his eyes the ancient flame. I know not, save that when the darkness cameĪnd the mist cleared, I found at last the King, Were all confounded on those desolate shores.Īnd ever the mist seethed, and the waves keptĪ hollow chanting, as they mourned the end Struck and o’ercame, or fell, unseen, unwept Īnd alien hopes, lives, peoples, alien faiths Which party had advantage: like thin wraiths Scarce we beheld the foe we struck, or wist There, where a dreary waste of barren sandĭoth mark the ultimate leagues of this fair land Gather, for strife and death unknown before,Ĭome gather all unto the fronting hosts.’ Whose speech has been bold words and heady boasts “‘Ye that have lived a dangerous life of war Of word and measure, till the rime, grown proud,ĭid straight contemn the leaping mountain tops “‘Ye that have piled the rich, full-ripened crops Ye that have trafficked on the sounding seasĪnd fear nor cheerless rains, nor scorching drouth: Where never wind blows, save the gentle south: “‘Ye that have sought out pallid harmonies Since many deemed themselves above their worthĪnd sought in vain, and perished ere they found.”Īnd when the opposèd standards were unfurled That wrought destruction to the Table Round, He brought the vessel, vanished now from earth That tended God’s frail body, and enrolled Lived, loved, and fought, and wove the riddling rime Hither I came, where, in the dawns of timeĭim peoples, that the very stones forget, When once the past was lost, and whelmed in tears. With wrath and ill designings, straight I soughtĪ place where I might die, too feeble grown When at the last the whole was overthrown Whereat once more the ancient eyes were fired:Īnd in his church I ministered, and thence That he would tell of whom he was, and whence. Then did sleepīathe him in soothing waters, soft and deep,Īnd left him whole, at breaking of the light, ’Twixt one wind and another: till his breathĬame easier, and he prospered. Long time lay Bedivere betwixt life and death, That he might drink, and so beheld his wound. Stumbled against the open door, and swooned,Īnd would have fallen, but the hermit caughtĪnd laid him gently down then hurrying brought Straight went they in, but Bedivere being lame That bent gaunt branches in the winter’s breeze Īnd he drew rein, and leant, and struck the door:Īnd helped him to dismount with labour sore: Hard by a little hill, and sheltering trees Like ships, that the storm-tossed ocean batters and heaves,Īnd they fly before the gale, and the mariners fear. With a great wound gotten in that last frayĮre he stood by, and watched the King departĭown the long, silent reaches of the mere:Īnd all the earth was sad, and skies were drear,Īnd the wind cried, and chased the relict leaves Weary and travel-stained and sick at heart, Thither through moaning woods came Bedivere, Scattered and harried them with his ruthless flail. Which might have been far other, but that Mars Of rime that scarcely came to harvesting.Ĭomposite, methinks, of fragments that stark MarsĬomposite of memories and half-uttered dreams Loves scanty ruins, garlanded with years, Loves not so much Completion as the Will,Īnd less the austere saint than the fond sinner: “Let us tell Quiet Stories of Kind Eyes”.“Dark is the World our Fathers left us”.“O, sing me a Song of the Wild West Wind”.“The Burial of Sophocles,” which is here placed at the end, was begun before the war and continued at odd times and in various circumstances afterwards the final version was sent me from the trenches.īeyond these few facts no prelude and no envoi is needed other than those here printed as their author left them. Of these some were written in England (at Oxford in particular), some in Wales and very many during a year in France from November 1915 to December 1916, which was broken by one leave in the middle of May. The poems of this book were written at very various times, one (“Wind over the Sea”) I believe even as early as 1910, but the order in which they are here given is not chronological beyond the fact that the third part contains only poems written after the outbreak of the war. To His Mother Geoffrey Bache Smith Born October 18th, 1894Įntered Corpus Christi College, Oxford, as Exhibitioner October 1913ĭied of wounds at Warlencourt, France December 3rd, 1916īy Geoffrey Bache Smith Late Lieutenant in the Lancashire Fusiliers
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