 | Poems: New and Old |  |
[The faint booming of a gun is heard: the Youth
stirs and speaks again to himself.]
How still the air is—faint and far away
I hear the booming of the guns at play—
Far, far away, and faint as though it came
From that old world of battle smoke and flame
To stir again in hearts no longer hot
An ember-glow of passions long forgot.
[The booming is heard again, louder.]
I hear the booming of the guns at play—
Far, far away, and faint as though it came
From that old world of battle smoke and flame
To stir again in hearts no longer hot
An ember-glow of passions long forgot.
The sound comes nearer—almost it would seem
Insistent to be mingled with my dream.
What then?—War cannot touch my garden, set
Between four seas that never failed me yet!
And though that madness all the rest should take—
Or for revenge's or dominion's sake—
I have sown peace and what men sow they reap;
I have no foe to wrong my golden sleep.
[He sinks back and sleeps again.]
Insistent to be mingled with my dream.
What then?—War cannot touch my garden, set
Between four seas that never failed me yet!
And though that madness all the rest should take—
Or for revenge's or dominion's sake—
I have sown peace and what men sow they reap;
I have no foe to wrong my golden sleep.
| Poems: New and Old | |