May
Tuesday 3 March 2009 photo 2/2
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He drowsed and was aware of silence heaped round him,
unshaken as the steadfast walls;
aqueous like floating rays of amber light,
Soaring and uivering in the wings of sleep,--
silence and safety; and his mortal shore
lipped by the inward, moonless waves of death.
Some one was holding water to his mouth.
He swallowed, unresisting; moaned
and moaned through crimdon gloom to darkness; and forgot
the opiate throb and ache that was his wound.
Water--calm, sliding green above the wier;
water--a sky-lit alley for his boat,
bird-voiced, and bordered with reflected flowers
and shaken hues of summer: drifting down,
he dipped contented oars, and sighed, and slept.
Night, with a gust of wind, was in the ward,
blowing the curtain to a glimmering curve.
Night. He was blind; he could not see the stars
glinting among the wraiths of wandering cloud;
queer blots of colour, purple, scarlet, green,
flickered and faded in his dronwning eyes.
Rain, he could hear it rustling through the dark;
fragence and passionless music music woven as one;
warm rain on drooping roses; pattering showers that
soaks the woods; not the ahrsh rain that sweeps
behind the thunder, but a trickeling peace
gently and slowly washing life away.
***
He stirred, shifting his body; then the pain leaped
like a prowling beast, and grinding claws and fangs.
But some one was beside him; soon he lay shuddering
beacause that evil thing had passed.
And Death, who'd stepped toward him, paused and stared.
Light many lamps and gather round his bed.
Lend him your eyes, warm blood, and will to live.
Speak to him; rouse him; you may save him yet.
He's young; he hated war; how should he die
when cruel old campainers win safe through?
But Death replied: "I choose him." So he went,
and there was silence in the summer night;
silence and safety; and the veils of sleep.
Then, far away, the thudding of the guns
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