[To Norman Loder]

I've never ceased to curse the day I signed

A seven years' bargain for the Golden Fleece.

'Twas a bad deal all round; and dear enough

It cost me, what with my daft management,

And the mean folk as owed and never paid me,

And backing losers; and the local bucks

Egging me on with whiskies while I bragged

The man I was when huntsman to the Squire.

I'd have been prosperous if I'd took a farm

Of seventy acres, drove my gig and haggled

At Monday markets; now I've squandered all

My savings; nigh three hundred pound I got

As testimonial when I'd grown too stiff

And slow to press a beaten fox.

Continues.

He drowsed and was aware of silence heaped

Round him, unshaken as the steadfast walls;

Aqueous like floating rays of amber light,

Soaring and quivering in the wings of sleep, —

Silence and safety; and his mortal shore

Lipped by the inward, moonless waves of death.

Someone was holding water to his mouth.

He swallowed, unresisting; moaned and dropped

Through crimson gloom to darkness; and forgot

The opiate throb and ache that was his wound.

Water — calm, sliding green above the weir;

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 drowning eyes.

Rain; he could hear it rustling through the dark;

Fragrance and passionless music woven as one;

Warm rain on drooping roses; pattering showers

That soak the woods ; not the harsh rain that sweeps

Behind the thunder, but a trickling peace

Gently and slowly washing life away.

He stirred, shifting his body; then the pain

Leaped like a prowling beast, and gripped and tore

His groping dreams with grinding claws and fangs.

But someone was beside him; soon he lay

Shuddering because 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 campaigners 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.