a few lines

The Soldier, by Rupert Brook.

If I should die, think only this of me;
That there's some corner of a foriegn field
That is for ever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England's breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by the suns of home.

And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given,
Her sights and sounds; dreams hapy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.


---


On Having Said Something Cruel, by Daniel Anderson

Imagine Helen on the sun-bright bow
As she was spirited away
Through filaments of rainbow in the spray,
Through lacy counterpanes of foam.
She might have guessed the thrill could never last,
Or that her suitor would not always be
A dashing, doting, love-struck boy.

But who among those mortals could foresee
The bloody decade lost at Troy,
Their swift ship lunging headlong home,
The sea behind them in their sunlit wake
A gold and copper scattering of coins,
Extravagantly spent like so much love
Or all the bastard sons of Priam's loins?