I. PEACE

Now, God be thanked Who has matched us with His hour,
⁠And caught our youth, and wakened us from sleeping,
With hand made sure, clear eye, and sharpened power,
⁠To turn, as swimmers into cleanness leaping,
Glad from a world grown old and cold and weary,
⁠Leave the sick hearts that honour could not move,
And half-men, and their dirty songs and dreary,
⁠And all the little emptiness of love!

Oh! we, who have known shame, we have found release there,
⁠Where there's no ill, no grief, but sleep has mending,
⁠⁠Naught broken save this body, lost but breath;
Nothing to shake the laughing heart's long peace there
⁠But only agony, and that has ending;
⁠⁠And the worst friend and enemy is but Death.

***

II. SAFETY

Dear! of all happy in the hour, most blest
⁠He who has found our hid security,
Assured in the dark tides of the world that rest,
⁠And heard our word, 'Who is so safe as we?'
We have found safety with all things undying,
⁠The winds, and morning, tears of men and mirth,
The deep night, and birds singing, and clouds flying,
⁠And sleep, and freedom, and the autumnal earth.
We have built a house that is not for Time's throwing.
⁠We have gained a peace unshaken by pain for ever.
War knows no power. Safe shall be my going,
⁠Secretly armed against all death's endeavour;
Safe though all safety's lost; safe where men fall;
And if these poor limbs die, safest of all.

***

III. THE DEAD

Blow out, you bugles, over the rich Dead!
⁠There's none of these so lonely and poor of old,
⁠But, dying, has made us rarer gifts than gold.
These laid the world away; poured out the red
Sweet wine of youth; gave up the years to be
⁠Of work and joy, and that unhoped serene,
⁠That men call age; and those who would have been,
Their sons, they gave, their immortality.

Blow, bugles, blow! They brought us, for our dearth,
⁠Holiness, lacked so long, and Love, and Pain.
Honour has come back, as a king, to earth,
⁠And paid his subjects with a royal wage;
And Nobleness walks in our ways again;
⁠And we have come into our heritage.

***

IV. THE DEAD

These hearts were woven of human joys and cares,
⁠Washed marvellously with sorrow, swift to mirth.
The years had given them kindness. Dawn was theirs,
⁠And sunset, and the colours of the earth.
These had seen movement, and heard music; known
⁠Slumber and waking; loved; gone proudly friended;
Felt the quick stir of wonder; sat alone;
⁠Touched flowers and furs and cheeks. All this is ended.

There are waters blown by changing winds to laughter
And lit by the rich skies, all day. And after,
⁠Frost, with a gesture, stays the waves that dance
And wandering loveliness. He leaves a white
⁠Unbroken glory, a gathered radiance,
A width, a shining peace, under the night.

***

V. THE SOLDIER

If I should die, think only this of me:
⁠That there's some corner of a foreign 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 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 happy as her day;
⁠And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
⁠⁠In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.

***

THE TREASURE

When colour goes home into the eyes,
⁠And lights that shine are shut again
With dancing girls and sweet birds' cries
⁠Behind the gateways of the brain;
And that no-place which gave them birth, shall close
The rainbow and the rose:—

Still may Time hold some golden space
⁠Where I'll unpack that scented store
Of song and flower and sky and face,
⁠And count, and touch, and turn them o'er,
Musing upon them; as a mother, who
Has watched her children all the rich day through,
Sits, quiet-handed, in the fading light,
When children sleep, ere night.