skim.

Dark clouds that intercept the sun
Go there in Spring to weep,
And there, when Autumn days are done,
White mists lie down to sleep.

Sunrise and sunset crown with gold
The peaks of ageless stone,
Where winds have thundered from of old
And storms have set their throne.

No echoes of the world afar
Disturb it night or day,
But sun and shadow, moon and star
Pass and repass for aye.

'Twas in the grey of early dawn,
When first the lake we spied,
And fragments of a cloud were drawn
Half down the mountain side.

Along the shore a heron flew,
And from a speck on high,
That hovered in the deepening blue,
We heard the fish-hawk's cry.

Among the cloud-capt solitudes,
No sound the silence broke,
Save when, in whispers down the woods,
The guardian mountains spoke.

Through tangled brush and dewy brake,
Returning whence we came,
We passed in silence, and the lake
We left without a name."

There is not much in the poem, but, like a gramophone record, it
carried our minds away into another world. For myself, who remembered
the scenery that surrounded me when I wrote it and who now, in that
filthy hole, looked at the faces of young men who in two or three
hours were to brave death in one of the biggest tasks that had been
laid upon us, the words stirred up all sorts of conflicting emotions.
The recitation seemed to be so well received that I ventured on
another--in fact several more--and then I noticed a curious thing. It
was the preternatural silence of my audience. Generally speaking, when
I recited my poems, one of the officers would suddenly remember he had
to dictate a letter, or a despatch rider would come in with orders.
Now, no one stirred. I paused in the middle of a poem and looked round
to see what was the matter, and there to my astonishment, I found (p. 309)
that everyone, except the young Intelligence Officer, was sound asleep.
It was the best thing that could have happened and I secretly consoled
myself with the reflection that the one who was unable to sleep was
the officer who specialized in intelligence. We both laughed quietly,
and then I whispered to him, "We had better go and find some place
where we, too, can get a little rest." He climbed over the prostrate
forms and followed me down the passage to a little excavation where
the Germans had started to make a new passage. We lay down side by
side on th