h.

IN TIME OF "THE BREAKING OF NATIONS"

Only a man harrowing clods
In a slow silent walk,
With an old horse that stumbles and nods
Half asleep as they stalk.

Only thin smoke without flame
From the heaps of couch grass:
Yet this will go onward the same
Though Dynasties pass.

Yonder a maid and her wight
Come whispering by;
War's annals will fade into night
Ere their story die.

GOING AND STAYING

The moving sun-shapes on the spray,
The sparkles where the brook was flowing,
Pink faces, plightings, moonlit May,--
These were the things we wished would stay;
But they were going.

Seasons of blankness as of snow,
The silent bleed of a world decaying,
The moan of multitudes in woe,--
These were the things we wished would go;
But they were staying.

THE MAN HE KILLED

(_From "The Dynasts"_)

"Had he and I but met
By some old ancient inn,
We should have sat us down to wet
Right many a nipperkin!

"But ranged as infantry,
And staring face to face,
I shot at him as he at me,
And killed him in his place.

"I shot him dead because--
Because he was my foe,
Just so: my foe of course he was;
That's clear enough; although

"He thought he'd 'list, perhaps,
Off-hand like--just as I--
Was out of work--had sold his traps--
No other reason why.

"Yes; quaint and curious war is!
You shoot a fellow down
You'd treat, if met where any bar is,
Or help to half-a-crown."

_Robert Bridges_

Robert Bridges was born in 1844 and educated at Eton and Corpus
Christi College, Oxford. After traveling extensively, he studied
medicine in London and practiced until 1882. Most of his poems, like
his occasional plays, are classical in tone as well as treatment. He
was appointed poet laureate in 1913, following Alfred Austin. His
command of the secrets of rhythm and a subtle versification give his
lines a firm delicacy and beauty of pattern.

WINTER NIGHTFALL

The day begins to droop,--
Its course is done:
But nothing tells the place
Of the setting sun.

The hazy darkness deepens,
And up the lane
You may hear, but cannot see,
The homing wain.

An engine pants and hums
In the farm hard by:
I