Eternal cold of silence, where each sound Dies in its birth, and Death's pale henchmen meet With soft Lethean traps unwary feet Or ride with hell's white steed and slavering hound;...
He, born of my girlhood, is dead, while my life is yet young in my heart Ere the breasts where his baby lips fed have forgotten their softness, we part....
Grant me a moment of peace, Let me but open mine eyes, Forgetting the empire of lies And warfare's majestic increase Of national folly and hate; Ere I return to my fate, Grant me a moment of peace....
When fires have burnt your forest bare and black, And you are parched and dizzy, and search in vain For pools in dust unvisited of rain, And shamble, lost, along a shimmering track,...
Hail and farewell to those who fought and died, Not laughingly adventurous, nor pale With idiot hatred, nor to fill the tale Of racial selfishness and patriot pride,...
Out of the pregnant darkness, where from fire To glimmering fire the watchword leaps, The dirge floats up from those who build the pyre High and still higher That yet shall blaze across the verminous deeps....