More Songs by the Fighting Men - Soldiers Poets: Second Series. Galloway Kyle

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      I LOVED you in Babylon.

       Sweet Heart! you were a dancer then

       And I watched where your little feet

       Just stirred the dust within the market-place.

       You passed me slow and down the sunlit street,

       I saw the longing in the eyes of men

       ​Who caught the smile which glorified your face.

       A moment—little heart!—and you were gone;

       But where you passed—you knew it not—

       I marked and kissed the spot.

       I loved you in royal Rome.

       Sweet Heart! you were a vestal there

       And I came to offer my gift.

       A poor slave with a pigeon dearly bought,

       Its feathers purer than snow's whitest drift.

       With fevered soul I made my silent prayer

       Though I could never touch the bliss I sought,

       While holy Vesta's temple was your home.

       A feather fell—how should you see?—

       Till death it stayed with me.

       I love you in London town.

       Sweet Heart! you are a princess now

       And the blue blood runs in your veins;

       While I, alas! am but of common birth

       Whom war is splashing with its crimson stains.

       A soldier who has taken Honour's vow

       To share the grandest task on God's wide earth.

       One night you wore red roses in your gown.

       A petal dropped—you never guessed—

       I hid it in my breast.

      ​So shall I still love on.

       Sweet Heart! your soul was close to me

       When the world's first dreams were made.

       We two were whispering love at God's own side

       Or ever sunlight on the mountains played.

       And through a wilderness of worlds I see

       A time when reunited we shall glide

       Unto the Soul of souls, the Perfect One.

       Pass, life or lives! you'll understand

       When Love gives me your hand.

       Loss

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      THE world went blind to-day

       Groping with shattered faith.

       And in the lonely awful night

       Madness stalked, taunting me.

       The gibbering ghoulish wraith

       Of dreams unrealised

       Sprang up and mocked my way;

       Just that in one wild spot beyond the sea,

       A dear heart that I prized

       Passed to the Silent Light.

      ​They say his soul lives on—

       That I shall find

       Him safe in God's eternity.

       To-night, to-night, this aching in my breast,

       This wildness in my mind

       Cries to the farthest cruel star:—

       "O Thou to Whom his soul has gone,

       Spare me his lips love-prest!

       In this pained night eternity is far—

       God! give his dear warm body back to me."

      Reginald F. Clements, Sec. Lieut., Royal Sussex Regiment

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      REGINALD F. CLEMENTS

      2nd Lieut., Royal Sussex Regiment

       Immortality

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      I MAY not wait to hear⁠

       What says the wind that sweeps across the lea,

       And yet I know it speaks, and in its voice

       There is some word to make my heart rejoice,

       Some message speeding on eternally

      ⁠That God has not made clear!

      ⁠I may not wait to find

       The secret of the seething sea that flows

       Nor ever rests; yet must there be some plan

       Above the most exalted thought of man,

       Some destiny that none but Heaven knows,

      ⁠And Heaven keeps me blind!

      ⁠I may not wait to know

       The secret of the towering mountain height

       That makes my little self so small and frail

       And bids me rest awhile behind the veil,

       Because so far beyond it shines the light

      ⁠And God would have it so!

      ​⁠I may not wait; I see

       The hosts of Righteousness go forth to slay

       The armies of a people that would turn

       From all that makes man's nobler soul to burn,

       And yet I feel as now I take my way

      ⁠My Immortality!

       Finis Coronat Opus

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      THOUGH I have lived as one whose soul is dead

       Nor ever touched my heart-strings to awake.

       Some harmony of love that else had fled

       From where diviner semblance it might take;

       Though I have scorned to hear when there has called

       The sterner voice within that bade me rise

       And spurn the sloth that held my will enthralled

       And veiled my loftier vision to the skies;

       This of my slumbering spirit I entreat,

       That when I fall and may not rise again,

       Or ever this faint heart no more shall beat,

       And I have lost the stimulant of pain,

       That I some vestige of renown may leave—

       Some flower to which posterity may cleave.

      Leonard Niell Cook, M.C., Sec. Lieut.,