TWO SONNETS

I

Saints have adored the lofty soul of you.
Poets have whitened at your high renown.
We stand among the many millions who
Do hourly wait to pass your pathway down.
You, so familiar, once were strange: we tried
To live as of your presence unaware.

But now in every road on every side

We see your straight and steadfast signpost there.

I think it like that signpost in my land
Hoary and tall, which pointed me to go
Upward, into the hills, on the right hand,

Where the mists swim and the winds shriek and blow,

A homeless land and friendless, but a land

I did not know and that I wished to know.

II

Such, such is death: no triumph: no defeat: A
Only an empty pail, a slate rubbed clean,

A merciful putting away of what has been.

And this we know: Death is not Life effete,
Life crushed, the broken pail. We who have seen
So marvellous things know well the end not yet. A

Victor and vanquished are a-one in death:

Coward and brave: friend, foe. Ghosts do not say, "Come, what was your record when you drew breath?" But a big blot has hid each yesterday

So poor, so manifestly incomplete.

And your bright Promise, withered long and sped,
Is touched; stirs, rises, opens and grows sweet
And blossoms and is you, when you are dead.

TO GERMANY

You are blind like us. Your hurt no man designed,
And no man claimed the conquest of your land.
But gropers both, through fields of thought confined,
We stumble and we do not understand.

You only saw your future bigly planned,
And we the tapering paths of our own mind,
And in each other's dearest ways we stand,

And hiss and hate. And the blind fight the blind.

When it is peace, then we may view again
With new-won eyes each other's truer form
And wonder. Grown more loving-kind and warm
We'll grasp firm hands and laugh at the old pain,
When it is peace. But until peace, the storm,
The darkness and the thunder and the rain.

Robert Graves

Robert Graves was born in England of mixed Irish, Scottish and German stock, July 26, 1895. One of "the three rhyming musketeers" (the other two being the poets Siegfried Sassoon and Robert Nichols), he was one of the several writers who, roused by the war and giving himself to his country, refused to glorify warfare or chant new hymns of hate. Like Sassoon, Graves also reacts against the storm of fury and blood-lust (see his poem "To a Dead Boche"), but, fortified by a lighter and more whimsical spirit, where Sassoon is violent, Graves is volatile; where Sassoon is bitter Graves is almost blithe.

An unconquerable gayety rises from his Fairies and Fusiliers (1917), a surprising and healing humor that is warmly individual. In Country Sentiment (1919) Graves turns to a fresh and more serious simplicity. A buoyant fancy ripples beneath the most archaic of his ballads and a quaintly original turn of mind saves them from their own echoes.

IT'S A QUEER TIME

It's hard to know if you're alive or dead
When steel and fire go roaring through your head.

One moment you'll be crouching at your gun
Traversing, mowing heaps down half in fun:
The next, you choke and clutch at your right breast-
No time to think-leave all-and off you go
To Treasure Island where the Spice winds blow,
To lovely groves of mango, quince, and lime-
Breathe no good-bye, but ho, for the Red West!
It's a queer time.

You're charging madly at them yelling "Fag!"
When somehow something gives and your feet drag.
You fall and strike your head; yet feel no pain
And find . . . you're digging tunnels through the hay
In the Big Barn, 'cause it's a rainy day.
Oh, springy hay, and lovely beams to climb!
You're back in the old sailor suit again.
It's a queer time.

Or you'll be dozing safe in your dug-out-
A great roar the trench shakes and falls about—
You're struggling, gasping, struggling, then . . . hullo!
Elsie comes tripping gaily down the trench,

Hanky to nose-that lyddite makes a stench-
Getting her pinafore all over grime.
Funny! because she died ten years ago!
It's a queer time.

The trouble is, things happen much too quick;
Up jump the Boches, rifles thump and click,
You stagger, and the whole scene fades away:
Even good Christians don't like passing straight
From Tipperary or their Hymn of Hate

To Alleluiah-chanting, and the chime

Of golden harps . . . and . . . I'm not well today . . It's a queer time.

NEGLECTFUL EDWARD

Nancy

Edward, back from the Indian Sea,
"What have you brought for Nancy?"

Edward

"A rope of pearls and a gold earring,
And a bird of the East that will not sing.
A carven tooth, a box with a key-"

Nancy

"God be praised you are back," says she,
"Have you nothing more for your Nancy?"

Edward

"Long as I sailed the Indian Sea
I gathered all for your fancy:
Toys and silk and jewels I bring,

And a bird of the East that will not sing:

What more can you want, dear girl, from me?"

Nancy

"God be praised you are back," said she, "Have you nothing better for Nancy?"

Edward

"Safe and home from the Indian Sea, And nothing to take your fancy?"

Nancy

"You can keep your pearls and your gold earring, And your bird of the East that will not sing, But, Ned, have you nothing more for me. Than heathenish gew-gaw toys?" says she, "Have you nothing better for Nancy?"

I WONDER WHAT IT FEELS LIKE TO BE DROWNED?

Look at my knees,

That island rising from the steamy seas!
The candle's a tall lightship; my two hands

Are boats and barges anchored to the sands,

With mighty cliffs all round;

They're full of wine and riches from far lands...

I wonder what it feels like to be drowned?

I can make caves,

By lifting up the island and huge waves

And storms, and then with head and ears well under Blow bubbles with a monstrous roar like thunder, A bull-of-Bashan sound.

The seas run high and the boats split asunder

I wonder what it feels like to be drowned?