As 'twere a careless trifle.
--MACBETH, Act I., sc. iv.
Our second son, Herbert, began his career as a lawyer. He had a
sweet and gentle nature and much originality. He was a poet and
wrote the following some years before the Great War of 1914,
through which he served from the first day to the last:
THE VOLUNTEER
[Footnote: Reprinted from The Volunteer and other Poems, by kind
permission of Messrs. Sidgwick & Jackson.]
Here lies a clerk who half his life had spent
Toiling at ledgers in a city grey,
Thinking that so his days would drift away
With no lance broken in life's tournament;
Yet ever 'twixt the book and his bright eyes
The gleaming eagles of the legions came,
And horsemen, charging under phantom skies,
Went thundering past beneath the oriflamme.
And now those waiting dreams are satisfied,
From twilight to the halls of dawn he went;
His lance is broken--but he lies content
With that high hour, he wants no recompense,
Who found his battle in the last resort,
Nor needs he any hearse to bear him hence,
Who goes to join the men at Agincourt.
He wrote this when he was in Flanders in the war:
THE FALLEN SPIRE (A Flemish Village)
[Footnote: Reprinted from The Volunteer and other Poems, by kind
permission of Messrs. Sidgwick & Jackson.]
That spire is gone that slept for centuries,
Mirrored among the lilies, calm and low;
And now the water holds but empty skies
Through which the rivers of the thunder flow.
Pages:
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346