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Halted
against the shade of a last hill,
They fed, and lying
easy, were at ease
And, finding comfortable chests
and knees,
Carelessly slept. But many there stood
still
To face the stark blank sky beyond the ridge,
Knowing their feet had come to the end of the world.
Marvelling they stood, and watched the long grass
swirled
But the May breeze, murmurous with wasp and
midge,
For though the summer oozed into their veins
Like an injected drug for their bodies' pains,
Sharp
on their souls hung the imminent line of grass,
Fearfully flashed the sky's mysterious glass.
Hour after hour they ponder the warm field, -
and the
far valley behind, where the buttercup
Had blessed
with gold their slow boots coming up,
Where even the
little brambles would not yield
But clutched and
clung to them like sorrowing hands.
[ ] they breathe
like trees unstirred.
Till like a cold gust
thrills the little word
At which each body and its
soul begird
And tighten them for battle. No alarms
No bugles, no high flags, no clamorous haste, -
Only
lift and flare of eyes that faced
The sun, like a
friend with whom their love is done.
O larger shone
that smile against the sun, -
Mightier than his whose
bounty these have spurned.
So, soon they topped
the hill, and raced together
Over an open stretch of
herb and heather
Exposed. And instantly the whole sky
burned
With fury against them; earth set sudden cups
In thousands for their blood; and the green slope
Chasmed and steepened sheer to infinite space.
Of
them who running on that last high place
Leapt to
swift unseen bullets, or went up
On the hot blast and
fury of hell's upsurge,
Or plunged and fell away past
this world's verge,
Some say God caught them even
before they fell.
But what say such as from
existence' brink
Ventured but drave too swift to
sink,
The few who rushed in the body to enter hell,
And there out-fiending all its fiends and flames
With
superhuman inhumanities,
Long-famous glories,
immemorial shames-
And crawling slowly back, have by
degrees
Regained cool peaceful air in wonder -
Why
speak not they of comrades that went under?
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