Page:A treasury of war poetry, British and American poems of the world war, 1914-1919.djvu/360

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360
THE WOUNDED

CONVALESCENCE

FROM out the dragging vastness of the sea,
Wave-fettered, bound in sinuous seaweed strands,
He toils toward the rounding beach, and stands
One moment, white and dripping, silently,
Cut like a cameo in lazuli,
Then falls, betrayed by shifting shells, and lands
Prone in the jeering water, and his hands
Clutch for support where no support can be.
So up, and down, and forward, inch by inch,
He gains upon the shore, where poppies glow
And sandflies dance their little lives away.
The sucking waves retard, and tighter clinch
The weeds about him, but the land-winds blow,
And in the sky there blooms the sun of May.


GASSED

HE is blind and nevermore
Shall the shining earth entrance
Him, whose life once lay before
Ardour like a bright romance;
But another world is given
Youth thus robbed of half a heaven.


His companions do not speak
When they would accost him: they
Need but touch his hand or cheek,
Then the sightless eyes survey
Love with love, which apprehends
Instantly compassionate friends.


In each several kindly hand
Lies a warm identity:
Blind folk see and understand
Those whom they may never see,
And the deaf may hear Love's word
Uttered, though it be unheard.