LXXIV
The Field of Honour
MUD-STAINED and rain-sodden, a sport for flies and lice,
Out of this vilest life into vile death he goes;
His grave will soon be ready, where the grey rat knows
There is fresh meat slain for her;—our mortal bodies rise,
In those foul scampering bellies, quick—and yet, those eyes
That stare on life still out of death, and will not close,
Seeing in a flash the Crown of Honour, and the Rose
Of Glory wreathed about the Cross of Sacrifice,
Died radiant. May some English traveller to-day
Leaving his city cares behind him, journeying west
To the brief solace of a sporting holiday,
Quicken again with boyish ardour, as he sees,
For a moment, Windsor Castle towering on the crest
And Eton still enshrined among remembering trees.
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