How far now to the last of battles?
(Listen, the guns are loud to-night!)
Whatever comes, I will strike once surely,
Once because of an ancient tryst,
Once for love of your dear dead faces
Ere I come unto you, Shapes in the mist.
His prayer is:
O God, the God of battles,
To us who intercede
Give only strength to follow
Until there 's no more need;
And grant us at that ending
Of the unkindly quest
To come unto the quiet isles
Beyond Death's starry West;
and his comfort is that there are still men who, fearing nothing,
Love home above their own hearts' blood
And honour more than life.
In one of those letters from which I have already quoted, Harold Parry writes to his father, on 13th February 1916, 'I saw in the Mirror for Wednesday or Thursday a photograph of one of Mr. D——'s friends, H. R. F., an Exonian and poet of no mean ability. He paid the final price on 24th January, and England has lost
