Page:Poems Kennedy.djvu/113

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And he sees in a flash his native hut,
  Where the foeman's banners float—
And he's German again, or French, or Slav
  At thrill of a bugle note!

For a man may wander across the world
  And dwell 'neath a stranger's sky,
But the call of the blood will cleave all space
  When it comes in a battle cry;
And the nest he built and the brood he reared
  Are left to an alien flag
While he turns him home, with his soul aflame,
  To die for a silken rag.


INTERNED
BY cable held and promise bound
Far from the vasty deep,
We who were free as sea birds fly
Our sullen vigil keep.
Unplumed of smoke our funnels rust,
No pulse our engines know,
And keels that joyed to cut the wave
Rock 1dly to and fro.

Outside, beyond the harbor's mouth,
The surge of war goes by,
But here within this prison-hold
Only the curlews cry.

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