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XXII
Between the Trenches
HOW strangely did you break upon
That sudden land beyond life's veil?
A moment did your spirit fail,
As mine when first I knew you gone
The last dark journey, saw your clay
So vacant, loveless, borne away,
And the features, that I loved to scan,
The same but of another man
Unknown—a bright dream all undone.
What stranger did the bearers lift
In their soiled stretcher lightly laid
Where I had seen you fall adrift
From life—had time to be afraid?
—That, all of you that had breathed and moved,
That, none of you that lived and loved,
A hush that so I seemed to hate
For claiming still its lost inmate,
A false pretence, a solid shade.
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