I'm through with it."

And a great strength rose in me,

And a white light filled me;

Waves of unbearable love washed over me,

And I knew I could fight no more.

The charge had rolled on

I slipped away,

Crying, "It is over-over forever-men shall kill no more."

I shouted the news,

I summoned the soldiers.

The tongues of fire came down upon me

"Let the guns rot," I said,

And the cannon rust

Look in your brother's eyes

And clasp his hand."

So they took me and tried me,
And I must die.

But for telling the truth-
Not for what they say.

It will surely be, little mother.
The sin that was little at first

In the savage forest

When men fought with clubs,

The sin we have gorged and glutted

With gases and bombs,

And machine-guns,

And battle-ships of sea and air-
It has grown heavy and monstrous,
It will be cast off like the plague.
There will be a new nation-

A Letter of Farewell

No one shall stop us from loving each other.

SUPREME LAUGHTER

Men laugh

When boys stand in the street

And fight because each fears the other-
For no other reason.

THE PLOUGHMAN

Under the long fell's stony eaves
The ploughman, going up and down,
Ridge after ridge man's tide-mark leaves,
And turn the hard gray soil to brown.

Striding, he measures out the earth
In lines of life, to rain and sun;
And every year that comes to birth
Sees him still striding on and on.

The seasons change, and then return;
Yet still, in blind unsparing ways,
However I may shrink or yearn,
The ploughman measures out my days.
His acre brought forth roots last year;
This year it bears the gleamy grain;
Next spring shall seedling grass appear:
Then roots and corn and grass again.
Five times the young corn's pallid green
I have seen spread and change and thrill;
Five times the reapers I have seen
Go creeping up the far-off hill:

And, as the unknowing ploughman climbs
Slowly and inveterately,

I wonder long how many times

The corn will spring again for me.

Gordon Bottomley

POEMS

MY LADY SURRENDERS

How did She abdicate?

Was it with soft sighs,

And pretty feignings of a lover's state?
Or was it solemn-wise,

With altar offerings and rapt vows?
Oh, no!-when Love himself was there
Most housewifely she bound her hair,

And was off across the fields to milk the cows.

THE SILENCE

When I meet you, I greet you with a stare, Like a poor shy child at a fair.

I will not let you love me yet am I weak, I love you so intensely that I cannot speak. When you are gone I stand apart,

And whisper to your image in my heart.

SENTIMENTS

Windswept from where they grew,

These tender flowers lie dead.

How many things were true

Had they been left unsaid!