DUST1

When the white flame in us is gone,
And we that lost the world's delight
Stiffen in darkness, left alone

To crumble in our separate night;

When your swift hair is quiet in death,
And through the lips corruption thrust
Has stilled the labour of my breath-

When we are dust, when we are dust!—

Not dead, not undesirous yet,

Still sentient, still unsatisfied,

We'll ride the air, and shine and flit,
Around the places where we died,

And dance as dust before the sun,
And light of foot, and unconfined,
Hurry from road to road, and run

About the errands of the wind.

And every mote, on earth or air,

Will speed and gleam, down later days,

And like a secret pilgrim fare

By eager and invisible ways,

1 From The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke. Copyright, 1915, by John Lane Company and reprinted by permission.

Nor ever rest, nor ever lie,

Till, beyond thinking, out of view, One mote of all the dust that's I Shall meet one atom that was you.

Then in some garden hushed from wind,
Warm in a sunset's afterglow,

The lovers in the flowers will find
A sweet and strange unquiet grow

Upon the peace; and, past desiring,
So high a beauty in the air,
And such a light, and such a quiring,
And such a radiant ecstasy there,

They'll know not if it's fire, or dew,
Or out of earth, or in the height,
Singing, or flame, or scent, or hue,

Or two that pass, in light, to light,

Out of the garden higher, higher . .
But in that instant they shall learn

The shattering fury of our fire,

And the weak passionless hearts will burn

And faint in that amazing glow,

Until the darkness close above;

And they will know-poor fools, they'll know!

One moment, what it is to love.

THE SOLDIER 1

If I should die, think only this of me;

That there's some corner of a foreign field That is for ever England. There shall be

In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England's breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.

And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less

Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England
given;

Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.

Winifred M. Letts

Winifred M. Letts was born in Ireland in 1887, and her early work concerned itself almost entirely with the humor and pathos found in her immediate surroundings. Her Songs from Leinster (1913) is her most characteristic collection; a volume full of the poetry of simple people and humble souls. Although she has called herself a back-door sort of bard," she is particularly effective in the old ballad measure and in her quaint portrayal

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1 From The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke. Copyright, 1915, by John Lane Company and reprinted by permission.

of Irish peasants rather than of Gaelic kings and pagan heroes. She has also written three novels, five books for children, a later volume of Poems of the War and, during the conflict, served as a nurse at various base hospitals.

GRANDEUR

Poor Mary Byrne is dead,
An' all the world may see
Where she lies upon her bed
Just as fine as quality.

She lies there still and white,

With candles either hand

That'll guard her through the night:
Sure she never was so grand.

She holds her rosary,

Her hands clasped on her breast.

Just as dacint as can be

In the habit she's been dressed.

In life her hands were red
With every sort of toil,

But they're white now she is dead,
An' they've sorra mark of soil.

The neighbours come and go,

They kneel to say a prayer,

I wish herself could know

Of the way she's lyin' there.

It was work from morn till night,
And hard she earned her bread:
But I'm thinking she's a right
To be aisy now she's dead.

When other girls were gay,
At wedding or at fair,
She'd be toiling all the day,

Not a minyit could she spare.

An' no one missed her face,
Or sought her in a crowd,
But to-day they throng the place
Just to see her in her shroud.

The creature in her life

Drew trouble with each breath;

She was just "poor Jim Byrne's wife"But she's lovely in her death.

I wish the dead could see
The splendour of a wake,
For it's proud herself would be
Of the keening that they make.

Och! little Mary Byrne,

You welcome every guest, Is it now you take your turn To be merry with the rest?