I
FROM you, Beethoven, Bach, Mozart, | |
| The substance of my dreams took fire. | |
| You built cathedrals in my heart, | |
| And lit my pinnacled desire. | |
| You were the ardour and the bright | 5 |
| Procession of my thoughts toward prayer. | |
| You were the wrath of storm, the light | |
| On distant citadels aflare. | |
| |
II
Great names, I cannot find you now | |
| In these loud years of youth that strives | 10 |
| Through doom toward peace: upon my brow | |
| I wear a wreath of banished lives. | |
| You have no part with lads who fought | |
| And laughed and suffered at my side. | |
| Your fugues and symphonies have brought | 15 |
| No memory of my friends who died. | |
| |
III
For when my brain is on their track, | |
| In slangy speech I call them back. | |
| With fox-trot tunes their ghosts I charm. | |
| ‘Another little drink won’t do us any harm.’ | 20 |
| I think of rag-time; a bit of rag-time; | |
| And see their faces crowding round | |
| To the sound of the syncopated beat. | |
| They’ve got such jolly things to tell, | |
Home from hell with a Blighty wound so neat...
. . . . | 25 |
| And so the song breaks off; and I’m alone. | |
| They’re dead ... For God’s sake stop that gramophone. | |
