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| IN the glad revels, in the happy fêtes, | |
| When cheeks are flushed, and glasses gilt and pearled | |
| With the sweet wine of France that concentrates | |
| The sunshine and the beauty of the world, | |
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| Drink sometimes, you whose footsteps yet may tread | 5 |
| The undisturbed, delightful paths of Earth, | |
| To those whose blood, in pious duty shed, | |
| Hallows the soil where that same wine had birth. | |
| |
| Here, by devoted comrades laid away, | |
| Along our lines they slumber where they fell, | 10 |
| Beside the crater at the Ferme d’Alger | |
| And up the bloody slopes of La Pompelle, | |
| |
| And round the city whose cathedral towers | |
| The enemies of Beauty dared profane, | |
| And in the mat of multicolored flowers | 15 |
| That clothe the sunny chalk-fields of Champagne. | |
| |
| Under the little crosses where they rise | |
| The soldier rests. Now round him undismayed | |
| The cannon thunders, and at night he lies | |
| At peace beneath the eternal fusillade … | 20 |
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| That other generations might possess— | |
| From shame and menace free in years to come— | |
| A richer heritage of happiness, | |
| He marched to that heroic martyrdom. | |
| |
| Esteeming less the forfeit that he paid | 25 |
| Than undishonored that his flag might float | |
| Over the towers of liberty, he made | |
| His breast the bulwark and his blood the moat. | |
| |
| Obscurely sacrificed, his nameless tomb, | |
| Bare of the sculptor’s art, the poet’s lines, | 30 |
| Summer shall flush with poppy-fields in bloom, | |
| And Autumn yellow with maturing vines. | |
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| There the grape-pickers at their harvesting | |
| Shall lightly tread and load their wicker trays, | |
| Blessing his memory as they toil and sing | 35 |
| In the slant sunshine of October days … | |
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| I love to think that if my blood should be | |
| So privileged to sink where his has sunk, | |
| I shall not pass from Earth entirely, | |
| But when the banquet rings, when healths are drunk. | 40 |
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| And faces that the joys of living fill | |
| Glow radiant with laughter and good cheer, | |
| In beaming cups some spark of me shall still | |
| Brim toward the lips that once I held so dear. | |
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| So shall one coveting no higher plane | 45 |
| Than nature clothes in color and flesh and tone, | |
| Even from the grave put upward to attain | |
| The dreams youth cherished and missed and might have known; | |
| |
| And that strong need that strove unsatisfied | |
| Toward earthly beauty in all forms it wore, | 50 |
| Not death itself shall utterly divide | |
| From the beloved shapes it thirsted for. | |
| |
| Alas, how many an adept for whose arms | |
| Life held delicious offerings perished here, | |
| How many in the prime of all that charms, | 55 |
| Crowned with all gifts that conquer and endear! | |
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| Honor them not so much with tears and flowers, | |
| But you with whom the sweet fulfilment lies, | |
| Where in the anguish of atrocious hours | |
| Turned their last thoughts and closed their dying eyes, | 60 |
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| Rather when music on bright gatherings lays | |
| Its tender spell, and joy is uppermost, | |
| Be mindful of the men they were, and raise | |
| Your glasses to them in one silent toast. | |
| |
| Drink to them—amorous of dear Earth as well, | 65 |
| They asked no tribute lovelier than this— | |
| And in the wine that ripened where they fell, | |
Oh, frame your lips as though it were a kiss.
Champagne, France,
July, 1915 | |
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