Again the quiet grassy road I see
By rock and fern down-sloping to the mere,
Again with joy the Dunna-beck I hear
Chanting its ancient song of liberty;
The robin from the twilight in the tree
Lets loose his careless carol far and near,
While overhead the calm white moon doth
steer
And sunset’s galleon-clouds of gold go free.
But I am a prisoner to dark sorrowful thought,
And even in this most dear sequester’d spot
I cannot wander to the fields of peace;
All day I hear the scream of shell and shot,
All night I dream what havoc war hath wrought
Where league-long battles raging cannot
cease.
(The European War 1914-1915 Poems, p. 97)