I slumbered with your poems on my breast Spread open as I dropped them half read through Like dove wings on a figure on a tomb To see, if, in a dream they brought of you, I might not have the chance I missed in life Through some delay, and call you to your face First soldier, and then poet, and then both, Who died a soldier-poet of your race. I meant, you meant, that nothing should remain Unsaid between us, brother, and this remained -- And one thing more that was not then to say: The Victory for what it lost and gained. You went to meet the shell's embrace of fire On Vimy Ridge; and when you fell that day The war seemed over more for you than me, But now for me than you -- the other way. How over, though, for even me who knew The foe thrust back unsafe beyond the Rhine, If I was not to speak of it to you And see you pleased once more with words of mine? | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...A BOOK OF AIRS: SONG 12. A RENUNCIATION by THOMAS CAMPION A CLEVER WOMAN by MARY ELIZABETH COLERIDGE TIME, REAL AND IMAGINARY; AN ALLEGORY by SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE IMPRESSION by EDMUND WILLIAM GOSSE THE BLESSED VIRGIN, COMPARED TO THE AIR WE BREATHE by GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS PUCK AND THE FAIRY, FR. A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM by WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE TO THE MEMORY OF THE LATE REV. GILBERT WAKEFIELD by LUCY AIKEN |