Poets' Corner

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 647, 26 April 1929, Page 16

Poets' Corner

FIFTEEN YEARS AFTER: ANZAC (Written for THE SUN.) The quarrel is almost forgotten: only the wounds remain Deep in the breasts of women where the heads of sons have lain. Almost the cause is forgotten, but the fields that were once fallow lie Baring their wooden crosses mutely toward the sky. The horror and pain of wartime, the nightmare of terror and hate That mangled and massacred bodies once ardent and fine and straight; The waste and the criminal maiming, the bloody and useless toll . . . All these are so nearly forgotten in the years’ drowsed onward roll. Yet dark in the eyes of women the crucified dreams lie deep, That beat in the night round those far shores where the ghostly crosses sleep. . . . And almost the quarrel's forgotten: only the wounds remain, Recdlled by a poppy's symbol of sacrifice and pain. 27.0. Auckland. A REQUIEM MASS Mademoiselle S.H., Saint Mddard's Church, Paris. (Written for The Sun.) Little plump French girl, with eyes of hazel gleaming, and hair in plaits, you have said good-bye to Death that is by courtesy entitled Life, leaving untried the dreams that you were dreaming—the fierce pressure of lips and quickdrawn breath, the ecstasies of lover or of wife. You were not killed where the proud trumpet rang in the flush of war, nor seeking a diadem, but in the still closed bloom of maidenhead. Death is at most a transitory pang—in that new Life you find when the flesh is dead, even while the choir is singing your requiem and the bourdon murmurs lika a muffled drum, you'll softly pity those who have not come. GEOFFREY DE MONTALK. Hotel de France, Paris. 3 p.a.. 24th May. 1928.