Champagne (1914–15)
In the glad revels, in the happy fetes,When cheeks are flushed, and glasses gilt and pearledWith the sweet wine of France that concentratesThe sunshine and the beauty of the world,
Drink sometimes, you whose footsteps yet may treadThe 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,Beside the crater at the Ferme d’AlgerAnd up the bloody slopes of La Pompelle,
And round the city whose cathedral towersThe enemies of Beauty dared profane,And in the mat of multicolored flowersThat clothe the sunny chalk-fields of Champagne.
Under the little crosses where they riseThe soldier rests. Now round him undismayedThe cannon thunders, and at night he liesAt peace beneath the eternal fusillade…
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 paidThan undishonored that his flag might floatOver the towers of liberty, he madeHis breast the bulwark and his blood the moat.
Obscurely sacrificed, his nameless tomb,Bare of the sculptor’s art, the poet’s lines,Summer shall flush with poppy-fields in bloom,And Autumn yellow with maturing vines.
There the grape-pickers at their harvestingShall lightly tread and load their wicker trays,Blessing his memory as they toil and singIn the slant sunshine of October days…
I love to think that if my blood should beSo privileged to sink where his has sunk,I shall not pass from Earth entirely,But when the banquet rings, when healths are drunk,
And faces that the joys of living fillGlow radiant with laughter and good cheer,In beaming cups some spark of me shall stillBrim toward the lips that once I held so dear.
So shall one coveting no higher planeThan nature clothes in color and flesh and tone,Even from the grave put upward to attainThe dreams youth cherished and missed and might have known;
And that strong need that strove unsatisfiedToward earthly beauty in all forms it wore,Not death itself shall utterly divideFrom the beloved shapes it thirsted for.
Alas, how many an adept for whose armsLife held delicious offerings perished here,How many in the prime of all that charms,Crowned with all gifts that conquer and endear!
Honor them not so much with tears and flowers,But you with whom the sweet fulfilment lies,Where in the anguish of atrocious hoursTurned their last thoughts and closed their dying eyes,
Rather when music on bright gatherings laysIts tender spell, and joy is uppermost,Be mindful of the men they were, and raiseYour glasses to them in one silent toast.
Drink to them—amorous of dear Earth as well,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.