Epilogue

    Than farthest stars more distant,
            A mile more,
            A mile more,
    A voice cries on insistent:
    "You may smile more if you will;

    "You may sing too and spring too;
            But numb at last
            And dumb at last,
    Whatever port you cling to,
    You must come at last to a hill.

    "And never a man you'll find there
            To take your hand
            And shake your hand;
    But when you go behind there
    You must make your hand a sword

    "To fence with a foeman swarthy,
            And swink there
            Nor shrink there,
    Though cowardly and worthy
    Must drink there one reward."

John Collings Squire, Sir

John Collings Squire, also known as Sir John Squire, was an influential British poet, writer, historian, and influential literary editor of the early 20th century. He is best known for his role as editor of the London Mercury, a powerful literary journal of the time. Squire was a leading figure in the Georgian poetry movement, which sought to return English poetry to its traditional form and diction.

John Collings Squire, Sir

Envoi

John Collings Squire, Sir, Simple Poetry

The Mind Of Man

John Collings Squire, Sir, Simple Poetry

Town

John Collings Squire, Sir, Simple Poetry

Faith

John Collings Squire, Sir, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

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An Epilogue

    I.    THE FLUKE

    For two years you went
    Through all the worst of it,
    Men fell around you, but you did not fall.
    On the Somme when the air was a sea
    Of contesting flashes and clouds of smoke,
    Your gunners fell fast but you got never a scratch.
    And once when you watched from a village tower
    (At Longueval, was it?) between our guns and theirs
    As men fought in the houses below,
    A shell from an English battery came
    And tore a hole in the tower below you,
    But you were not hurt and remained observing.

    And now,
    A casual shell has come
    And pierced your head,
    And the men who were with you, uninjured,
    Carried you back,
    And you died on the way.


    II.    THE ...

John Collings Squire, Sir

Elegy

    I vaguely wondered what you were about,
    But never wrote when you had gone away;
    Assumed you better, quenched the uneasy doubt
    You might need faces, or have things to say.
    Did I think of you last evening?    Dead you lay.
        O bitter words of conscience
        I hold the simple message,
    And fierce with grief the awakened heart cries out:
        "It shall not be to-day;

    It is still yesterday; there is time yet!"
    Sorrow would strive backward to wrench the sun,
    But the sun moves.    Our onward course is set,
    The wake streams out, the engine pulses run
    Droning, a lonelier voyage is begun.
        It is all too late for turning,
        You are past all mortal signal,
    There will be time for nothing but reg...

John Collings Squire, Sir

Elegy

I vaguely wondered what you were about,
    But never wrote when you had gone away;
Assumed you better, quenched the uneasy doubt
    You might need faces, or have things to say.
    Did I think of you last evening? Dead you lay.
        O bitter words of conscience!
        I hold the simple message,
And fierce with grief the awakened heart cries out:
        'It shall not be to-day;

It is still yesterday; there is time yet!'
    Sorrow would strive backward to wrench the sun,
But the sun moves. Our onward course is set,
    The wake streams out, the engine pulses run
    Droning, a lonelier voyage is begun.
        It is all too late for turning,
        You are past all mortal signal,
There will be time for nothing but regret
        And the memo...

John Collings Squire, Sir

Friendship's Garland

    I

    When I was a boy there was a friend of mine:
    We thought ourselves warriors and grown folk swine,
    Stupid old animals who never understood
    And never had an impulse and said "you must be good."

    We slank like stoats and fled like foxes,
    We put cigarettes in the pillar-boxes,
    Lighted cigarettes and letters all aflame,
    O the surprise when the postman came!

    We stole eggs and apples and made fine hay
    In people's houses when people were away,
    We broke street lamps and away we ran,
    Then I was a boy but now I am a man.

    Now I am a man and don't have any fun,
    I hardly ever shout and I never, never run,
    And I don't care if he's dead that friend of mine,
    For then I was a boy and now...

John Collings Squire, Sir

Starlight

    Last night I lay in an open field
    And looked at the stars with lips sealed;
    No noise moved the windless air,
    And I looked at the stars with steady stare.

    There were some that glittered and some that shone
    With a soft and equal glow, and one
    That queened it over the sprinkled round,
    Swaying the host with silent sound.

    "Calm things," I thought, "in your cavern blue,
    I will learn and hold and master you;
    I will yoke and scorn you as I can,
    For the pride of my heart is the pride of a man."

    Grass to my cheek in the dewy field,
    I lay quite still with lips sealed,
    And the pride of a man and his rigid gaze
    Stalked like swords on heaven's ways.

    But through a sudden gate there st...

John Collings Squire, Sir

Dialogue

    THE ONE

    The dead man's gone, the live man's sad, the dying leaf shakes on the tree,
    The wind constrains the window-panes and moans like moaning of the sea,
    And sour's the taste now culled in haste of lovely things I won too late,
    And loud and loud above the crowd the Voice of One more strong than we.


    THE OTHER

    This Voice you hear, this call you fear, is it unprophesied or new?
    Were you so insolent to think its rope would never circle you?
    Did you then beastlike live and walk with ears and eyes that would not turn?
    Who bade you hope your service 'scape in that eternal retinue?


    THE ONE

    No; for I swear now bare's the tree and loud the moaning of the wind,
    I walked no rut with eyelids shut, ...

John Collings Squire, Sir