Paul Bewsher

Around me broods the dim, mysterious Night,
    Star-lit and still.
No whisper comes across the Plain,
Asleep beneath the breezes light,
Which scarcely stir the growing grain.
Slow chimes the quiet midnight hour
In some unseen and distant tower,
While round me broods the vague, mysterious Night,
    Star-lit, and cool, and still.

And I must desecrate this silent time
    Of drowsy dreams!
On mighty wings towards the sky,
Towards the stars, I have to climb
And o'er the sleeping country fly,
And such far-echoing clamour make
That all the villages must wake.
So must I desecrate this quiet time
    Of soft and drowsy dreams!

The hour comes ... soon must I say farewell
    To this fair earth.
Then to my little room I go
Where I ...

Sad is the lonely sea -
So vast, and smooth, and grey
It stretches far from me.
Sad is the lonely sea!
Its cheerful colours flee
Before the fading day.
Sad is the lonely sea
So vast, and smooth, and grey!

I stood, one azure dusk, in old Auxerre
Before the grey Cathedral's towering height,
And in the Eastern darkness, very fair
I saw a little star that twinkled bright;
How small it looked beside the mighty pile,
Whose stone was rosy with the Western glow -
A little star - I pondered for a while,
And then the solemn truth began to know.

That tiny star was some enormous sphere,
The great cathedral was an atomy -
So often when grey trouble looms so near
That God shines in our minds but distantly, -
If we but thought, our grief would seem so small
That we would see that God's great love was all.

France, 1917.

KILLED IN AN AEROPLANE ACCIDENT, JULY, 1916


It was Thy will, O God. And so he died!
For seventeen sweet years he was a child
Upon whose grace Thy loving-kindness smiled,
For he was clean, and full of youthful pride;
And, when his years drew on, then Thou denied
That he by man's estate should be defiled,
And so Thou call'st him to Thy presence mild
To be with Thee for ever, by Thy side.

Nor is he dead! He lives in three great spheres.
His soul is with Thee in Thy home above:
His influence, - with friends of former years:
His memory with those he used to love.
He is an emblem of that Trinity
With whom he lives in happy ecstasy.

Isle of Grain, 1916.

ON HER SEVENTEENTH BIRTHDAY.


Now has rich time brought you a gift of gold -
A long sweet year which you can shape at will,
And deck with roses warm, or with the chill
And heartless lilies - GOD gives strength to mould
Our days, and lives, with fingers firm and bold,
And make them noble, straight and clean from ill,
Though few are willing, and their years they fill
With dross which they regret when they are old.

What splendid hours of your life are these
When youth and childhood wander hand in hand,
And give you freely all which best can please -
Laughter and friends and dreams of Fairyland!
Mourn not the seasons past with useless tears,
But greet the pleasure of the coming years!

FRANCE, 1917.