John Le Gay Brereton Poems

Gone are the aching want, the unceasing fret,
Mad flight and moaning over battered wings,
And self-contempt whose secret penance wrings
Out of the writhing soul her bloody sweat.
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When fires have burnt your forest bare and black,
And you are parched and dizzy, and search in vain
For pools in dust unvisited of rain,
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By ceaseless waves, that break and waste,
All human record is effaced:
Only our love in brief defence
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ABOVE us hangs the jewelled night;
And how her restful cool caresses
Make us forget the weary sight
Of summer’s daily wildernesses!
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The heart is deaf that cannot hear
The splashing of a tiny tear.
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And can you tell me Love is blind
Because your faults he will not find,
Because the image that he sees
Is one of splendid mysteries?
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From every quarter we,
Who bent the trembling knee
And cowered or grovelled prostrate day and night,
Now come once more to sing
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The Blatant Beast saw meadows, made for peace,
Sunlit and gently asway, and held them light,
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Hail to you, comrades, who have won,
Where the torn lines of battle run
By tattered town and ruined mead,
The honour that men give with pride
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I have sought and followed you, drunk with your sacred wine;
Led out by a laughing wind on a tumbling sea,
On crags amid clouds, in cups that allure the bee,
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