John William Streets

Upon the margin of a rugged shore
There is a spot now barren, desolate,
A place of graves, sodden with human gore
...

Behind that long and lonely trenchèd line
To which men come and go, where brave men die,
There is a yet unmarked and unknown shrine,
...

Reach out thy hands, thy spirit's hands to me
And pluck the Youth, the magic from my heart-
Magic of dreams whose sensibility
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Once in thy secret close, now almost bare,
Peace yielded up her bountiful largess;
The dawn dropp'd sunshine thro' thy leafy dress;
...

Hushed is the shriek of hurtling shells: and hark!
Somewhere within that bit of soft blue sky-
Grand in his loneliness, his ecstasy,
...

He died for love of race: because the blood
Of Northern freeman swell'd his veins: arose
True to tradition that like mountain stood
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No splendid show of solemn funeral rite,
No stricken mourners following his bier,
...

Those whom I've known, admired, ardently friended
Lie silent there wrapp'd in a soldier's shroud;
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I hear thy voice in the lonely pines
When the winds arise in their unknown lair;
In the rush of waves in the caves' confines;
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A breath of wind; a fragrant memory;
Soft music and the magic of a song;
A night beneath whose moonlight pale and strong
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O sweet blue eve that seems so loath to die,
Trailing the sunset glory into night,
Within the soft, cool strangeness of thy light,
...

Night on the plains, and the stars unfold
The cycle of night in splendour old;
The winds are hushed, on the fire-swept hill
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Two shining eyes that never lose their light,
Haunting with dreams like stars within the night;
Two rosy lips whose magic kisses fall
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There lies an isle, a splendour of the sea
Haunting as Babylon, illustrious as Rome:
A race of Saxon freemen there have home
...

Beneath a hawthorn bush, dying, he lay
Upon an orchard slope, a gentle hill;
The silvery moonlight thro' the night did play
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I, too, have loved with you our mother Earth:
Listen'd at pensive eve the lyric thrush
Shake out his ecstasy to lovely birth
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You called to me from o'er the restless tide :
Within the deepening shades of Death's confines,
-Like winds grown free among the forest pines
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Night broodeth o'er the solitude serene
As some glad mother o'er her first-born child,
Pouring her gladness on the shadowy scene
...

You came into the shadow of my grief
(A lovely vision radiating light);
Your passing was as soulful and as brief
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“Mother of England! why do you weep?”
“My heart's with the fate of my own dearest sons
Fighting for Freedom against modern Huns:
...