John William Streets Poems

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
...

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
...

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;
...

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;
...

A breath of wind; a fragrant memory;
Soft music and the magic of a song;
A night beneath whose moonlight pale and strong
...