And There Was a Great Calm

IV

Waking to wish existence timeless, null,

Sirius they watched above where armies fell;

He seemed to check his flapping when, in the lull

Of night a boom came thencewise, like the dull

Plunge of a stone dropped into some deep well.

V

So, when old hopes that earth was bettering slowly

Were dead and damned, there sounded 'War is done!'

One morrow. Said the bereft, and meek, and lowly,

'Will men some day be given to grace? yea, wholly,

And in good sooth, as our dreams used to run?'

VI

Breathless they paused. Out there men raised their glance

To where had stood those poplars lank and lopped,

As they had raised it through the four years’ dance

Of Death in the now familiar flats of France;

And murmured, 'Strange, this! How? All firing stopped?'