The Mourners

I look into the aching womb of night;      I look across the mist that masks the dead;      The moon is tired and gives but little light,      The stars have gone to bed.      The earth is sick and seems to breathe with pain;      A lost wind whimpers in a mangled tree;      I do not see the foul, corpse-cluttered plain,      The dead I do not see.      The slain I WOULD not see . . . and so I lift      My eyes from out the shambles where they lie;      When lo! a million woman-faces drift      Like pale leaves through the sky.      The cheeks of some are channelled deep with tears;      But some are tearless, with wild eyes that stare      Into the shadow of the coming years      Of fathomless despair.      And some are young, and some are very old;      And some are rich, some poor beyond belief;      Yet all are strangely like, set in the mould      Of everlasting grief.      They fill the vast of Heaven, face on face;      And then I see one weeping with the rest,      Whose eyes beseech me for a moment's space. . . .      Oh eyes I love the best!      Nay, I but dream. The sky is all forlorn,      And there's the plain of battle writhing red:      God pity them, the women-folk who mourn!      How happy are the dead!