Battle

I     THE RETURN     He went, and he was gay to go:      And I smiled on him as he went.     My boy! 'Twas well he couldn't know      My darkest dread, or what it meant -     Just what it meant to smile and smile      And let my son go cheerily -     My son ... and wondering all the while      What stranger would come back to me.     II     THE DANCERS     All day beneath the hurtling shells      Before my burning eyes     Hover the dainty demoiselles -      The peacock dragon-flies.     Unceasingly they dart and glance      Above the stagnant stream -     And I am fighting here in France      As in a senseless dream.     A dream of shattering black shells      That hurtle overhead,     And dainty dancing demoiselles      Above the dreamless dead.     III     HIT         Out of the sparkling sea     I drew my tingling body clear, and lay     On a low ledge the livelong summer day,         Basking, and watching lazily     White sails in Falmouth Bay.         My body seemed to burn     Salt in the sun that drenched it through and through     Till every particle glowed clean and new         And slowly seemed to turn     To lucent amber in a world of blue....     I felt a sudden wrench -     A trickle of warm blood -     And found that I was sprawling in the mud     Among the dead men in the trench.