To Robert Nichols

(From Frise on the Somme in February, 1917, in answer to a letter saying: "I am just finishing my 'Faun's Holiday.' I wish you were here to feed him with cherries.")     Here by a snowbound river     In scrapen holes we shiver,     And like old bitterns we     Boom to you plaintively:     Robert how can I rhyme     Verses for your desire,     Sleek fauns and cherry-time,     Vague music and green trees,     Hot sun and gentle breeze,     England in June attire,     And life born young again,     For your gay goatish brute     Drunk with warm melody     Singing on beds of thyme     With red and rolling eye,     All the Devonian plain,     Lips dark with juicy stain,     Ears hung with bobbing fruit?     Why should I keep him time?     Why in this cold and rime,     Where even to dream is pain?     No, Robert, there's no reason:     Cherries are out of season,     Ice grips at branch and root,     And singing birds are mute.