Beauty in Death,
In dead men breath.




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,