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A. Newberry Choyce, Lieut., Leicestershire Regiment

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A. NEWBERRY CHOYCE

Lieut., Leicestershire Regiment

Supermen

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SOME souls there are

Who in their trial hours

Bathe in the very blood

Which flows around the heart of Life,

And know its joy—and know its agony.

Daring to follow impulse

That any God Himself would not resist.

Stand back!

You weaklings of the world

Boasting the name of men.

Preening yourselves

And judging with your

"God this——" and "God that——"

Dare not to come

Near these.

Stay with your narrow Gods

Who smugly sit

Within four chapel walls

On Sundays,

​You in some stiff God's house

Who kneel and shiver

Towards a judgment day

Of your own setting.

But if a Destiny too kind

Bring you for one short second

Closer to wisdom;

To the breathing hills and spaces

Where my God lives

And makes His Throne in every leaf and flower

And whispers in each wind,

Then I will tell you this—

That my God is so great

I doubt if He will dare

To judge these souls.

Reincarnation

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I LOVED you in Babylon.

Sweet Heart! you were a dancer then

And I watched where your little feet

Just stirred the dust within the market-place.

You passed me slow and down the sunlit street,

I saw the longing in the eyes of men

​Who caught the smile which glorified your face.

A moment—little heart!—and you were gone;

But where you passed—you knew it not—

I marked and kissed the spot.

I loved you in royal Rome.

Sweet Heart! you were a vestal there

And I came to offer my gift.

A poor slave with a pigeon dearly bought,

Its feathers purer than snow's whitest drift.

With fevered soul I made my silent prayer

Though I could never touch the bliss I sought,

While holy Vesta's temple was your home.

A feather fell—how should you see?—

Till death it stayed with me.

I love you in London town.

Sweet Heart! you are a princess now

And the blue blood runs in your veins;

While I, alas! am but of common birth

Whom war is splashing with its crimson stains.

A soldier who has taken Honour's vow

To share the grandest task on God's wide earth.

One night you wore red roses in your gown.

A petal dropped—you never guessed—

I hid it in my breast.

​So shall I still love on.

Sweet Heart! your soul was close to me

When the world's first dreams were made.

We two were whispering love at God's own side

Or ever sunlight on the mountains played.

And through a wilderness of worlds I see

A time when reunited we shall glide

Unto the Soul of souls, the Perfect One.

Pass, life or lives! you'll understand

When Love gives me your hand.

Loss

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THE world went blind to-day

Groping with shattered faith.

And in the lonely awful night

Madness stalked, taunting me.

The gibbering ghoulish wraith

Of dreams unrealised

Sprang up and mocked my way;

Just that in one wild spot beyond the sea,

A dear heart that I prized

Passed to the Silent Light.

​They say his soul lives on—

That I shall find

Him safe in God's eternity.

To-night, to-night, this aching in my breast,

This wildness in my mind

Cries to the farthest cruel star:—

"O Thou to Whom his soul has gone,

Spare me his lips love-prest!

In this pained night eternity is far—

God! give his dear warm body back to me."