LAST POEM

It was from dusk of pain they spoke,
the voices, high and merciless,
rung on your mercy till it broke,
How could I silence what they said?
I made them - with the bitterness
of evening bugles for the dead.

They were the souring of such praise
as blessed the wonder whence it sprang.
Oh sunlight of those eager days
all embered now; song now that swells
in flocking shadows, with the pang
and hunger of child-haunting bells!

Love's darkness, cover-up my face;
oh love that will not die, shroud still 
my cenotaph my dwelling-place;
cry all that I shall hear again - 
a midnight message, far and shrill
as the unseen the passing train.