June, 1918
JUNE! the joyous, sun-filled month of June
When roses, emblems of a heaven, croon
Strange melodies in garden and in hedge
With blithesome birds that sing in emerald edge
Of English lanes; and thousand other flow’rs
As sweet drench incense on the air in show’rs—
Intoxicating wine that gives fair dreams
Of Palaces in Paradise, and streams
Of visions far surpassing Kubla Khan!
When cool sweet winds blow from the woods to fan
Two lovers lying, kissing in the grass
Where sun-lit waters glimpse and, laughing, pass.
June! a writhing, war-gorged month of hell
When steel and iron and high explosive yell
Cursed cacophonies in blasted plains,
With singeing bullets singing in the lanes
Of ripped France ; and poisonous vapours drench
With death the air and earth—pocked with trench
And gaping scar—so he who breathes them in
Gulps strangling hands that clutch and tear at him,
And vision sees of no cool Kubla Khan ;
When rancid gusts from charnel tree-stumps fan
Two soldiers, clutching, kissing in the grass;
Whose souls leak out in spurting red, and pass!
