Come, I will take you, O ye empty-eyed,
Into my heart as sheep into a fold
Upon the waste hill-steep.
For ye are weary, O unsatisfied,
Whose breasts were filled for love and sell for gold;
Come, I will give you sleep.
All night your bodies move like furtive ghosts,
All the black futile night, your hands and feet
Heavy as sunken lead;
Sad, numberless, immortal, bloodless hosts,
Who haunt the hollows of the ashen street,
O ye my living-dead!
Only a scent of Death, sweet and corrupt,
Breathes from the false flower-gardens of your hair,
O and in your eyes,
No, not the light of the mad wine you supped,
Not tears nor laughter, O but swaying there,
Unweepable miseries!
Come, I will take you to a still green place,
Where birds that hover above the laden nests,
Birds shall make song.
There shall ye wash with dew the painted face,
Press two wild flowers against the barren breasts,
There hold a vigil long.
A vigil long until the evening go,
Then sleep, long sleep; till with a shout, O then,
Our Lord the Sun shall rise.
With hearts invincible and bodies like snow,
Back ye shall turn into the place of men,
Love peerless in your eyes!
August 1918