Katharine Tynan

(For Holy Cross Day, 1914) Clouds is under clouds and rain For there will not come again Two, the beloved sire and son Whom all gifts were rained upon. Kindness is all done, alas, Courtesy and grace must pass, Beauty, wit and charm lie dead, Love no more may wreathe the head. Now the branch that waved so high No wind tosses to the sky; There's no flowering time to come, No sweet leafage and no bloom. Percy, golden-hearted boy, In the heyday of his joy Left his new-made bride and chose The steep way that Honour goes. Took for his the deathless song Of the love that knows no wrong: Could I love thee, dear, so true Were not Honour more than you? (Oh, forgive, dear Lovelace, laid In this mean Procrustean bed!) Dear, I love thee best of all When I go, at England's call. In our magnificent sky aglow How shall we this Percy know Where he shines among the suns And the planets and the moons? Percy died for England, why, Here's a sign to know him by! There's one dear and fixèd star, There's a youngling never far. Percy and his father keep The old loved companionship, And shine downward in one ray Where at Clouds they wait for day.

There they go marching all in step so gay! Smooth-cheeked and golden, food for shells and guns. Blithely they go as to a wedding day, The mothers' sons. The drab street stares to see them row on row On the high tram-tops, singing like the lark. Too careless-gay for courage, singing they go Into the dark. With tin whistles, mouth-organs, any noise, They pipe the way to glory and the grave; Foolish and young, the gay and golden boys Love cannot save. High heart! High courage! The poor girls they kissed Run with them : they shall kiss no more, alas! Out of the mist they stepped-into the mist Singing they pass.