dy be, he's dead!"
But a voice cruel and flat
Saying for ever, "Cat!... Cat!... Cat!"

ESCAPE

(_August_ 6, 1916.--Officer previously reported died of
wounds, now reported wounded: Graves, Captain R.,
Royal Welch Fusiliers.)

... But I _was_ dead, an hour or more.
I woke when I'd already passed the door
That Cerberus guards, and half-way down the road
To Lethe, as an old Greek signpost showed.
Above me, on my stretcher swinging by,
I saw new stars in the subterrene sky:
A Cross, a Rose in bloom, a Cage with bars,
And a barbed Arrow feathered in fine stars.
I felt the vapours of forgetfulness
Float in my nostrils. Oh, may Heaven bless
Dear Lady Proserpine, who saw me wake,
And, stooping over me, for Henna's sake
Cleared my poor buzzing head and sent me back
Breathless, with leaping heart along the track.
After me roared and clattered angry hosts
Of demons, heroes, and policeman-ghosts.
"Life! life! I can't be dead! I won't be dead!
Damned if I'll die for any one!" I said....
Cerberus stands and grins above me now,
Wearing three heads--lion, and lynx, and sow.
"Quick, a revolver! But my Webley's gone,
Stolen!... No bombs ... no knife....
The crowd swarms on,
Bellows, hurls stones.... Not even a honeyed sop ...
Nothing.... Good Cerberus!... Good dog!... but stop!
Stay!... A great luminous thought ... I do believe
There's still some morphia that I bought on leave."
Then swiftly Cerberus' wide mouths I cram
With army biscuit smeared with ration jam;

And sleep lurks in the luscious plum and apple.
He crunches, swallows, stiffens, seems to grapple
With the all-powerful poppy ... then a snore,
A crash; the beast blocks up the corridor
With monstrous hairy carcase, red and dun--
Too late! for I've sped through.
O Life! O Sun!

THE BOUGH OF NONSENSE

An Idyll

Back from the Somme two Fusiliers
Limped painfully home; the elder said,
_S_. "Robert, I've lived three thousand years
This Summer, and I'm nine parts dead."
_R_. "But if that's truly so," I cried, "quick, now,
Through these great oaks and see the famous bough

"Where once a nonsense built her nest
With skulls and flowers and all things queer,
In an old boot, with patient breast
Hatching three eggs; and the next year ..."
_S_. "Foaled thirteen squamous young beneath, and rid
Wales of drink, melancholy, and psalms, she did."

Said he, "Before this quaint mood fails,
We'll sit and weave a nonsense hymn,"
_R_. "Hanging it up