The Pavement
By Francis Brett Young
In bitter London’s heart of stone,
Under the lamplight’s shielded glare,
I saw a soldier’s body thrown
Unto the drabs that traffic there.
Pacing the pavements with slow feet:
Those old pavements whose blown dust
Throttles the hot air of the street,
And the darkness smells of lust.
The chaste moon, with equal glance,
Looked down on the mad world, astare
At those who conquered in sad France
And those who perished in Leicester Square.
And in her light his lips were pale:
Lips that love had moulded well:
Out of the jaws of Passchendaele
They had sent him to this nether hell.
I had no stone of scorn to fling,
For I know not how the wrong began —
But I had seen a hateful thing
Masked in the dignity of man:
And hate and sorrow and hopeless anger
Swept my heart, as the winds that sweep,
Angrily through the leafless hanger
When winter rises from the deep. . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
I would that war were what men dream:
A crackling fire, a cleansing flame,
That it might leap the space between
And lap up London and its shame.
