One who Died: In Memory of E.W.T.S.

I mind they told me on a noisy hill
I sat and disbelieved, and shook my head:
“Impossible! Impossible! but still
these other men have died, and others bled”.
Knees clasped, I sat and thought, unheeding war.
The trees, the winds, the streets came back to me;
The laughter of his eyes, his home afar,
The memory of his hopes, his buoyancy,
His dreams, his jests, his moods of wistfulness,
The quaintness of his speech, his favourite song;
And this, -and this the end so pitiless!
The man we knew! The man we knew so long!
- To die-be dead-not move, and this was he!
I rose and oiled my rifle musingly.