A HARROW GRAVE IN FLANDERS

HERE in the marshland, past the battered bridge,
One of a hundred grains untimely sown,
Here, with his comrades of the hard-won ridge,
He rests unknown.

His horoscope had seemed so plainly drawn,—
School triumphs, earned apace in work and play;
Friendships at will; then love's delightful dawn
And mellowing day;

Home fostering hope; some service to the State;
Benignant age; then the long tryst to keep
Where in the yew-tree shadow congregate
His fathers sleep.

Was here the one thing needful to distil
From life's alembic, through this holier fate,
The man's essential soul, the hero will?
We ask; and wait.