Wide are the streets, and driven clean
With slanting rain. Behind tall gates
The lilac trees shoot silver green.
The boulevards sing with traffic. Still
The arches triumph on each hill.
And the victorious city waits
But for her soldier’s homecoming,
The shops are bright in fresh array.
The tramcars ring and jangle by
Crowded with soldiers. Every day
Brings home to her more exiled sons –
Dawns grey upon more captured guns –
And just outside the city lie
Her forests, warm and welcoming….
A mile or two outside the town
The silent forests stand; that spread
Down where the road has faded brown
And the pale leaves fall silver red,
Thick underfoot in rise and swell
Damp with old rains and sweet to smell,
Red underfoot, red overhead.
The road is white beneath the moon.
Go on until the dawn is new,
And you may meet the strange dragoon
And he may stop to ride with you.
(His men have faces pale as smoke,
But understands an English joke
Upon the road to Waterloo.)
Carola Oman
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