Armistice

The water sings along our keel, The wind falls to a whispering breath; I look into your eyes and feel No fear of life or death; So near is love, so far away The losing strife of yesterday. We watch the swallow skim and dip; Some magic bids the world be still; Life stands with finger upon lip; Love hath his gentle will; Though hearts have bled, and tears have burned, The river floweth unconcerned. We pray the fickle flag of truce Still float deceitfully and fair; Our eyes must love its sweet abuse; This hour we will not care, Though just beyond to-morrow’s gate, Arrayed and strong, the battle wait.

Collection: 
English
Sophie Jewett

More from Poet

A Smiling Demon of Notre Dame

Quiet as are the quiet skies He watches where the city lies Floating in vision clear or dim Through sun or rain beneath his eyes; Her songs, her laughter, and her cries Hour after hour drift up to him. Her days of glory or disgrace He watches with unchanging face; He knows what midnight crimes...
When Nature Hath Betrayed the Heart That Loved Her

The gray waves rock against the gray skyline, And break complaining on the long gray sand, Here where I sit, who cannot understand Their voice of pain, nor this dumb pain of mine; For I, who thought to fare till my days end, Armed sorrow-proof in sorrow, having known How hearts bleed...
Song

Thy face I have seen as one seeth A face in a dream, Soft drifting before me as drifteth A leaf on the stream: A face such as evermore fleeth From following feet, A face such as hideth and shifteth Evasive and sweet. Thy voice I have heard as one heareth, Afar and apart, The wood-...
Armistice

The water sings along our keel, The wind falls to a whispering breath; I look into your eyes and feel No fear of life or death; So near is love, so far away The losing strife of yesterday. We watch the swallow skim and dip; Some magic bids the world be still; Life stands with finger upon...
If Spirits Walk

If spirits walk, love, when the night climbs slow The slant footpath where we were wont to go, Be sure that I shall take the selfsame way To the hill-crest, and shoreward, down the gray, Sheer, gravelled slope, where vetches straggling grow. Look for me not when gusts of winter blow, When at...