14 SEPTEMBER 1945, Page 9

POEM: 1940-1945

You hardly knew him, girl, before he went, Whipped into world's bedammed recriminations From youth's examinations : To give the firmament And make the air his sacrament.

This bread you eat, this air you breathe: Ali! no, they do not taste the same.

Is it for something else you grieve?

Is it the hunger, hunger for the dead?

Do not hunger, girl, again.

Your bread is grief's compounded kernel: Free as the air, and sacrament eternal.

H. E.. BATES.