POETRY.
THE HUNTER OF HEAVEN.
(To Nancy.) A PISTOL cracked in the enemy trench And the flare-light curved and rose, While the lone patrol stopped short in their tracks And each man dropped or froze.
There was one stood crouched like a pollard stump, One knelt like a man at prayer, And one lay back with his face to the sky, Grey-white in the pale-green glare.
The shadows closed as the butt flared down Like damned souls gibbering round, And the trees and bushes swelled and shrank
And vanished without a sound—
At a click of the tongue and a whispered word The lone patrol moved on,
And four of the five had no thought more
Than ",Quiet? No firing? Ben I " But the one who had lain with his face to the sky For a breath ere he arose had seen a sign in the Heavens And walked as one who knows;
For, singled out among myriads,
Remote from our petty jars, Swung the scimitar of Orion From a jewelled belt of stars.
And the sight came softly upon him, Like the breath of an answered prayer, And he saw The Hunter of Heaven, Who was e'er all things were.
Patient, aloof, implacable, From aeon to aeon he strides, Trailing an evil thing unknown That turns on him or hides.
And this is the honour of mortal man, The fire in our mean clay, Wo may hunt with the Heavenly Hunter When the Horror turns to bay.
And Bill the Butcher from Bermondsey Who died when the gas came down, Coughing up curses and bits of lung In the mud by Wipers Town, Is a banded man of the Heavenly Hunt, And every shot he fired Has found its mark in the Horror of Hell, The Thing of which God has Tired.
J. H. KNIGHT-ADEIN, Capt.
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