Dedication

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Grant me a moment of peace,
  Let me but open mine eyes,
  Forgetting the empire of lies
  And warfare’s majestic increase
  Of national folly and hate;
  Ere I return to my fate,
  Grant me a moment of peace.

  To what is I would turn from what seems
  From a world where men fall and adore
  The god that Fear shuddering bore
  To Greed in the desert of dreams,
  Unholy, inhuman, impure;
  From the State to the loves that endure,
  To what is I would turn from what seems.

  No man has been richer than I,
  Though he staggered with infinite gold
  And bought of whatever is sold
  Of the beauty that money can buy.
  In the wealth that is lost in the mart
  And is stored in the innermost heart
  No man has been richer than I.

  Humbly, a pilgrim, I stood,
  Weary and hungry and lame,
  And out of the multitude came
  Friends who were better than good,
  Friends who would not be denied
  Where by the palpitant tide
  Humbly, a pilgrim, I stood.

  Now to my army of friends
  A handful of petals I fling,
  Strays of perennial spring,
  Weeds, but the lover who sends
  Bled that each blossom might live.
  This is myself that I give
  Now to my army of friends.

  Comrade in exile, to you
  Chiefly the gift should belong,
  You who will hear in my song
  Echoes of days that we knew
  Blue and deep-droning and clear
  Far in the hills that are dear,
  Comrade in exile, to you.

  Pause and remember them now,
  Plunge, as you dived in the stream,
  To the sweet cool depth of your dream.
  The drooping, sheltering bough,
  The brown rock lettered above,
  The still interfusion of love,
  Pause and remember them now.

  There as we lay in the cave
  And saw, as an eye of the dark,
  The camp-fire’s slumbering spark,
  And heard the cataract rave,
  Your soul and my soul were as one;
  Our life in one channel has run
  There as we lay in the cave.

  Forth to the task of a man!
  Youth and the valour of youth,
  Force and the ardour of truth
  Give you a place in the van,
  Love keeping step at your side
  Chanting aloud as you stride
  Forth to the task of a man.

© John Le Gay Brereton