To A. H. J.
By Violet Jacob
Past life, past tears, far past the grave,
The tryst is set for me,
Since, for our all, your all you gave
On the slopes of Picardy.
On Angus, in the autumn nights,
The ice-green light shall lie,
Beyond the trees the Northern Lights
Slant on the belts of sky.
But miles on miles from Scottish soil
You sleep, past war and scaith,
Your country's freedman, loosed from toil,
In honour and in faith.
For Angus held you in her spell,
Her Grampians, faint and blue,
Her ways, the speech you knew so well,
Were half the world to you.
Yet rest, my son; our souls are those
Nor time nor death can part,
And lie you proudly, folded close
To France's deathless heart.