War

Did you live thus before the War Through Peace’s infancy, who came of age To die? My homing pigeons in their cage Peck at the wicker door Strut, quiver their wings. Go fly my dove Who never dallied yet Through fogs of forty years to lawns where summer set And children watched the dove-cote shadows move Before the war, before Give us the other years of pеace When red and black fought squarе by square and all The narrow allies crackled and the dale Here rained black manna. Grace Hid in the bottom drawer. There was no more All else is what was lost And sought by us in anguish, sought with guilty haste In vain. That we were waiting for the war Was written on our face Desperate indeed, pre-damned by the event You took the cards and gambled on the red? We gathered up the cards as you have said And while the armies went Rumbling by, we played at vingt-et-un Judge if you like, but we Wept for a cardboard king. I find it hard to see Now to what cryptic plan the cards refer Or what the stakes then meant Did you live thus before the War Through peace’s infancy? Infants Infants Infants Infants