For a Battlefield

Unless your feet may tread as young winds tread The aisles of sunrise, do not venture here; There is a quietude death owes the dead, A silence past the silence of a tear. Let winter rainfall and the creep of moss Write on each stone. They are the hands of Fame That brood above a passionate battle’s loss And give to glad, gay youth less than a name. Speak now no word. Let only Aprils stir The grasses on forgotten battlefields With helmets of bright gold and lavender— The flash of splendor that a crocus yields. Unless your feet may tread as winds at dawn, O, do not tarry here . . . pass on, pass on!