To E.T.

I slumbered with your poems on my breast

Spread open as I dropped them half-read through

Like dove wings on a figure on a tomb

To see, if in a dream they brought of you,



I might not have the chance I missed in life

Through some delay, and call you to your face

First solider, and then poet, and then both,

Who died a soldier-poet of your race.



I meant, you meant, that nothing should remain

Unsaid between us, brother, and this remained--

And one thing more that was not then to say:

The Victory for what it lost and gained.



You went to meet the shell's embrace of fire

On Vimy Ridge; and when you fell that day

The war seemed over more for you than me,

But now for me than you--the other way.



How ever, though, for even me who knew

The foe thrust back unsafe beyond the Rhine,

If I was not speak of it to you

And see you pleased once more with words of mine?