Thunder had rolled away into the west,
Far down that way the lightning's bursting shells
Lit with their leaping glow the darkening sky.
But in the east, above the waiting fells,
A calm moon climbed and stars hung pale and high.
So apt she came, with drama consummate,
That I who watched her with rapt mortal eyes
Might deem for unguessed years she did but wait
To take this passing hour with this superb surprise.
Serene she rose through the serene moist air:
The air new washed and sweetened by the rain:
The flickering lightning faltered; everywhere
Mysterious calm possessed the sky again:
There was no wind; and silence, sure, complete,
Held all the moor while the shy dusk of night
Withdrew before this moon's compelling light
And gained in glamour by her own defeat.
But as it waxed this lambent light did show
Strange shapes upon the moor: row upon row,
Silent and stark in the clear light there shone
Great stones, grave stones, a ruined Babylon -
Here shattered streets were lost in drifted sand;
There piers of hutments like a graveyard stood;
Concrete gleamed silver white on every hand
Save where the puddles stained its sheen like blood.
There were no lighted windows, open doors,
Nor walls, nor rooftrees, only cracking floors
Of the slab concrete to the moon displayed.
No footstep sounded, no voice rang, no trade
Went forward save that sure, still trafficking
Of ancient earth with roots of gorse and ling;
Burdock and nettle reared their booths alone,
And only graving lichens wrought the stone.
And now a fern owl bids the night stand still
And listen to his lonely, jarring song;
Bright eyed somewhere he sits with quivering bill;
A phantom voice rehearsing ancient wrong.
And mists creep out like ghosts his dirge to hear -
And surely if ghosts walk, they walk up here.
Up here, where this great silence seems to be
Charged and surcharged with haunting memory,
And tragic unheard echoes still to ring-
As when at midnight one wild scream of pain
Jangles the air, then leaves it still again:
More deadly still from that sharp shattering -
Up here, where four bewildering years ago
Twice twenty thousand lads were wont to go
In step with Death, and dumbly wonder why -
And what it would feel like to go and die -
And many a beardless youngster turned at bay
To stare at Death, and laughed to find that they
Could stare him down, and be as gaily bold
As any bearded soldier man of old.
But whether they found courage or despair,
Laughter and blasphemy or furtive prayer,
Stolid enduring patience, or the brief
Philosophy that goes with British beef,
Year after year, draft after draft, they went
As soon as their short training time was spent,
And trod that Bridge of Dread, that poignant way,
That led to Flanders mud, to Argonne clay:
And howsoe'er they went, some went to stay.
To stay, leaving the memory of their lives to be
In many an aching heart a legacy-
Until swift Time, creating all things new,
Shall make new lips to chatter, kiss and laugh;
New eager eyes that will not pause to view
Names on familiar cross and cenotaph-
And names that meant a lad upon this moor
By then will be but names and nothing more.
And all the mystery of this young life spilled
With all its boundless promise unfulfilled,
Will cease to move men's minds: all will have gone
Into the teeming Past's oblivion,
Whose fading splendours ever seem to be
Touched at the core with human misery.
And this poised moon that shines so still and far,
As pondering many an unsolved enigma,
Stares at these stones and they return her stare
As if her ancient council they did share;
And though raised here so brief a time ago,
In her transmuting light they stand and throw
Portentous shadows on the sandy sod,
Like shattered altars of some heathen god.
And echo beyond echo thrills again
Of recent anguish and of ancient pain:
Of human sacrifice and bitter things
Done by grim priests who reared great stones in rings
Wherein they acted many a bloody rite,
Unnumbered years ago, beneath this same moon's light;
When at their bidding sullen-hearted kings
Of their own seed made savage offerings,
Seeking to soothe their god's imagined ire,
By giving their own children to the fire.
Spellbound I stood upon that haunted waste
While the great moon still climbed on without haste,
Big with her silent questions to which I,
In my numb heart, could fashion no reply.
Dumbly I roused myself and turned to go,
When from a factory in the vale below,
A syren hooted thrice as if in scorn:
Stock still I stood, belittled and forlorn,
Wondering if ever in all time before:
Since men first grovelled on Creation's floor,
And unclean gods in their dim minds were born:
If any Moloch in those days of yore
Had hunted their poor souls with a more cruel horn.
NOTES: Flanders and Argonne were both the scenes of heavy fighting in WW1. Moloch is an ancient deity often associated with child sacrifice. In this poem, I believe, that Ashley is referring to Clipstone Camp, a huge complex assembled on the moors near Clipstone, Mansfield, in 1915 to train troops for the Front. With as many as 30,000 soldiers or more stationed in the camp at any one time, the camp had a substantial impact on the lives of the people of Nottinghamshire.