| George Herbert Clarke, ed. (1873–1953). A Treasury of War Poetry. 1917. |
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| 125. The Island of Skyros |
| | | By John Masefield |
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| HERE, where we stood together, we three men, | |
| Before the war had swept us to the East | |
| Three thousand miles away, I stand again | |
| And hear the bells, and breathe, and go to feast. | |
| We trod the same path, to the selfsame place, | 5 |
| Yet here I stand, having beheld their graves, | |
| Skyros whose shadows the great seas erase, | |
| And Seddul Bahr that ever more blood craves. | |
| So, since we communed here, our bones have been | |
| Nearer, perhaps, than they again will be, | 10 |
| Earth and the worldwide battle lie between, | |
| Death lies between, and friend-destroying sea. | |
| Yet here, a year ago, we talked and stood | |
| As I stand now, with pulses beating blood. | |
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| I saw her like a shadow on the sky | 15 |
| In the last light, a blur upon the sea, | |
| Then the gale’s darkness put the shadow by, | |
| But from one grave that island talked to me; | |
| And, in the midnight, in the breaking storm, | |
| I saw its blackness and a blinking light, | 20 |
| And thought, “So death obscures your gentle form, | |
| So memory strives to make the darkness bright; | |
| And, in that heap of rocks, your body lies, | |
| Part of the island till the planet ends, | |
| My gentle comrade, beautiful and wise, | 25 |
| Part of this crag this bitter surge offends, | |
| While I, who pass, a little obscure thing, | |
| War with this force, and breathe, and am its king.” | |
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