Harold Monro (1879–1932)

COMRADES, when the air is sweet,

It is fair, in stately measure,

With a sound of gliding feet,

It is fair and very meet

To be join’d in pleasure.

Listen to the rhythmic beat:

Let us mingle, move and sway

Solemnly as at some rite

Of a festive mystic god,

While the sunlight holds the day.

Comrades, is it not delight

To be govern’d by the rod

Of the music, and to go

Moving, moving, moving slow?

Very stately are your ways,

Stately—and the southern glow

Of the sun is in your eyes:

Under lids inclining low

All the light of harvest days,

And the gleam of summer skies

Tenderly reflected lies.

May I not be one of you

Even for this little space?

Humbly I am fain to sue

That our arms may interlace.

I am otherwise I know;

Many books have made me sad:

Yet indeed your stately slow

Motion and its rhythmic flow

Drive me, drive me, drive me mad.

Must I now, as always, gaze

Patiently from far away

At the pageant of the days?—

Only let me live to-day!

For your hair is ebon black,

And your eyes celestial blue;

For your measure is so true,

Slowly forward, slowly back—

I would fain be one of you.

Comrades, comrades!—but the sound

Of the music with a start

Ceases, and you pass me by.

Slowly from the dancing-ground

To the tavern you depart.

All the earth is silent grown

After so much joy, and I

Suddenly am quite alone

With the beating of my heart.

Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD