Elegy for Two Captains

FOR R.V.D., CAPTAIN, USAAC, AND J.W.0., CAPTAIN, USMC, KILLED, 1943

Snows yet drift behind that hill, And melt, and leave bare rocks, and drift Again: and all the winters will. We shall not hear quick edge of steel On snow, the laughing gasp the swift Descent has torn away; nor feel The new May night bring unkempt winds Untroubled to our years—we shall not Do these things, we three, again.

I know how sure his arm could match The shoe to stake; the careless strength That lay in quiet speech to catch The sound o£ poets of ancient years; The sly petulance at those who left Their minds in books, their books in tiers:

I know the heady stout of words That thickened up the talk with ghouls And leprechauns, and splashed the board With biting, joyful portraitures; What faces peopled all those rooms Of mind and fact to sate his lust For knowing all of art and men:

These things will not return again.

The wrath of a cold day has come: Drifts on the hill are cast in ice, And white death is cruel with sun; Today no skier plows the snow, No voice calls down to clear the trail. The sun will set, today will go: The drifts will melt, and other men Will sit on rocks at night in May Till a cold day comes again.