I

Two hours before the mist of morning paled Beneath a sun that never showed his flame, And spectral day stole on the world with shame, Into the night unsentinelled there sailed The whistling murder, sudden. Sudden wailed Shrapnel, and breaking cloud, began to claim Window and tile down clattering from the frame Into the littered causeway. Dreamers quailed, And propped themselves to listen, or rising, crept From corridors by fitful candle; then Gathered scared children down the winding stair, And only whispers passed where no one slept. And thought drew rein, surmising wildly, when The guns spoke murder over doomed Estaires.

RASTATT, 27th April