Poem by Hilaire Belloc

A Bivouac

  I

  You came without a human sound,
    You came and brought my soul to me;
  I only woke, and all around
  They slumbered on the firelit ground,
    Beside the guns in Burgundy.

  II

  I felt the gesture of your hands,
    You signed my forehead with the Cross;
  The gesture of your holy hands
  Was bounteous--like the misty lands
    Along the Hills in Calvados.

  III

  But when I slept I saw your eyes,
    Hungry as death, and very far.
  I saw demand in your dim eyes
  Mysterious as the moons that rise
    At midnight, in the Pines of Var.

1. Noël
2. To Dives
3. Stanzas Written on Battersea Bridge during a South-Westerly Gale
4. In a Boat
5. Courtesy

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