Explore "Aftermath" by Hervey Allen on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Under the placid surface of the days / So seeming clear, / Back of the habits of old ways, / A quiet fear; / The locked-up memories of war, / Our Bluebeard's room, / Where the blood creeps underneath the door.
Never will come / In streams of days that ring / Like clean coins down the merry grooves of change, / One without grief's alloy, / Struck from pure gold of joy, / Undimmed by unshed tears, / Nor is it strange.
For in the wraith-thronged brain / Are private ghosts of pain, / Aloof, like patient sick men in a crowd / With half-veiled faces and old sorrow bowed -- / Ah! The free days can never come again!
They passed with the far, rolling drums, / Died to the moan and thunder of the guns, / And the mad, glad, clear, lyric birdsong never comes.