<html xmlns:tei="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0"><body><h1 align="center" class="head">Fulfilment</h1><div class="stanza"><p class="line"><span class="smallcaps">Was</span> there love once? I have forgotten her.</p><p class="line">Was there grief once? Grief yet is mine.</p><p class="line">Other loves I have, men rough, but men who stir</p><p class="line">More grief, more joy, than love of thee and thine.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Faces cheerful, full of whimsical mirth,</p><p class="line">Lined by the wind, burned by the sun;</p><p class="line">Bodies enraptured by the abounding earth,</p><p class="line">As whose children we are brethren: one.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">And any moment may descend hot death</p><p class="line">To shatter limbs! Pulp, tear, blast</p><p class="line">Belovèd soldiers who love rough life and breath</p><p class="line">Not less for dying faithful to the last.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">O the fading eyes, the grimed face turned bony,</p><p class="line">Oped mouth gushing, fallen head,</p><p class="line">Lessening pressure of a hand, shrunk, clammed and stony!</p><p class="line">O sudden spasm, release of the dead!</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Was there love once? I have forgotten her.</p><p class="line">Was there grief once? Grief yet is mine.</p><p class="line">O loved, living, dying, heroic soldier,</p><p class="line">All, all my joy, my grief, my love, are thine.</p></div><p class="byline">Robert Nichols</p></body></html> · Great War