<html xmlns:tei="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0"><body><h1 align="center" class="head">When You Come Home</h1><div class="stanza"><p class="line"><span class="smallcaps">All</span> will be right when you come home, dear lad,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">But oh, 'tis long of coming that you are!</p><p class="line">Everything's wrong with all the world and sad;</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">There are so many hurt in this long war,</p><p class="line">So many missing, who will never come,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Lying out in the rain and in the cold.</p><p class="line">I shall forget it all when you come home,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">I shall forget the lonesome things they told.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">There's something, something sad, that troubles me.</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Beats like the rain upon my frightened heart;</p><p class="line">A tale about a girl, the thing might be,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Whispered in corners, secret and apart</p><p class="line">How he was killed and how she never knew</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Because God put a small cloud on her mind,</p><p class="line">And how she waited the black winters through</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">And the wet summers; surely God was kind!</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">I took a daisy from the garden-bed</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">And plucked the petals, one by one, to tell</p><p class="line">When I and my true lover should be wed,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">This year: Next year: Never: the petals fell</p><p class="line">And stopped at Never. But it could not guess,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">The foolish daisy, what true love I had.</p><p class="line">I turned from daisies and I plucked heartsease</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">To rest my heart on and be safe and glad.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Everything's wrong, Love, since you went away,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Such a queer world when all the boys are gone,</p><p class="line">And there is no one left but old and grey,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Women and children, frightened and alone.</p><p class="line">Sometimes the tale is crying at my heart</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Of that poor girl. Maybe 'twas but a dream.</p><p class="line">When you come home the shadows will depart,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">The lonesome dreams die off in morning gleam.</p></div></body></html> · Great War