<html xmlns:tei="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0"><body><h1 align="left" class="head">The Ghost of Youth</h1><div class="stanza"><p class="line">IN the cold black hours of the evening time</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">That finish the empty day,</p><p class="line"> When a man can sit and dream again</p><p class="line">Of the joys he threw away.</p><p class="line">When the curtain of things is lifted up</p><p class="line">And the naked life we see,</p><p class="line">There comes the ghost of a boy, long dead,</p><p class="line">And sits by the fire with me.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">A boy with the clean young hope of life</p><p class="line">Aflame in his ardent eyes,</p><p class="line">And oh, the contempt that he feels for me</p><p class="line">And my hoary blasphemies;</p><p class="line">Sitting there by my dying fire</p><p class="line">His eyes light up and glow,</p><p class="line">And he talks to me as I used to talk</p><p class="line">Oh God! how long ago.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">The ghost of the boy that I was then</p><p class="line">Sits still and talks to me</p><p class="line">With his passionate love of a half-seen truth</p><p class="line">And his sweet absurdity.</p><p class="line">All that I thought I could nearly see</p><p class="line">All that I used to hear,</p><p class="line">Before the curtain was rent and I saw</p><p class="line">The naked life too clear.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Ere I saw too clear the awful fear</p><p class="line">And the horror of emptiness,</p><p class="line">Ere I knew too well that the pit of hell</p><p class="line">Was a pit that was bottomless,</p><p class="line">And knew there was never a king in hell,</p><p class="line">In heaven never a throne,</p><p class="line">Only the void and a shivering soul,</p><p class="line">That drifts by itself alone.</p></div></body></html> · Great War