57631: Miners

<p dir="ltr"> There was a whispering in my hearth,<br> A sigh of the coal,<br> Grown wistful of a former earth<br> It might recall.<br> I listened for a tale of leaves<br> And smothered ferns,<br> Frond-forests, and the low sly lives<br> Before the fauns.<br> My fire might show steam-phantoms simmer<br> From Time's old cauldron,<br> Before the birds made nests in summer,<br> Or men had children.<br> But the coals were murmuring of their mine,<br> And moans down there<br> Of boys that slept wry sleep, and men<br> Writhing for air.<br> And I saw white bones in the cinder-shard,<br> Bones without number.<br> Many the muscled bodies charred,<br> And few remember.<br> I thought of all that worked dark pits<br> Of war, and died<br> Digging the rock where Death reputes<br> Peace lies indeed.<br> Comforted years will sit soft-chaired,<br> In rooms of amber;<br> The years will stretch their hands, well-cheered<br> By our life's ember;<br> The centuries will burn rich loads<br> With which we groaned,<br> Whose warmth shall lull their dreaming lids,<br> While songs are crooned;<br> But they will not dream of us poor lads,<br> Left in the ground.</p>