“Aberdonian”

A soldier looked at me with blue hawk-eyes,
With kindly glances sorrow had made wise,
And talked till all I’d ever read in books
Melted to ashes in his burning looks;
And poets I’d despise and craft of pen,
If, while he told his coloured wonder-tales
Of Glasgow, Ypres, sea mist, spouting whales
(Alive past words or power of writing men),
My heart had not exulted in his brave
Air of the wild woodland and sea wave;
Or if, with each new sentence from his tongue,
My high-triumphing spirit had not sung
As in some April when the world was young.