Item 06: Frank H. Molony diary, 25 March 1918-7 August 1918 - Page 7

[Page 7]

"The Earth's Desire", W. Watson

When a sigh as of abdication is wrung from lordly things
by the rumour of crumbling pride that the eve of autumn brings;
When the troubled splendours come, and the glad perfections go,
with the flitting of vagabond tempest irresolute to and fro;
"Ask, ask," say the Heavens, "a boon" – and the marked earth craves in vain,
The throb of the bliss of the rose, and the pomp of the nightingale's pain.
"Today", Dec. 1917.

"The Jewel-Stairs Grievance", Rihaku

The jewelled steps are already quite white with dew.
It is so late that the dew soaks my gauze stockings,
And I let down the crystal curtains
And watch the moon through the clear autumn.
(Ezra Pound Trans.) To-Day, April 1918

The imagination of a boy is healthy and the mature imagination of a man is healthy: but there is a space of life between, in which the soul is in ferment, the character undecided, the way of life uncertain, the ambition thick sighted.
Keats

Three years ago I told that to Gerald and thought that I'd lost an imaginative unhealthiness with the yellow age, but it seems I'll never lose it. May 3/18.

Diary Six

La Clytte, M.D.S.

Opened evening of March 25, 1918.

1.
Day of rumour. Peronne and Bapaume in the hands of the Boche, and hard fighting in High Wood, then Peronne has been recaptured by the French, and big bagging of prisoners. Bapaume still being defended hardly by Byng's Army, and High Wood the scene of more warr.

But the greatest rumour of all, Paris being shelled! The Boche have a new gun, of wounderful sizing, and its shells are travelling to Paris. Yesterday we heard of Calais being shelled! – we substituted bombs for shells, but …

It looks as though John Masefield's "The Old Front Line" is a little early as a guide book, as though "The Old Front Line" will be our New Front Line. Word is rumoured of La Somme again for us.

This morning a tremendous sky of still clouds: a cold evening and rain.

Met here the R.C. Padre of Dranoutre, yarning a while with him of Francis Thompson