Close your eyes, dear boy,

Too much of life and too much death have you seen;

More than grown men can bear

have you borne upon your frail shoulders.

Curtains you have drawn aside show the black Earth

That men lie and call green, that they may survive.

Close your eyes, and rest,

May the fantasies you believe, be truth

May your hopes of Heaven be reality

And let my dark certainties be the lies.

But your young-old eyes cannot close

So cruelly has this world mistreated you

You look out of them even now

upon chaos and grief you cannot see.

I see those eyes in my sleep

I try to close them with trembling fingers

Yet they stare through my dreams and my nightmares.

We are still alike, you and I,

My eyes, like yours, cannot shut out the black Earth.