She has been
Professor
of English in Hunter College
since 1899.
since 1899.
War Poetry - 1914-17
Yet maybe Fame's but seeming
And praise you'd set aside,
Content to go on dreaming,
Yea, happy to have died
If of all things you prayed for--
All things your valour paid for--
One prayer is not forgotten,
One purchase not denied.
But God grants your dear England
A strength that shall not cease
Till she have won for all the Earth
From ruthless men release,
And made supreme upon her
Mercy and Truth and Honour--
Is this the thing you died for?
Oh, Brothers, sleep in peace!
_Robert Ernest Vernede_
THE OLD SOLDIER
Lest the young soldiers be strange in heaven,
God bids the old soldier they all adored
Come to Him and wait for them, clean, new-shriven,
A happy doorkeeper in the House of the Lord.
Lest it abash them, the strange new splendour,
Lest it affright them, the new robes clean;
Here's an old face, now, long-tried, and tender,
A word and a hand-clasp as they troop in.
"My boys," he greets them: and heaven is homely,
He their great captain in days gone o'er;
Dear is the friend's face, honest and comely,
Waiting to welcome them by the strange door.
_Katharine Tynan_
LORD KITCHENER
Unflinching hero, watchful to foresee
And face thy country's peril wheresoe'er,
Directing war and peace with equal care,
Till by long duty ennobled thou wert he
Whom England call'd and bade "Set my arm free
To obey my will and save my honour fair,"--
What day the foe presumed on her despair
And she herself had trust in none but thee:
Among Herculean deeds the miracle
That mass'd the labour of ten years in one
Shall be thy monument. Thy work was done
Ere we could thank thee; and the high sea swell
Surgeth unheeding where thy proud ship fell
By the lone Orkneys, at the set of sun.
_Robert Bridges_
_June 8, 1916_
KITCHENER
There is wild water from the north;
The headlands darken in their foam
As with a threat of challenge stubborn earth
Booms at that far wild sea-line charging home.
The night shall stand upon the shifting sea
As yesternight stood there,
And hear the cry of waters through the air,
The iron voice of headlands start and rise--
The noise of winds for mastery
That screams to hear the thunder in those cries.
But now henceforth there shall be heard
From Brough of Bursay, Marwick Head,
And shadows of the distant coast,
Another voice bestirred--
Telling of something greatly lost
Somewhere below the tidal glooms, and dead.
Beyond the uttermost
Of aught the night may hear on any seas
From tempest-known wild water's cry, and roar
Of iron shadows looming from the shore,
It shall be heard--and when the Orcades
Sleep in a hushed Atlantic's starry folds
As smoothly as, far down below the tides,
Sleep on the windless broad sea-wolds
Where this night's shipwreck hides.
By many a sea-holm where the shock
Of ocean's battle falls, and into spray
Gives up its ghosts of strife; by reef and rock
Ravaged by their eternal brute affray
With monstrous frenzies of their shore's green foe;
Where overstream and overfall and undertow
Strive, snatch away;
A wistful voice, without a sound,
Shall dwell beside Pomona, on the sea,
And speak the homeward- and the outward-bound,
And touch the helm of passing minds
And bid them steer as wistfully--
Saying: "He did great work, until the winds
And waters hereabout that night betrayed
Him to the drifting death! His work went on--
He would not be gainsaid. . . .
Though where his bones are, no man knows, not one! "
_John Helston_
THE FALLEN SUBALTERN
The starshells float above, the bayonets glisten;
We bear our fallen friend without a sound;
Below the waiting legions lie and listen
To us, who march upon their burial-ground.
Wound in the flag of England, here we lay him;
The guns will flash and thunder o'er the grave;
What other winding sheet should now array him,
What other music should salute the brave?
As goes the Sun-god in his chariot glorious,
When all his golden banners are unfurled,
So goes the soldier, fallen but victorious,
And leaves behind a twilight in the world.
And those who come this way, in days hereafter,
Will know that here a boy for England fell,
Who looked at danger with the eyes of laughter,
And on the charge his days were ended well.
One last salute; the bayonets clash and glisten;
With arms reversed we go without a sound:
One more has joined the men who lie and listen
To us, who march upon their burial-ground.
_Herbert Asquith_
_1915_
THE DEBT UNPAYABLE
What have I given,
Bold sailor on the sea,
In earth or heaven,
That you should die for me?
What can I give,
O soldier, leal and brave,
Long as I live,
To pay the life you gave?
What tithe or part
Can I return to thee,
O stricken heart,
That thou shouldst break for me?
The wind of Death
For you has slain life's flowers,
It withereth
(God grant) all weeds in ours.
_F. W. Bourdillon_
THE MESSAGES
"I cannot quite remember. . . . There were five
Dropt dead beside me in the trench--and three
Whispered their dying messages to me. . . . "
Back from the trenches, more dead than alive,
Stone-deaf and dazed, and with a broken knee,
He hobbled slowly, muttering vacantly:
"I cannot quite remember. . . . There were five
Dropt dead beside me in the trench, and three
Whispered their dying messages to me. . . .
"Their friends are waiting, wondering how they thrive--
Waiting a word in silence patiently. . . .
But what they said, or who their friends may be
"I cannot quite remember. . . . There were five
Dropt dead beside me in the trench--and three
Whispered their dying messages to me. . . . "
_Wilfrid Wilson Gibson_
A CROSS IN FLANDERS
In the face of death, they say, he joked--he had no fear;
His comrades, when they laid him in a Flanders grave,
Wrote on a rough-hewn cross--a Calvary stood near--
"Without a fear he gave
"His life, cheering his men, with laughter on his lips. "
So wrote they, mourning him. Yet was there only one
Who fully understood his laughter, his gay quips,
One only, she alone--
She who, not so long since, when love was new--confest,
Herself toyed with light laughter while her eyes were dim,
And jested, while with reverence despite her jest
She worshipped God and him.
She knew--O Love, O Death! --his soul had been at grips
With the most solemn things. For _she_, was _she_ not dear?
Yes, he was brave, most brave, with laughter on his lips,
The braver for his fear!
_G. Rostrevor Hamilton_
RESURRECTION
Not long did we lie on the torn, red field of pain.
We fell, we lay, we slumbered, we took rest,
With the wild nerves quiet at last, and the vexed brain
Cleared of the winged nightmares, and the breast
Freed of the heavy dreams of hearts afar.
We rose at last under the morning star.
We rose, and greeted our brothers, and welcomed our foes.
We rose; like the wheat when the wind is over, we rose.
With shouts we rose, with gasps and incredulous cries,
With bursts of singing, and silence, and awestruck eyes,
With broken laughter, half tears, we rose from the sod,
With welling tears and with glad lips, whispering, "God. "
Like babes, refreshed from sleep, like children, we rose,
Brimming with deep content, from our dreamless repose.
And, "What do you call it? " asked one. "I thought I was dead. "
"You are," cried another. "We're all of us dead and flat. "
"I'm alive as a cricket. There's something wrong with your head. "
They stretched their limbs and argued it out where they sat.
And over the wide field friend and foe
Spoke of small things, remembering not old woe
Of war and hunger, hatred and fierce words.
They sat and listened to the brooks and birds,
And watched the starlight perish in pale flame,
Wondering what God would look like when He came.
_Hermann Hagedorn_
TO A HERO
We may not know how fared your soul before
Occasion came to try it by this test.
Perchance, it used on lofty wings to soar;
Again, it may have dwelt in lowly nest.
We do not know if bygone knightly strain
Impelled you then, or blood of humble clod
Defied the dread adventure to attain
The cross of honor or the peace of God.
We see but this, that when the moment came
You raised on high, then drained, the solemn cup--
The grail of death; that, touched by valor's flame,
The kindled spirit burned the body up.
_Oscar C. A. Child_
RUPERT BROOKE
(IN MEMORIAM)
I never knew you save as all men know
Twitter of mating birds, flutter of wings
In April coverts, and the streams that flow--
One of the happy voices of our Springs.
A voice for ever stilled, a memory,
Since you went eastward with the fighting ships,
A hero of the great new Odyssey,
And God has laid His finger on your lips.
_Moray Dalton_
THE PLAYERS
We challenged Death. He threw with weighted dice.
We laughed and paid the forfeit, glad to pay--
Being recompensed beyond our sacrifice
With that nor Death nor Time can take away.
_Francis Bickley_
A SONG
Oh, red is the English rose,
And the lilies of France are pale,
And the poppies grow in the golden wheat,
For the men whose eyes are heavy with sleep,
Where the ground is red as the English rose,
And the lips as the lilies of France are pale,
And the ebbing pulses beat fainter and fainter and fail.
Oh, red is the English rose,
And the lilies of France are pale.
And the poppies lie in the level corn
For the men who sleep and never return.
But wherever they lie an English rose
So red, and a lily of France so pale,
Will grow for a love that never and never can fail.
_Charles Alexander Richmond_
HARVEST MOON
Over the twilight field,
Over the glimmering field
And bleeding furrows, with their sodden yield
Of sheaves that still did writhe,
After the scythe;
The teeming field, and darkly overstrewn
With all the garnered fullness of that noon--
Two looked upon each other.
One was a Woman, men had called their mother:
And one the Harvest Moon.
And one the Harvest Moon
Who stood, who gazed
On those unquiet gleanings, where they bled;
Till the lone Woman said:
"But we were crazed. . . .
We should laugh now together, I and you;
We two.
You, for your ever dreaming it was worth
A star's while to look on, and light the earth;
And I, for ever telling to my mind
Glory it was and gladness, to give birth
To human kind.
I gave the breath,--and thought it not amiss,
I gave the breath to men,
For men to slay again;
Lording it over anguish, all to give
My life, that men might live,
For this.
"You will be laughing now, remembering
We called you once Dead World, and barren thing.
Yes, so we called you then,
You, far more wise
Than to give life to men. "
Over the field that there
Gave back the skies
A scattered upward stare
From sightless eyes,
The furrowed field that lay
Striving awhile, through many a bleeding dune
Of throbbing clay,--but dumb and quiet soon,
She looked; and went her way,
The Harvest Moon.
_Josephine Preston Peabody_
HARVEST MOON: 1916
Moon, slow rising, over the trembling sea-rim,
Moon of the lifted tides and their folded burden.
Look, look down. And gather the blinded oceans,
Moon of compassion.
Come, white Silence, over the one sea pathway:
Pour with hallowing hands on the surge and outcry,
Silver flame; and over the famished blackness,
Petals of moonlight.
Once again, the formless void of a world-wreck
Gropes its way through the echoing dark of chaos;
Tide on tide, to the calling, lost horizons,--
One in the darkness.
You that veil the light of the all-beholding,
Shed white tidings down to the dooms of longing,
Down to the timeless dark; and the sunken treasures,
One in the darkness.
Touch, and harken,--under that shrouding silver,
Rise and fall, the heart of the sea and its legions,
All and one; one with the breath of the deathless,
Rising and falling.
Touch and waken so, to a far hereafter,
Ebb and flow, the deep, and the dead in their longing:
Till at last, on the hungering face of the waters,
There shall be Light.
_Light of Light, give us to see, for their sake.
Light of Light, grant them eternal peace;
And let light perpetual shine upon them;
Light, everlasting. _
_Josephine Preston Peabody_
MY SON
Here is his little cambric frock
That I laid by in lavender so sweet,
And here his tiny shoe and sock
I made with loving care for his dear feet.
I fold the frock across my breast,
And in imagination, ah, my sweet,
Once more I hush my babe to rest,
And once again I warm those little feet.
Where do those strong young feet now stand?
In flooded trench, half numb to cold or pain,
Or marching through the desert sand
To some dread place that they may never gain.
God guide him and his men to-day!
Though death may lurk in any tree or hill,
His brave young spirit is their stay,
Trusting in that they'll follow where he will.
They love him for his tender heart
When poverty or sorrow asks his aid,
But he must see each do his part--
Of cowardice alone he is afraid.
I ask no honours on the field,
That other men have won as brave as he--
I only pray that God may shield
My son, and bring him safely back to me!
_Ada Tyrrell_
TO THE OTHERS
This was the gleam then that lured from far
Your son and my son to the Holy War:
Your son and my son for the accolade
With the banner of Christ over them, in steel arrayed.
All quiet roads of life ran on to this;
When they were little for their mother's kiss.
Little feet hastening, so soft, unworn,
To the vows and the vigil and the road of thorn.
Your son and my son, the downy things,
Sheltered in mother's breast, by mother's wings,
Should they be broken in the Lord's wars--Peace!
He Who has given them--are they not His?
Dream of knight's armour and the battle-shout,
Fighting and falling at the last redoubt,
Dream of long dying on the field of slain;
This was the dream that lured, nor lured in vain.
These were the Voices they heard from far;
Bugles and trumpets of the Holy War.
Your son and my son have heard the call,
Your son and my son have stormed the wall.
Your son and my son, clean as new swords;
Your man and my man and now the Lord's!
Your son and my son for the Great Crusade,
With the banner of Christ over them--our knights new-made.
_Katharine Tynan_
THE JOURNEY
I went upon a journey
To countries far away,
From province unto province
To pass my holiday.
And when I came to Serbia,
In a quiet little town
At an inn with a flower-filled garden
With a soldier I sat down.
Now he lies dead at Belgrade.
You heard the cannon roar!
It boomed from Rome to Stockholm,
It pealed to the far west shore.
And when I came to Russia,
A man with flowing hair
Called me his friend and showed me
A flowing river there.
Now he lies dead at Lemberg,
Beside another stream,
In his dark eyes extinguished
The friendship of his dream.
And then I crossed two countries
Whose names on my lips are sealed. . . .
Not yet had they flung their challenge
Nor led upon the field
Sons who lie dead at Liege,
Dead by the Russian lance,
Dead in southern mountains,
Dead through the farms of France.
I stopped in the land of Louvain,
So tranquil, happy, then.
I lived with a good old woman,
With her sons and her grandchildren.
Now they lie dead at Louvain,
Those simple kindly folk.
Some heard, some fled. It must be
Some slept, for they never woke.
I came to France. I was thirsty.
I sat me down to dine.
The host and his young wife served me
With bread and fruit and wine.
Now he lies dead at Cambrai--
He was sent among the first.
In dreams she sees him dying
Of wounds, of heat, of thirst.
At last I passed to Dover
And saw upon the shore
A tall young English captain
And soldiers, many more.
Now they lie dead at Dixmude,
The brave, the strong, the young!
I turn unto my homeland,
All my journey sung!
_Grace Fallow Norton_
A MOTHER'S DEDICATION
Dear son of mine, the baby days are over,
I can no longer shield you from the earth;
Yet in my heart always I must remember
How through the dark I fought to give you birth.
Dear son of mine, by all the lives behind you;
By all our fathers fought for in the past;
In this great war to which your birth has brought you,
Acquit you well, hold you our honour fast!
God guard you, son of mine, where'er you wander;
God lead the banners under which you fight;
You are my all, I give you to the Nation,
God shall uphold you that you fight aright.
_Margaret Peterson_
TO A MOTHER
Robbed mother of the stricken Motherland--
Two hearts in one and one among the dead,
Before your grave with an uncovered head
I, that am man, disquiet and silent stand
In reverence. It is your blood they shed;
It is your sacred self that they demand,
For one you bore in joy and hope, and planned
Would make yourself eternal, now has fled.
But though you yielded him unto the knife
And altar with a royal sacrifice
Of your most precious self and dearer life--
Your master gem and pearl above all price--
Content you; for the dawn this night restores
Shall be the dayspring of his soul and yours.
_Eden Phillpotts_
SPRING IN WAR-TIME
I feel the spring far off, far off,
The faint, far scent of bud and leaf--
Oh, how can spring take heart to come
To a world in grief,
Deep grief?
The sun turns north, the days grow long,
Later the evening star grows bright--
How can the daylight linger on
For men to fight,
Still fight?
The grass is waking in the ground,
Soon it will rise and blow in waves--
How can it have the heart to sway
Over the graves,
New graves?
Under the boughs where lovers walked
The apple-blooms will shed their breath--
But what of all the lovers now
Parted by Death,
Grey Death?
_Sara Teasdale_
OCCASIONAL NOTES
ASQUITH, HERBERT. He received a commission in the Royal Marine Artillery
at the end of 1914 and served as a Second Lieutenant with an Anti-
Aircraft Battery in April, 1915, returning wounded during the following
June. He became a full Lieutenant in July, but was invalided home after
about six weeks. In June, 1916, he joined the Royal Field Artillery and
went out to France once again with a battery of field guns at the
beginning of March, 1917. Since that time he has been steadily on active
service.
BEWSHER, PAUL. He was educated at St. Paul's School, and is a
Sub-Lieutenant in the Royal Naval Air Service.
BINYON, LAURENCE. His war writings include _The Winnowing Fan_ and _The
Anvil_, published in America under the title of _The Cause_.
BRIDGES, ROBERT. He has been Poet-Laureate of England since 1913.
BROOKE, RUPERT. He was born at Rugby on August 3, 1887, and became a
Fellow of King's College, Cambridge, in 1913. He was made a
Sub-Lieutenant in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve in September, 1914;
accompanied the Antwerp expedition in October of the same year; and
sailed with the British Mediterranean Expeditionary Force on February
28, 1915. He died in the Aegean, on April 23, and lies buried in the
island of Skyros. See the memorial poems in this volume, _The Island of
Skyros_, by John Masefield; and _Rupert Brooke_, by Moray Dalton. His
war poetry appears in the volume entitled _1914 and other Poems_, and in
his _Collected Poems_.
CAMPBELL, WILFRED. This well-known Canadian poet has lately published
_Sagas of Vaster Britain, War Lyrics_, and _Canada's Responsibility to
the Empire_. His son, Captain Basil Campbell, joined the Second
Pioneers.
CHESTERTON, CECIL EDWARD. He has been editor of the _New Witness_ since
1912, and is a private in the Highland Light Infantry. His war writings
include _The Prussian hath said in his Heart_, and _The Perils of
Peace_.
CHESTERTON, GILBERT KEITH. This brilliant and versatile author has
written many essays on phases of the war, including weekly contributions
to _The Illustrated London News_.
CONE, HELEN GRAY.
She has been Professor of English in Hunter College
since 1899. Her war poetry appears in the volume entitled _A Chant of
Love for England, and other Poems_.
COULSON, LESLIE. He joined the British Army in September, 1914, declined
a commission and served in Egypt, Malta, Gallipoli (where he was
wounded), and Prance. He became Sergeant in the City of London Regiment
(Royal Fusiliers) and was mortally wounded while leading a charge
against the Germans in October, 1916.
DIXON, WILLIAM MACNEILE. He is Professor of English Language and
Literature in the University of Glasgow. His war writings include _The
British Navy at War_ and _The Fleets behind the Fleet_.
DOYLE, SIR ARTHUR CONAN. He has written much of interest on the war,
especially as regards the western campaigns.
FIELD, A. N. He is a private in the Second New Zealand Brigade.
FRANKAU, GILBERT. Upon the declaration of war he joined the Ninth East
Surrey Regiment (Infantry), with the rank of Lieutenant. He was
transferred to the Royal Field Artillery in March, 1915, and was
appointed Adjutant during the following July. He proceeded to France in
that capacity, fought in the battle of Loos, served at Ypres during the
winter of 1915-16, and thereafter took part in the battle of the Somme.
In October, 1916, he was recalled to England, was promoted to the rank
of Staff Captain in the Intelligence Corps, and was sent to Italy to
engage in special duties.
FREEMAN, JOHN. He was Lieutenant-Colonel in the Russian A. M. S. , on the
Bacteriological Mission to Galicia, 1914.
GALSWORTHY, JOHN. Mr. Galsworthy, the well-known novelist, poet, and
dramatist, served for several months as an expert _masseur_ in an
English hospital for French soldiers at Martouret.
GIBSON, WILFRID WILSON. His war writings include _Battle_, etc.
GRENFELL, THE HON. JULIAN, D. S. O. He was a Captain in the First Royal
Dragoons; was wounded near Ypres on March 13, 1915; and died at Boulogne
on May 26. He was the eldest son of Lord Desborough. "Julian set an
example of light-hearted courage," wrote Lieutenant-Colonel Machlachan,
of the Eighth Service Battalion Rifle Brigade, "which is famous all
through the Army in France, and has stood out even above the most
lion-hearted. "
HALL, JAMES NORMAN. He is a member of the American Aviation Corps in
France, and author of _Kitchener's Mob_ and _High Adventure_. He was
captured by the Germans, May 7, 1918, after an air battle inside the
enemy's lines.
HARDY, THOMAS. He received the Order of Merit in 1910.
HEMPHREY, MALCOLM. He is a Lance-Corporal in the Army Ordnance Corps,
Nairobi, British East Africa.
HEWLETT, MAURICE HENRY. He has published a group of his war poems under
the title _Sing-Songs of the War_.
HODGSON, W. N. He was the son of the Bishop of Ipswich and Edmundsbury,
and was a Lieutenant in the Devon Regiment. His pen-name is "Edward
Melbourne. " He won the Military Cross. He was killed during the battle
of the Somme, in July, 1916.
HOWARD, GEOFFREY. He is a Lieutenant in the Royal Fusiliers.
HUSSEY, DYNELEY. He is a Lieutenant in the Thirteenth Battalion of the
Lancashire Fusiliers, and has published his war poems in a volume
entitled _Fleur de Lys_.
HUTCHINSON, HENRY WILLIAM. He was the son of Sir Sidney Hutchinson, and
was educated at St. Paul's School. He was a Second Lieutenant in the
Middlesex Regiment. He was killed while on active service in France,
March 13, 1917, at the age of nineteen.
KAUFMAN, HERBERT. He has published _The Song of the Guns_, which was
later republished as _The Hell-Gate of Soissons_.
KIPLING, RUDYARD. Mr. Kipling won the Nobel Prize for Literature in
1907. His war writings include _The New Armies in Training, France at
War_, and _Sea Warfare_.
KNIGHT-ADKIN, JAMES. When war was declared he was a Master at the
Imperial Service College, Windsor, and Lieutenant in the Officers'
Training Corps. He volunteered on the first day of the war and was
attached to the Fourth Battalion, Gloucester Regiment. He went into the
trenches in March, 1915, was wounded in June, and was invalided home. In
1916 he returned to France, and is now a Captain in charge of a
prisoner-of-war camp.
LEE, JOSEPH. He enlisted, at the outbreak of the war, as a private in
the 1st/4th Battalion of the Black Watch, Royal Highlanders, in which
corps he has served on all parts of the British front in France and
Flanders. Sergeant Lee has both composed and illustrated a volume of
war-poems entitled _Ballads of Battle_.
LUCAS, EDWARD VERRALL. Mr. Lucas has undertaken hospital service.
MASEFIELD, JOHN. Mr. Masefield, whose lectures in America early in 1916
quickened interest in his work and personality, has been very active
during the war. He has written an excellent study of the campaign on the
Gallipoli Peninsula, having served there and also in France in
connection with Red Cross work.
MORGAN, CHARLES LANGBRIDGE. He is a Sub-Lieutenant in the Royal Naval
Division, and is a Prisoner of War in Holland.
NEWBOLT, SIR HENRY. He is the author of _The Book of the Thin Red Line,
Story of the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry_, and
_Stories of the Great War_.
NOYES, ALFRED. His war writings include _A Salute to the Fleet_, etc.
OGILVIE, WILLIAM HENRY. He was Professor of Agricultural Journalism in
the Iowa State College, U. S. A. , from 1905 to 1907. His war writings
include _Australia and Other Verses_.
OSWALD, SYDNEY. He is a Major in the King's Royal Rifle Corps.
PHILLIPS, STEPHEN. His war writings include _Armageddon_, etc. He died
December 9, 1915.
PHILLPOTTS, EDEN. Among his war writings are _The Human Boy and the
War_, and _Plain Song, 1914-16_.
RATCLIFFE, A. VICTOR. He was a Lieutenant in the 10th/13th West
Yorkshire Regiment, and was killed in action on July 1, 1916.
RAWNSLEY, REV. HARDWICKE DRUMMOND. He has been Canon of Carlisle and
Honorary Chaplain to the King since 1912.
ROBERTSON, ALEXANDER. He is a Corporal in the Twelfth York and Lancaster
Regiment. He was reported "missing" in July, 1916.
ROSS, SIR RONALD. He is the President of the Poetry Society of Great
Britain, and is a Lieutenant-Colonel in the Royal Army Medical Corps.
SCOLLARD, CLINTON. His war writings include _The Vale of Shadows, and
Other Verses of the Great War_, and _Italy in Arms, and Other Verses_.
SCOTT, CANON FREDERICK GEORGE. He is a Major in the Third Brigade of the
First Canadian Division, British Expeditionary Force.
SEAMAN, SIR OWEN. He has been the editor of _Punch_ since 1906. His war
writings include _War-Time_ and _Made in England_.
SEEGER, ALAN. Among the Americans who have served at the front there is
none who has produced poetic work of such high quality as that of Alan
Seeger. He was born in New York on June 22nd, 1888; was educated at the
Horace Mann School; Hackley School, Tarrytown, New York; and Harvard
College. In 1912 he went to Paris and lived the life of a student and
writer in the Latin Quarter. During the third week of the war he
enlisted in the Foreign Legion of France. His service as a soldier was
steady, loyal and uncomplaining--indeed, exultant would not be too
strong a word to describe the spirit which seems constantly to have
animated his military career. He took part in the battle of Champagne.
Afterwards, his regiment was allowed to recuperate until May, 1916. On
July 1 a general advance was ordered, and on the evening of July 4 the
Legion was ordered to attack the village of Belloy-en-Santerre. Seeger's
squad was caught by the fire of six machine-guns and he himself was
wounded in several places, but he continued to cheer his comrades as
they rushed on in what proved a successful charge. He died on the
morning of July 5. The twenty or more poems he wrote during active
service are included in the collected _Poems by Alan Seeger_, with an
introduction by William Archer.
SORLEY, CHARLES HAMILTON. He was born at Old Aberdeen on May 19, 1895.
He was a student at Marlborough College from the autumn of 1908 until
the end of 1913, at which time he was elected to a scholarship at
University College, Oxford. After leaving school in England, he spent
several months as a student and observer in Germany. When the war broke
out he returned home and was gazetted Second Lieutenant in the Seventh
(Service) Battalion of the Suffolk Regiment. In November he was made a
Lieutenant, and in August, 1915, a Captain. He served in France from May
30 to October 13, 1915, when he was killed in action near Hulluch. His
war poems and letters appear in a volume entitled _Marlborough and other
Poems_, published by the Cambridge University Press.
STEWART, J. E. He is a Captain in the Eighth Border Regiment, British
Expeditionary Force. He was awarded the Military Cross in 1916.
TENNANT, EDWARD WYNDHAM. He was the son of Baron Glenconner, and was at
Winchester when war was declared. He was only seventeen when he joined
the Grenadier Guards, Twenty-first Battalion. He had one year's training
in England, saw one year's active service in France, and fell, gallantly
fighting, in the battle of the Somme, 1916.
TYNAN, KATHARINE. Pen-name of Mrs. Katharine Tynan Hinkson, whose war
writings include _The Flower of Peace_, _The Holy War_, etc.
VAN DYKE, HENRY. He has been Professor of English Literature in
Princeton University since 1900, and was United States Minister to the
Netherlands and Luxembourg from June, 1913, to December, 1916. He has
published several war poems. He is the first American to receive an
honorary degree at Oxford since the United States entered the war. The
degree of Doctor of Civil Law was conferred upon him on May 8, 1917.
VERNEDE, ROBERT ERNEST. He was educated at St. Paul's School and at St.
John's College, Oxford. On leaving college he became a professional
writer, producing several novels and two books of travel sketches, one
dealing with India, the other with Canada. He was also author of a
number of poems. At the outbreak of the war he enlisted in the
Nineteenth Royal Fusiliers, known as the Public Schools Battalion, and
received a commission as Second Lieutenant in the Rifle Brigade, in May,
1915. He went to France in November, 1915, and was wounded during the
battle of the Somme in September of the following year, but returned to
the front in December. He died of wounds on April 9, 1917, in his
forty-second year.
WATERHOUSE, GILBERT. Lieutenant in the Second Essex Regiment. His war
writings include _Railhead, and other Poems_. He is reported "missing. "
WHARTON, EDITH. She has written _Fighting France_, etc.
INDEX OF FIRST LINES
A bowl of daffodils
A league and a league from the trenches--from the traversed maze of the
lines
A song of hate is a song of Hell
A sudden swirl of song in the bright sky
A wind in the world! The dark departs
A winged death has smitten dumb thy bells
All that a man might ask thou hast given me, England
All the hills and vales along
Alone amid the battle-din untouched
Ambassador of Christ you go
Around no fire the soldiers sleep to-night
As I lay in the trenches
As when the shadow of the sun's eclipse
At last there'll dawn the last of the long year
Awake, ye nations, slumbering supine
Because for once the sword broke in her hand
Before I knew, the Dawn was on the road
Beneath fair Magdalen's storied towers
Blow out, you bugles, over the rich Dead
Broken, bewildered by the long retreat
Brothers in blood! They who this wrong began
Burned from the ore's rejected dross
By all the deeds to Thy dear glory done
By all the glories of the day
By day, by night, along the lines their dull boom rings
Champion of human honour, let us lave
Come, Death, I'd have a word with thee
Courage came to you with your boyhood's grace
Dark, dark lay the drifters, against the red west
Dawn off the Foreland--the young flood making
Dear son of mine, the baby days are over
Dreary lay the long road, dreary lay the town
Endless lanes sunken in the clay
England, in this great fight to which you go
England! where the sacred flame
Facing the guns, he jokes as well
Far fall the day when England's realm shall see
For all we have and are
Franceline rose in the dawning gray
From morn to midnight, all day through
Further and further we leave the scene
Give us a name to fill the mind
Great names of thy great captains gone before
Green gardens in Laventie
Guns of Verdun point to Metz
He said: Thou petty people, let me pass
Hearken, the feet of the Destroyer tread
Here is his little cambric frock
Here lies a clerk who half his life had spent
Here, where we stood together, we three men
I cannot quite remember. . . . There were five
I feel the spring far off, far off
I have a rendezvous with Death
I heard the rumbling guns, I saw the smoke
I know a beach road
I never knew you save as all men know
I pray for peace; yet peace is but a prayer
I saw her first abreast the Boston Light
I saw the spires of Oxford
I see across the chasm of flying years
I was out early to-day, spying about
I went upon a journey
I will die cheering, if I needs must die
If I should die, think only this of me
In a vision of the night I saw them
In lonely watches night by night
In the face of death, they say, he joked--he had no fear
In the glad revels, in the happy fetes
It is portentous, and a thing of state
It was silent in the street
Land of the desolate, Mother of tears
Land of the Martyrs--of the martyred dead
Led by Wilhelm, as you tell
Lest the young soldiers be strange in heaven
Low and brown barns, thatched and repatched and tattered
Men of my blood, you English men!
Men of the Twenty-first
Moon, slow rising, over the trembling sea-rim
Mother and child! Though the dividing sea
My leg? It's off at the knee
My name is Darino, the poet. You have heard? _Oui, Comedie Francaise_
Nay, nay, sweet England, do not grieve
Near where the royal victims fell
No Man's Land is an eerie sight
No more old England will they see
Not long did we lie on the torn, red field of pain
Not since Wren's Dome has whispered with man's prayer
Not with her ruined silver spires
Now is the midnight of the nations: dark
Now lamp-lit gardens in the blue dusk shine
Now slowly sinks the day-long labouring sun
Now spake the Emperor to all his shining battle forces
O gracious ones, we bless your name
O living pictures of the dead
O race that Caesar knew
Of all my dreams by night and day
Often I think of you, Jimmy Doane
Oh, down by the Millwall Basin as I went the other day
Oh, red is the English rose
Oh! yon hills are filled with sunlight, and the green leaves paled to
gold
Our little hour,--how swift it flies
Out where the line of battle cleaves
Over the twilight field
_Qui vive? _ Who passes by up there?
Quiet thou didst stand at thine appointed place
Robbed mother of the stricken Motherland
Saints have adored the lofty soul of you
See you that stretch of shell-torn mud spotted with pools of mire
Shadow by shadow, stripped for fight
She came not into the Presence as a martyred saint might come
She was binding the wounds of her enemies when they came
Shyly expectant, gazing up at Her
Sometimes I fly at dawn above the sea
The battery grides and jingles
The falling rain is music overhead
The first to climb the parapet
The horror-haunted Belgian plains riven by shot and shell
The naked earth is warm with Spring
The road that runs up to Messines
The starshells float above, the bayonets glisten
There are five men in the moonlight
There is a hill in England
There is wild water from the north
They had hot scent across the spumy sea
They sent him back to her. The letter came
This is my faith, and my mind's heritage
This is the ballad of Langemarck
This was the gleam then that lured from far
Those who have stood for thy cause when the dark was around thee
Thou warden of the western gate, above Manhattan Bay
Thou, whose deep ways are in the sea
Three hundred thousand men, but not enough
To the Judge of Right and Wrong
'T was in the piping time of peace
Under our curtain of fire
Under the tow-path past the barges
Unflinching hero, watchful to foresee
Was there love once? I have forgotten her
We are here in a wood of little beeches
We challenged Death. He threw with weighted dice
We may not know how fared your soul before
We willed it not. We have not lived in hate
What have I given
What is the gift we have given thee, Sister?
What of the faith and fire within us
What was it kept you so long, brave German submersible?
When battles were fought
When consciousness came back, he found he lay
When first I saw you in the curious street
When the fire sinks in the grate, and night has bent
When there is Peace our land no more
Whence not unmoved I see the nations form
Wherever war, with its red woes
With arrows on their quarters and with numbers on their hoofs
With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children
Ye sleepers, who will sing you
You dare to say with perjured lips
You have become a forge of snow-white fire
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