You, so familiar, once were strange: we tried
To live as of your presence unaware.
To live as of your presence unaware.
War Poetry - 1914-17
.
.
.
Five, six, seven, eight. . . .
Yes, it was number eight.
And what was the next thing that she required?
(Too bad of customers to come so late,
At closing time! ) Again within the shop
He handled knots of tape and reels of thread,
Politely talking weather, fit to drop. . . .
When once again the whole sky overhead
Flared blind with searchlights, and the shriek of shell
And scream of shrapnel roused him. Drowsily
He stared about him, wondering. Then he fell
Into deep dreamless slumber.
* * * * *
He could see
Two dark eyes peeping at him, ere he knew
He was awake, and it again was day--
An August morning, burning to clear blue.
The frightened rabbit scuttled. . . .
Far away,
A sound of firing. . . . Up there, in the sky
Big dragon-flies hung hovering. . . . Snowballs burst
About them. . . . Flies and snowballs. With a cry
He crouched to watch the airmen pass--the first
That he'd seen under fire. Lord, that was pluck--
Shells bursting all about them--and what nerve!
They took their chance, and trusted to their luck.
At such a dizzy height to dip and swerve,
Dodging the shell-fire. . . .
Hell! but one was hit,
And tumbling like a pigeon, plump. . . .
Thank Heaven,
It righted, and then turned; and after it
The whole flock followed safe--four, five, six, seven,
Yes, they were all there safe. He hoped they'd win
Back to their lines in safety. They deserved,
Even if they were Germans. . . . 'T was no sin
To wish them luck. Think how that beggar swerved
Just in the nick of time!
He, too, must try
To win back to the lines, though, likely as not,
He'd take the wrong turn: but he couldn't lie
Forever in that hungry hole and rot,
He'd got to take his luck, to take his chance
Of being sniped by foes or friends. He'd be
With any luck in Germany or France
Or Kingdom-come, next morning. . . .
Drearily
The blazing day burnt over him, shot and shell
Whistling and whining ceaselessly. But light
Faded at last, and as the darkness fell
He rose, and crawled away into the night.
_Wilfrid Wilson Gibson_
THE WHITE COMRADE
(AFTER W. H. LEATHAM'S _The Comrade in White_)
Under our curtain of fire,
Over the clotted clods,
We charged, to be withered, to reel
And despairingly wheel
When the bugles bade us retire
From the terrible odds.
As we ebbed with the battle-tide,
Fingers of red-hot steel
Suddenly closed on my side.
I fell, and began to pray.
I crawled on my hands and lay
Where a shallow crater yawned wide;
Then,--I swooned. . . .
When I woke, it was yet day.
Fierce was the pain of my wound,
But I saw it was death to stir,
For fifty paces away
Their trenches were.
In torture I prayed for the dark
And the stealthy step of my friend
Who, staunch to the very end,
Would creep to the danger zone
And offer his life as a mark
To save my own.
Night fell. I heard his tread,
Not stealthy, but firm and serene,
As if my comrade's head
Were lifted far from that scene
Of passion and pain and dread;
As if my comrade's heart
In carnage took no part;
As if my comrade's feet
Were set on some radiant street
Such as no darkness might haunt;
As if my comrade's eyes,
No deluge of flame could surprise,
No death and destruction daunt,
No red-beaked bird dismay,
Nor sight of decay.
Then in the bursting shells' dim light
I saw he was clad in white.
For a moment I thought that I saw the smock
Of a shepherd in search of his flock.
Alert were the enemy, too,
And their bullets flew
Straight at a mark no bullet could fail;
For the seeker was tall and his robe was bright;
But he did not flee nor quail.
Instead, with unhurrying stride
He came,
And gathering my tall frame,
Like a child, in his arms. . . .
Again I swooned,
And awoke
From a blissful dream
In a cave by a stream.
My silent comrade had bound my side.
No pain now was mine, but a wish that I spoke,--
A mastering wish to serve this man
Who had ventured through hell my doom to revoke,
As only the truest of comrades can.
I begged him to tell me how best I might aid him,
And urgently prayed him
Never to leave me, whatever betide;
When I saw he was hurt--
Shot through the hands that were clasped in prayer!
Then, as the dark drops gathered there
And fell in the dirt,
The wounds of my friend
Seemed to me such as no man might bear.
Those bullet-holes in the patient hands
Seemed to transcend
All horrors that ever these war-drenched lands
Had known or would know till the mad world's end.
Then suddenly I was aware
That his feet had been wounded, too;
And, dimming the white of his side,
A dull stain grew.
"You are hurt, White Comrade! " I cried.
His words I already foreknew:
"These are old wounds," said he,
"But of late they have troubled me. "
_Robert Haven Schauffler_
FLEURETTE
THE WOUNDED CANADIAN SPEAKS:
My leg? It's off at the knee.
Do I miss it? Well, some. You see
I've had it since I was born;
And lately a devilish corn.
(I rather chuckle with glee
To think how I've fooled that corn. )
But I'll hobble around all right.
It isn't that, it's my face.
Oh, I know I'm a hideous sight,
Hardly a thing in place.
Sort of gargoyle, you'd say.
Nurse won't give me a glass,
But I see the folks as they pass
Shudder and turn away;
Turn away in distress. . . .
Mirror enough, I guess.
I'm gay! You bet I _am_ gay,
But I wasn't a while ago.
If you'd seen me even to-day,
The darnedest picture of woe,
With this Caliban mug of mine,
So ravaged and raw and red,
Turned to the wall--in fine
Wishing that I was dead. . . .
What has happened since then,
Since I lay with my face to the wall,
The most despairing of men!
Listen! I'll tell you all.
That _poilu_ across the way,
With the shrapnel wound on his head,
Has a sister: she came to-day
To sit awhile by his bed.
All morning I heard him fret:
"Oh, when will she come, Fleurette? "
Then sudden, a joyous cry;
The tripping of little feet;
The softest, tenderest sigh;
A voice so fresh and sweet;
Clear as a silver bell,
Fresh as the morning dews:
"_C'est toi, c'est toi, Marcel!
Mon frere, comme je suis heureuse! _"
So over the blanket's rim
I raised my terrible face,
And I saw--how I envied him!
A girl of such delicate grace;
Sixteen, all laughter and love;
As gay as a linnet, and yet
As tenderly sweet as a dove;
Half woman, half child--Fleurette.
Then I turned to the wall again.
(I was awfully blue, you see,)
And I thought with a bitter pain:
"Such visions are not for me. "
So there like a log I lay,
All hidden, I thought, from view,
When sudden I heard her say:
"Ah! Who is that _malheureux_? "
Then briefly I heard him tell
(However he came to know)
How I'd smothered a bomb that fell
Into the trench, and so
None of my men were hit,
Though it busted me up a bit.
Well, I didn't quiver an eye,
And he chattered and there she sat;
And I fancied I heard her sigh--
But I wouldn't just swear to that.
And maybe she wasn't so bright,
Though she talked in a merry strain,
And I closed my eyes ever so tight,
Yet I saw her ever so plain:
Her dear little tilted nose,
Her delicate, dimpled chin,
Her mouth like a budding rose,
And the glistening pearls within;
Her eyes like the violet:
Such a rare little queen--Fleurette.
And at last when she rose to go,
The light was a little dim,
And I ventured to peep, and so
I saw her, graceful and slim,
And she kissed him and kissed him, and oh
How I envied and envied him!
So when she was gone I said
In rather a dreary voice
To him of the opposite bed:
"Ah, friend, how you must rejoice!
But me, I'm a thing of dread.
For me nevermore the bliss,
The thrill of a woman's kiss. "
Then I stopped, for lo! she was there,
And a great light shone in her eyes.
And me! I could only stare,
I was taken so by surprise,
When gently she bent her head:
"_May I kiss you, sergeant? _" she said.
Then she kissed my burning lips,
With her mouth like a scented flower,
And I thrilled to the finger-tips,
And I hadn't even the power
To say: "God bless you, dear! "
And I felt such a precious tear
Pall on my withered cheek,
And darn it! I couldn't speak.
And so she went sadly away,
And I know that my eyes were wet.
Ah, not to my dying day
Will I forget, forget!
Can you wonder now I am gay?
God bless her, that little Fleurette!
_Robert W. Service_
NOT TO KEEP
They sent him back to her. The letter came
Saying . . . and she could have him. And before
She could be sure there was no hidden ill
Under the formal writing, he was in her sight--
Living. --They gave him back to her alive--
How else? They are not known to send the dead--
And not disfigured visibly. His face? --
His hands? She had to look--to ask,
"What was it, dear? " And she had given all
And still she had all--_they_ had--they the lucky!
Wasn't she glad now? Everything seemed won,
And all the rest for them permissible ease.
She had to ask, "What was it, dear? "
"Enough,
Yet not enough. A bullet through and through,
High in the breast. Nothing but what good care
And medicine and rest--and you a week,
Can cure me of to go again. " The same
Grim giving to do over for them both.
She dared no more than ask him with her eyes
How was it with him for a second trial.
And with his eyes he asked her not to ask.
They had given him back to her, but not to keep.
_Robert Frost_
THE DEAD
I
Blow out, you bugles, over the rich Dead!
There's none of these so lonely and poor of old,
But, dying, has made us rarer gifts than gold.
These laid the world away; poured out the red
Sweet wine of youth; gave up the years to be
Of work and joy, and that unhoped serene,
That men call age; and those who would have been,
Their sons, they gave, their immortality.
Blow, bugles, blow! They brought us, for our dearth,
Holiness, lacked so long, and Love, and Pain.
Honour has come back, as a king, to earth,
And paid his subjects with a royal wage;
And Nobleness walks in our ways again;
And we have come into our heritage.
II
These hearts were woven of human joys and cares
Washed marvellously with sorrow, swift to mirth.
The years had given them kindness. Dawn was theirs,
And sunset, and the colours of the earth.
These had seen movement and heard music; known
Slumber and waking; loved; gone proudly friended;
Felt the quick stir of wonder; sat alone;
Touched flowers and furs and cheeks. All this is ended.
There are waters blown by changing winds to laughter
And lit by the rich skies, all day. And after,
Frost, with a gesture, stays the waves that dance
And wandering loveliness. He leaves a white
Unbroken glory, a gathered radiance,
A width, a shining peace, under the night.
_Rupert Brooke_
THE ISLAND OF SKYROS
Here, where we stood together, we three men,
Before the war had swept us to the East
Three thousand miles away, I stand again
And bear the bells, and breathe, and go to feast.
We trod the same path, to the selfsame place,
Yet here I stand, having beheld their graves,
Skyros whose shadows the great seas erase,
And Seddul Bahr that ever more blood craves.
So, since we communed here, our bones have been
Nearer, perhaps, than they again will be,
Earth and the worldwide battle lie between,
Death lies between, and friend-destroying sea.
Yet here, a year ago, we talked and stood
As I stand now, with pulses beating blood.
I saw her like a shadow on the sky
In the last light, a blur upon the sea,
Then the gale's darkness put the shadow by,
But from one grave that island talked to me;
And, in the midnight, in the breaking storm,
I saw its blackness and a blinking light,
And thought, "So death obscures your gentle form,
So memory strives to make the darkness bright;
And, in that heap of rocks, your body lies,
Part of the island till the planet ends,
My gentle comrade, beautiful and wise,
Part of this crag this bitter surge offends,
While I, who pass, a little obscure thing,
War with this force, and breathe, and am its king. "
_John Masefield_
FOR THE FALLEN
With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.
Solemn the drums thrill; Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres,
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.
They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted:
They fell with their faces to the foe.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England's foam.
But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;
As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.
_Laurence Binyon_
TWO SONNETS
I
Saints have adored the lofty soul of you.
Poets have whitened at your high renown.
We stand among the many millions who
Do hourly wait to pass your pathway down.
You, so familiar, once were strange: we tried
To live as of your presence unaware.
But now in every road on every side
We see your straight and steadfast signpost there.
I think it like that signpost in my land
Hoary and tall, which pointed me to go
Upward, into the hills, on the right hand,
Where the mists swim and the winds shriek and blow,
A homeless land and friendless, but a land
I did not know and that I wished to know.
II
Such, such is Death: no triumph: no defeat:
Only an empty pail, a slate rubbed clean,
A merciful putting away of what has been.
And this we know: Death is not Life effete,
Life crushed, the broken pail. We who have seen
So marvellous things know well the end not yet.
Victor and vanquished are a-one in death:
Coward and brave: friend, foe. Ghosts do not say,
"Come, what was your record when you drew breath? "
But a big blot has hid each yesterday
So poor, so manifestly incomplete.
And your bright Promise, withered long and sped,
Is touched, stirs, rises, opens and grows sweet
And blossoms and is you, when you are dead.
_Charles Hamilton Sorley_
_June 12, 1915_
"HOW SLEEP THE BRAVE"
Nay, nay, sweet England, do not grieve!
Not one of these poor men who died
But did within his soul believe
That death for thee was glorified.
Ever they watched it hovering near
That mystery 'yond thought to plumb,
Perchance sometimes in loathed fear
They heard cold Danger whisper, Come! --
Heard and obeyed. O, if thou weep
Such courage and honour, beauty, care,
Be it for joy that those who sleep
Only thy joy could share.
_Walter de la Mare_
THE DEBT
No more old England will they see--
Those men who've died for you and me.
So lone and cold they lie; but we,
We still have life; we still may greet
Our pleasant friends in home and street;
We still have life, are able still
To climb the turf of Bignor Hill,
To see the placid sheep go by,
To hear the sheep-dog's eager cry,
To feel the sun, to taste the rain,
To smell the Autumn's scents again
Beneath the brown and gold and red
Which old October's brush has spread,
To hear the robin in the lane,
To look upon the English sky.
So young they were, so strong and well,
Until the bitter summons fell--
Too young to die.
Yet there on foreign soil they lie,
So pitiful, with glassy eye
And limbs all tumbled anyhow:
Quite finished, now.
On every heart--lest we forget--
Secure at home--engrave this debt!
Too delicate is flesh to be
The shield that nations interpose
'Twixt red Ambition and his foes--
The bastion of Liberty.
So beautiful their bodies were,
Built with so exquisite a care:
So young and fit and lithe and fair.
The very flower of us were they,
The very flower, but yesterday!
Yet now so pitiful they lie,
Where love of country bade them hie
To fight this fierce Caprice--and die.
All mangled now, where shells have burst,
And lead and steel have done their worst;
The tender tissues ploughed away,
The years' slow processes effaced:
The Mother of us all--disgraced.
And some leave wives behind, young wives;
Already some have launched new lives:
A little daughter, little son--
For thus this blundering world goes on.
But never more will any see
The old secure felicity,
The kindnesses that made us glad
Before the world went mad.
They'll never hear another bird,
Another gay or loving word--
Those men who lie so cold and lone,
Far in a country not their own;
Those men who died for you and me,
That England still might sheltered be
And all our lives go on the same
(Although to live is almost shame).
_E. V. Lucas_
_REQUIESCANT_
In lonely watches night by night
Great visions burst upon my sight,
For down the stretches of the sky
The hosts of dead go marching by.
Strange ghostly banners o'er them float,
Strange bugles sound an awful note,
And all their faces and their eyes
Are lit with starlight from the skies.
The anguish and the pain have passed
And peace hath come to them at last,
But in the stern looks linger still
The iron purpose and the will.
Dear Christ, who reign'st above the flood
Of human tears and human blood,
A weary road these men have trod,
O house them in the home of God!
_Frederick George Scott_
_In a Field near Ypres_
_April, 1915_
TO OUR FALLEN
Ye sleepers, who will sing you?
We can but give our tears--
Ye dead men, who shall bring you
Fame in the coming years?
Brave souls . . . but who remembers
The flame that fired your embers? . . .
Deep, deep the sleep that holds you
Who one time had no peers.
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.
Five, six, seven, eight. . . .
Yes, it was number eight.
And what was the next thing that she required?
(Too bad of customers to come so late,
At closing time! ) Again within the shop
He handled knots of tape and reels of thread,
Politely talking weather, fit to drop. . . .
When once again the whole sky overhead
Flared blind with searchlights, and the shriek of shell
And scream of shrapnel roused him. Drowsily
He stared about him, wondering. Then he fell
Into deep dreamless slumber.
* * * * *
He could see
Two dark eyes peeping at him, ere he knew
He was awake, and it again was day--
An August morning, burning to clear blue.
The frightened rabbit scuttled. . . .
Far away,
A sound of firing. . . . Up there, in the sky
Big dragon-flies hung hovering. . . . Snowballs burst
About them. . . . Flies and snowballs. With a cry
He crouched to watch the airmen pass--the first
That he'd seen under fire. Lord, that was pluck--
Shells bursting all about them--and what nerve!
They took their chance, and trusted to their luck.
At such a dizzy height to dip and swerve,
Dodging the shell-fire. . . .
Hell! but one was hit,
And tumbling like a pigeon, plump. . . .
Thank Heaven,
It righted, and then turned; and after it
The whole flock followed safe--four, five, six, seven,
Yes, they were all there safe. He hoped they'd win
Back to their lines in safety. They deserved,
Even if they were Germans. . . . 'T was no sin
To wish them luck. Think how that beggar swerved
Just in the nick of time!
He, too, must try
To win back to the lines, though, likely as not,
He'd take the wrong turn: but he couldn't lie
Forever in that hungry hole and rot,
He'd got to take his luck, to take his chance
Of being sniped by foes or friends. He'd be
With any luck in Germany or France
Or Kingdom-come, next morning. . . .
Drearily
The blazing day burnt over him, shot and shell
Whistling and whining ceaselessly. But light
Faded at last, and as the darkness fell
He rose, and crawled away into the night.
_Wilfrid Wilson Gibson_
THE WHITE COMRADE
(AFTER W. H. LEATHAM'S _The Comrade in White_)
Under our curtain of fire,
Over the clotted clods,
We charged, to be withered, to reel
And despairingly wheel
When the bugles bade us retire
From the terrible odds.
As we ebbed with the battle-tide,
Fingers of red-hot steel
Suddenly closed on my side.
I fell, and began to pray.
I crawled on my hands and lay
Where a shallow crater yawned wide;
Then,--I swooned. . . .
When I woke, it was yet day.
Fierce was the pain of my wound,
But I saw it was death to stir,
For fifty paces away
Their trenches were.
In torture I prayed for the dark
And the stealthy step of my friend
Who, staunch to the very end,
Would creep to the danger zone
And offer his life as a mark
To save my own.
Night fell. I heard his tread,
Not stealthy, but firm and serene,
As if my comrade's head
Were lifted far from that scene
Of passion and pain and dread;
As if my comrade's heart
In carnage took no part;
As if my comrade's feet
Were set on some radiant street
Such as no darkness might haunt;
As if my comrade's eyes,
No deluge of flame could surprise,
No death and destruction daunt,
No red-beaked bird dismay,
Nor sight of decay.
Then in the bursting shells' dim light
I saw he was clad in white.
For a moment I thought that I saw the smock
Of a shepherd in search of his flock.
Alert were the enemy, too,
And their bullets flew
Straight at a mark no bullet could fail;
For the seeker was tall and his robe was bright;
But he did not flee nor quail.
Instead, with unhurrying stride
He came,
And gathering my tall frame,
Like a child, in his arms. . . .
Again I swooned,
And awoke
From a blissful dream
In a cave by a stream.
My silent comrade had bound my side.
No pain now was mine, but a wish that I spoke,--
A mastering wish to serve this man
Who had ventured through hell my doom to revoke,
As only the truest of comrades can.
I begged him to tell me how best I might aid him,
And urgently prayed him
Never to leave me, whatever betide;
When I saw he was hurt--
Shot through the hands that were clasped in prayer!
Then, as the dark drops gathered there
And fell in the dirt,
The wounds of my friend
Seemed to me such as no man might bear.
Those bullet-holes in the patient hands
Seemed to transcend
All horrors that ever these war-drenched lands
Had known or would know till the mad world's end.
Then suddenly I was aware
That his feet had been wounded, too;
And, dimming the white of his side,
A dull stain grew.
"You are hurt, White Comrade! " I cried.
His words I already foreknew:
"These are old wounds," said he,
"But of late they have troubled me. "
_Robert Haven Schauffler_
FLEURETTE
THE WOUNDED CANADIAN SPEAKS:
My leg? It's off at the knee.
Do I miss it? Well, some. You see
I've had it since I was born;
And lately a devilish corn.
(I rather chuckle with glee
To think how I've fooled that corn. )
But I'll hobble around all right.
It isn't that, it's my face.
Oh, I know I'm a hideous sight,
Hardly a thing in place.
Sort of gargoyle, you'd say.
Nurse won't give me a glass,
But I see the folks as they pass
Shudder and turn away;
Turn away in distress. . . .
Mirror enough, I guess.
I'm gay! You bet I _am_ gay,
But I wasn't a while ago.
If you'd seen me even to-day,
The darnedest picture of woe,
With this Caliban mug of mine,
So ravaged and raw and red,
Turned to the wall--in fine
Wishing that I was dead. . . .
What has happened since then,
Since I lay with my face to the wall,
The most despairing of men!
Listen! I'll tell you all.
That _poilu_ across the way,
With the shrapnel wound on his head,
Has a sister: she came to-day
To sit awhile by his bed.
All morning I heard him fret:
"Oh, when will she come, Fleurette? "
Then sudden, a joyous cry;
The tripping of little feet;
The softest, tenderest sigh;
A voice so fresh and sweet;
Clear as a silver bell,
Fresh as the morning dews:
"_C'est toi, c'est toi, Marcel!
Mon frere, comme je suis heureuse! _"
So over the blanket's rim
I raised my terrible face,
And I saw--how I envied him!
A girl of such delicate grace;
Sixteen, all laughter and love;
As gay as a linnet, and yet
As tenderly sweet as a dove;
Half woman, half child--Fleurette.
Then I turned to the wall again.
(I was awfully blue, you see,)
And I thought with a bitter pain:
"Such visions are not for me. "
So there like a log I lay,
All hidden, I thought, from view,
When sudden I heard her say:
"Ah! Who is that _malheureux_? "
Then briefly I heard him tell
(However he came to know)
How I'd smothered a bomb that fell
Into the trench, and so
None of my men were hit,
Though it busted me up a bit.
Well, I didn't quiver an eye,
And he chattered and there she sat;
And I fancied I heard her sigh--
But I wouldn't just swear to that.
And maybe she wasn't so bright,
Though she talked in a merry strain,
And I closed my eyes ever so tight,
Yet I saw her ever so plain:
Her dear little tilted nose,
Her delicate, dimpled chin,
Her mouth like a budding rose,
And the glistening pearls within;
Her eyes like the violet:
Such a rare little queen--Fleurette.
And at last when she rose to go,
The light was a little dim,
And I ventured to peep, and so
I saw her, graceful and slim,
And she kissed him and kissed him, and oh
How I envied and envied him!
So when she was gone I said
In rather a dreary voice
To him of the opposite bed:
"Ah, friend, how you must rejoice!
But me, I'm a thing of dread.
For me nevermore the bliss,
The thrill of a woman's kiss. "
Then I stopped, for lo! she was there,
And a great light shone in her eyes.
And me! I could only stare,
I was taken so by surprise,
When gently she bent her head:
"_May I kiss you, sergeant? _" she said.
Then she kissed my burning lips,
With her mouth like a scented flower,
And I thrilled to the finger-tips,
And I hadn't even the power
To say: "God bless you, dear! "
And I felt such a precious tear
Pall on my withered cheek,
And darn it! I couldn't speak.
And so she went sadly away,
And I know that my eyes were wet.
Ah, not to my dying day
Will I forget, forget!
Can you wonder now I am gay?
God bless her, that little Fleurette!
_Robert W. Service_
NOT TO KEEP
They sent him back to her. The letter came
Saying . . . and she could have him. And before
She could be sure there was no hidden ill
Under the formal writing, he was in her sight--
Living. --They gave him back to her alive--
How else? They are not known to send the dead--
And not disfigured visibly. His face? --
His hands? She had to look--to ask,
"What was it, dear? " And she had given all
And still she had all--_they_ had--they the lucky!
Wasn't she glad now? Everything seemed won,
And all the rest for them permissible ease.
She had to ask, "What was it, dear? "
"Enough,
Yet not enough. A bullet through and through,
High in the breast. Nothing but what good care
And medicine and rest--and you a week,
Can cure me of to go again. " The same
Grim giving to do over for them both.
She dared no more than ask him with her eyes
How was it with him for a second trial.
And with his eyes he asked her not to ask.
They had given him back to her, but not to keep.
_Robert Frost_
THE DEAD
I
Blow out, you bugles, over the rich Dead!
There's none of these so lonely and poor of old,
But, dying, has made us rarer gifts than gold.
These laid the world away; poured out the red
Sweet wine of youth; gave up the years to be
Of work and joy, and that unhoped serene,
That men call age; and those who would have been,
Their sons, they gave, their immortality.
Blow, bugles, blow! They brought us, for our dearth,
Holiness, lacked so long, and Love, and Pain.
Honour has come back, as a king, to earth,
And paid his subjects with a royal wage;
And Nobleness walks in our ways again;
And we have come into our heritage.
II
These hearts were woven of human joys and cares
Washed marvellously with sorrow, swift to mirth.
The years had given them kindness. Dawn was theirs,
And sunset, and the colours of the earth.
These had seen movement and heard music; known
Slumber and waking; loved; gone proudly friended;
Felt the quick stir of wonder; sat alone;
Touched flowers and furs and cheeks. All this is ended.
There are waters blown by changing winds to laughter
And lit by the rich skies, all day. And after,
Frost, with a gesture, stays the waves that dance
And wandering loveliness. He leaves a white
Unbroken glory, a gathered radiance,
A width, a shining peace, under the night.
_Rupert Brooke_
THE ISLAND OF SKYROS
Here, where we stood together, we three men,
Before the war had swept us to the East
Three thousand miles away, I stand again
And bear the bells, and breathe, and go to feast.
We trod the same path, to the selfsame place,
Yet here I stand, having beheld their graves,
Skyros whose shadows the great seas erase,
And Seddul Bahr that ever more blood craves.
So, since we communed here, our bones have been
Nearer, perhaps, than they again will be,
Earth and the worldwide battle lie between,
Death lies between, and friend-destroying sea.
Yet here, a year ago, we talked and stood
As I stand now, with pulses beating blood.
I saw her like a shadow on the sky
In the last light, a blur upon the sea,
Then the gale's darkness put the shadow by,
But from one grave that island talked to me;
And, in the midnight, in the breaking storm,
I saw its blackness and a blinking light,
And thought, "So death obscures your gentle form,
So memory strives to make the darkness bright;
And, in that heap of rocks, your body lies,
Part of the island till the planet ends,
My gentle comrade, beautiful and wise,
Part of this crag this bitter surge offends,
While I, who pass, a little obscure thing,
War with this force, and breathe, and am its king. "
_John Masefield_
FOR THE FALLEN
With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.
Solemn the drums thrill; Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres,
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.
They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted:
They fell with their faces to the foe.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England's foam.
But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;
As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.
_Laurence Binyon_
TWO SONNETS
I
Saints have adored the lofty soul of you.
Poets have whitened at your high renown.
We stand among the many millions who
Do hourly wait to pass your pathway down.
You, so familiar, once were strange: we tried
To live as of your presence unaware.
But now in every road on every side
We see your straight and steadfast signpost there.
I think it like that signpost in my land
Hoary and tall, which pointed me to go
Upward, into the hills, on the right hand,
Where the mists swim and the winds shriek and blow,
A homeless land and friendless, but a land
I did not know and that I wished to know.
II
Such, such is Death: no triumph: no defeat:
Only an empty pail, a slate rubbed clean,
A merciful putting away of what has been.
And this we know: Death is not Life effete,
Life crushed, the broken pail. We who have seen
So marvellous things know well the end not yet.
Victor and vanquished are a-one in death:
Coward and brave: friend, foe. Ghosts do not say,
"Come, what was your record when you drew breath? "
But a big blot has hid each yesterday
So poor, so manifestly incomplete.
And your bright Promise, withered long and sped,
Is touched, stirs, rises, opens and grows sweet
And blossoms and is you, when you are dead.
_Charles Hamilton Sorley_
_June 12, 1915_
"HOW SLEEP THE BRAVE"
Nay, nay, sweet England, do not grieve!
Not one of these poor men who died
But did within his soul believe
That death for thee was glorified.
Ever they watched it hovering near
That mystery 'yond thought to plumb,
Perchance sometimes in loathed fear
They heard cold Danger whisper, Come! --
Heard and obeyed. O, if thou weep
Such courage and honour, beauty, care,
Be it for joy that those who sleep
Only thy joy could share.
_Walter de la Mare_
THE DEBT
No more old England will they see--
Those men who've died for you and me.
So lone and cold they lie; but we,
We still have life; we still may greet
Our pleasant friends in home and street;
We still have life, are able still
To climb the turf of Bignor Hill,
To see the placid sheep go by,
To hear the sheep-dog's eager cry,
To feel the sun, to taste the rain,
To smell the Autumn's scents again
Beneath the brown and gold and red
Which old October's brush has spread,
To hear the robin in the lane,
To look upon the English sky.
So young they were, so strong and well,
Until the bitter summons fell--
Too young to die.
Yet there on foreign soil they lie,
So pitiful, with glassy eye
And limbs all tumbled anyhow:
Quite finished, now.
On every heart--lest we forget--
Secure at home--engrave this debt!
Too delicate is flesh to be
The shield that nations interpose
'Twixt red Ambition and his foes--
The bastion of Liberty.
So beautiful their bodies were,
Built with so exquisite a care:
So young and fit and lithe and fair.
The very flower of us were they,
The very flower, but yesterday!
Yet now so pitiful they lie,
Where love of country bade them hie
To fight this fierce Caprice--and die.
All mangled now, where shells have burst,
And lead and steel have done their worst;
The tender tissues ploughed away,
The years' slow processes effaced:
The Mother of us all--disgraced.
And some leave wives behind, young wives;
Already some have launched new lives:
A little daughter, little son--
For thus this blundering world goes on.
But never more will any see
The old secure felicity,
The kindnesses that made us glad
Before the world went mad.
They'll never hear another bird,
Another gay or loving word--
Those men who lie so cold and lone,
Far in a country not their own;
Those men who died for you and me,
That England still might sheltered be
And all our lives go on the same
(Although to live is almost shame).
_E. V. Lucas_
_REQUIESCANT_
In lonely watches night by night
Great visions burst upon my sight,
For down the stretches of the sky
The hosts of dead go marching by.
Strange ghostly banners o'er them float,
Strange bugles sound an awful note,
And all their faces and their eyes
Are lit with starlight from the skies.
The anguish and the pain have passed
And peace hath come to them at last,
But in the stern looks linger still
The iron purpose and the will.
Dear Christ, who reign'st above the flood
Of human tears and human blood,
A weary road these men have trod,
O house them in the home of God!
_Frederick George Scott_
_In a Field near Ypres_
_April, 1915_
TO OUR FALLEN
Ye sleepers, who will sing you?
We can but give our tears--
Ye dead men, who shall bring you
Fame in the coming years?
Brave souls . . . but who remembers
The flame that fired your embers? . . .
Deep, deep the sleep that holds you
Who one time had no peers.
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.
