"Hey, but here's a toy shop, here's a drum for me,
Penny whistles too to play the tune!
Penny whistles too to play the tune!
War Poetry - 1914-17
"
* * * * *
In secret he made sharp the bitter blade,
And poison'd it with bane of lies and drew,
And stabb'd--O God! the Cruel Cripple slew;
And cowards fled or lent him trembling aid,
She fell and died--in all the tale of time
The direst deed e'er done, the most accursed crime.
_Ronald Ross_
IN WAR-TIME
(AN AMERICAN HOMEWARD-BOUND)
Further and further we leave the scene
Of war--and of England's care;
I try to keep my mind serene--
But my heart stays there;
For a distant song of pain and wrong
My spirit doth deep confuse,
And I sit all day on the deck, and long--
And long for news!
I seem to see them in battle-line--
Heroes with hearts of gold,
But of their victory a sign
The Fates withhold;
And the hours too tardy-footed pass,
The voiceless hush grows dense
'Mid the imaginings, alas!
That feed suspense.
Oh, might I lie on the wind, or fly
In the wilful sea-bird's track,
Would I hurry on, with a homesick cry--
Or hasten back?
_Florence Earle Coates_
THE ANVIL
Burned from the ore's rejected dross,
The iron whitens in the heat.
With plangent strokes of pain and loss
The hammers on the iron beat.
Searched by the fire, through death and dole
We feel the iron in our soul.
O dreadful Forge! if torn and bruised
The heart, more urgent comes our cry
Not to be spared but to be used,
Brain, sinew, and spirit, before we die.
Beat out the iron, edge it keen,
And shape us to the end we mean!
_Laurence Binyon_
THE FOOL RINGS HIS BELLS
Come, Death, I'd have a word with thee;
And thou, poor Innocency;
And Love--a lad with broken wing;
And Pity, too:
The Fool shall sing to you,
As Fools will sing.
Ay, music hath small sense,
And a tune's soon told,
And Earth is old,
And my poor wits are dense;
Yet have I secrets,--dark, my dear,
To breathe you all: Come near.
And lest some hideous listener tells,
I'll ring my bells.
They're all at war!
Yes, yes, their bodies go
'Neath burning sun and icy star
To chaunted songs of woe,
Dragging cold cannon through a mud
Of rain and blood;
The new moon glinting hard on eyes
Wide with insanities!
Hush! . . . I use words
I hardly know the meaning of;
And the mute birds
Are glancing at Love!
From out their shade of leaf and flower,
Trembling at treacheries
Which even in noonday cower,
Heed, heed not what I said
Of frenzied hosts of men,
More fools than I,
On envy, hatred fed,
Who kill, and die--
Spake I not plainly, then?
Yet Pity whispered, "Why? "
Thou silly thing, off to thy daisies go.
Mine was not news for child to know,
And Death--no ears hath. He hath supped where creep
Eyeless worms in hush of sleep;
Yet, when he smiles, the hand he draws
Athwart his grinning jaws
Faintly their thin bones rattle, and. . . . There, there;
Hearken how my bells in the air
Drive away care! . . .
Nay, but a dream I had
Of a world all mad.
Not a simple happy mad like me,
Who am mad like an empty scene
Of water and willow tree,
Where the wind hath been;
But that foul Satan-mad,
Who rots in his own head,
And counts the dead,
Not honest one--and two--
But for the ghosts they were,
Brave, faithful, true,
When, head in air,
In Earth's dear green and blue
Heaven they did share
With Beauty who bade them there. . . .
There, now! he goes--
Old Bones; I've wearied him.
Ay, and the light doth dim,
And asleep's the rose,
And tired Innocence
In dreams is hence. . . .
Come, Love, my lad,
Nodding that drowsy head,
'T is time thy prayers were said.
_Walter de la Mare_
THE ROAD TO DIEPPE
[Concerning the experiences of a journey on foot through the night of
August 4, 1914 (the night after the formal declaration of war between
England and Germany), from a town near Amiens, in France, to Dieppe,
a distance of somewhat more than forty miles. ]
Before I knew, the Dawn was on the road,
Close at my side, so silently he came
Nor gave a sign of salutation, save
To touch with light my sleeve and make the way
Appear as if a shining countenance
Had looked on it. Strange was this radiant Youth,
As I, to these fair, fertile parts of France,
Where Caesar with his legions once had passed,
And where the Kaiser's Uhlans yet would pass
Or e'er another moon should cope with clouds
For mastery of these same fields. --To-night
(And but a month has gone since I walked there)
Well might the Kaiser write, as Caesar wrote,
In his new Commentaries on a Gallic war,
"_Fortissimi Belgae_. "--A moon ago!
Who would have then divined that dead would lie
Like swaths of grain beneath the harvest moon
Upon these lands the ancient Belgae held,
From Normandy beyond renowned Liege! --
But it was out of that dread August night
From which all Europe woke to war, that we,
This beautiful Dawn-Youth, and I, had come,
He from afar. Beyond grim Petrograd
He'd waked the moujik from his peaceful dreams,
Bid the muezzin call to morning prayer
Where minarets rise o'er the Golden Horn,
And driven shadows from the Prussian march
To lie beneath the lindens of the _stadt_.
Softly he'd stirred the bells to ring at Rheims,
He'd knocked at high Montmartre, hardly asleep;
Heard the sweet carillon of doomed Louvain,
Boylike, had tarried for a moment's play
Amid the traceries of Amiens,
And then was hast'ning on the road to Dieppe,
When he o'ertook me drowsy from the hours
Through which I'd walked, with no companions else
Than ghostly kilometer posts that stood
As sentinels' of space along the way. --
Often, in doubt, I'd paused to question one,
With nervous hands, as they who read Moon-type;
And more than once I'd caught a moment's sleep
Beside the highway, in the dripping grass,
While one of these white sentinels stood guard,
Knowing me for a friend, who loves the road,
And best of all by night, when wheels do sleep
And stars alone do walk abroad. --But once
Three watchful shadows, deeper than the dark,
Laid hands on me and searched me for the marks
Of traitor or of spy, only to find
Over my heart the badge of loyalty. --
With wish for _bon voyage_ they gave me o'er
To the white guards who led me on again.
Thus Dawn o'ertook me and with magic speech
Made me forget the night as we strode on.
Where'er he looked a miracle was wrought:
A tree grew from the darkness at a glance;
A hut was thatched; a new chateau was reared
Of stone, as weathered as the church at Caen;
Gray blooms were coloured suddenly in red;
A flag was flung across the eastern sky. --
Nearer at hand, he made me then aware
Of peasant women bending in the fields,
Cradling and gleaning by the first scant light,
Their sons and husbands somewhere o'er the edge
Of these green-golden fields which they had sowed,
But will not reap,--out somewhere on the march,
God but knows where and if they come again.
One fallow field he pointed out to me
Where but the day before a peasant ploughed,
Dreaming of next year's fruit, and there his plough
Stood now mid-field, his horses commandeered,
A monstrous sable crow perched on the beam.
Before I knew, the Dawn was on the road,
Far from my side, so silently he went,
Catching his golden helmet as he ran,
And hast'ning on along the dun straight way,
Where old men's sabots now began to clack
And withered women, knitting, led their cows,
On, on to call the men of Kitchener
Down to their coasts,--I shouting after him:
"O Dawn, would you had let the world sleep on
Till all its armament were turned to rust,
Nor waked it to this day of hideous hate,
Of man's red murder and of woman's woe! "
Famished and lame, I came at last to Dieppe,
But Dawn had made his way across the sea,
And, as I climbed with heavy feet the cliff,
Was even then upon the sky-built towers
Of that great capital where nations all,
Teuton, Italian, Gallic, English, Slav,
Forget long hates in one consummate faith.
_John Finley_
TO FELLOW TRAVELLERS IN GREECE
MARCH-SEPTEMBER, 1914
'T was in the piping tune of peace
We trod the sacred soil of Greece,
Nor thought, where the Ilissus runs,
Of Teuton craft or Teuton guns;
Nor dreamt that, ere the year was spent,
Their iron challenge insolent
Would round the world's horizons pour,
From Europe to the Australian shore.
The tides of war had ebb'd away
From Trachis and Thermopylae,
Long centuries had come and gone
Since that fierce day at Marathon;
Freedom was firmly based, and we
Wall'd by our own encircling sea;
The ancient passions dead, and men
Battl'd with ledger and with pen.
So seem'd it, but to them alone
The wisdom of the gods is known;
Lest freedom's price decline, from far
Zeus hurl'd the thunderbolt of war.
And so once more the Persian steel
The armies of the Greeks must feel,
And once again a Xerxes know
The virtue of a Spartan foe.
Thus may the cloudy fates unroll'd
Retrace the starry circles old,
And the recurrent heavens decree
A Periclean dynasty.
_W. Macneile Dixon_
"WHEN THERE IS PEACE"
"_When there is Peace our land no more
Will be the land we knew of yore. _"
Thus do our facile seers foretell
The truth that none can buy or sell
And e'en the wisest must ignore.
When we have bled at every pore,
Shall we still strive for gear and store?
Will it be Heaven? Will it be Hell,
When there is Peace?
This let us pray for, this implore:
That all base dreams thrust out at door,
We may in loftier aims excel
And, like men waking from a spell,
Grow stronger, nobler, than before,
When there is Peace.
_Austin Dobson_
A PRAYER IN TIME OF WAR
[ The war will change many things in art and life, and among them,
it is to be hoped, many of our own ideas as to what is, and what is not,
"intellectual. "]
Thou, whose deep ways are in the sea,
Whose footsteps are not known,
To-night a world that turned from Thee
Is waiting--at Thy Throne.
The towering Babels that we raised
Where scoffing sophists brawl,
The little Antichrists we praised--
The night is on them all.
_The fool hath said. . . . The fool hath said. . . . _
And we, who deemed him wise,
We who believed that Thou wast dead,
How should we seek Thine eyes?
How should we seek to Thee for power
Who scorned Thee yesterday?
How should we kneel, in this dread hour?
Lord, teach us how to pray!
Grant us the single heart, once more,
That mocks no sacred thing,
The Sword of Truth our fathers wore
When Thou wast Lord and King.
Let darkness unto darkness tell
Our deep unspoken prayer,
For, while our souls in darkness dwell,
We know that Thou art there.
_Alfred Noyes_
THEN AND NOW
When battles were fought
With a chivalrous sense of should and ought,
In spirit men said,
"End we quick or dead,
Honour is some reward!
Let us fight fair--for our own best or worst;
So, Gentlemen of the Guard,
Fire first! "
In the open they stood,
Man to man in his knightlihood:
They would not deign
To profit by a stain
On the honourable rules,
Knowing that practise perfidy no man durst
Who in the heroic schools
Was nurst.
But now, behold, what
Is war with those where honour is not!
Rama laments
Its dead innocents;
Herod howls: "Sly slaughter
Rules now! Let us, by modes once called accurst,
Overhead, under water,
Stab first. "
_Thomas Hardy_
THE KAISER AND GOD
["I rejoice with you in Wilhelm's first victory. How magnificently God
supported him! "--Telegram from the Kaiser to the Crown Princess. ]
Led by Wilhelm, as you tell,
God has done extremely well;
You with patronizing nod
Show that you approve of God.
Kaiser, face a question new--
This--does God approve of you?
Broken pledges, treaties torn,
Your first page of war adorn;
We on fouler things must look
Who read further in that book,
Where you did in time of war
All that you in peace forswore,
Where you, barbarously wise,
Bade your soldiers terrorize,
Where you made--the deed was fine--
Women screen your firing line.
Villages burned down to dust,
Torture, murder, bestial lust,
Filth too foul for printer's ink,
Crime from which the apes would shrink--
Strange the offerings that you press
On the God of Righteousness!
Kaiser, when you'd decorate
Sons or friends who serve your State,
Not that Iron Cross bestow,
But a cross of wood, and so--
So remind the world that you
Have made Calvary anew.
Kaiser, when you'd kneel in prayer
Look upon your hands, and there
Let that deep and awful stain
From the Wood of children slain
Burn your very soul with shame,
Till you dare not breathe that Name
That now you glibly advertise--
God as one of your allies.
Impious braggart, you forget;
God is not your conscript yet;
You shall learn in dumb amaze
That His ways are not your ways,
That the mire through which you trod
Is not the high white road of God.
_To Whom, whichever way the combat rolls,
We, fighting to the end, commend our souls. _
_Barry Pain_
THE SUPERMAN
The horror-haunted Belgian plains riven by shot and shell
Are strewn with her undaunted sons who stayed the jaws of hell.
In every sunny vale of France death is the countersign.
The purest blood in Britain's veins is being poured like wine.
Far, far across the crimsoned map the impassioned armies sweep.
Destruction flashes down the sky and penetrates the deep.
The Dreadnought knows the silent dread, and seas incarnadine
Attest the carnival of strife, the madman's battle scene.
Relentless, savage, hot, and grim the infuriate columns press
Where terror simulates disdain and danger is largess,
Where greedy youth claims death for bride and agony seems bliss.
It is the cause, the cause, my soul! which sanctifies all this.
Ride, Cossacks, ride! Charge, Turcos, charge! The fateful hour has come.
Let all the guns of Britain roar or be forever dumb.
The Superman has burst his bonds. With Kultur-flag unfurled
And prayer on lip he runs amuck, imperilling the world.
The impious creed that might is right in him personified
Bids all creation bend before the insatiate Teuton pride,
Which, nourished on Valhalla dreams of empire unconfined,
Would make the cannon and the sword the despots of mankind.
Efficient, thorough, strong, and brave--his vision is to kill.
Force is the hearthstone of his might, the pole-star of his will.
His forges glow malevolent: their minions never tire
To deck the goddess of his lust whose twins are blood and fire.
O world grown sick with butchery and manifold distress!
O broken Belgium robbed of all save grief and ghastliness!
Should Prussian power enslave the world and arrogance prevail,
Let chaos come, let Moloch rule, and Christ give place to Baal.
_Robert Grant_
THREE HILLS
There is a hill in England,
Green fields and a school I know,
Where the balls fly fast in summer,
And the whispering elm-trees grow,
A little hill, a dear hill,
And the playing fields below.
There is a hill in Flanders,
Heaped with a thousand slain,
Where the shells fly night and noontide
And the ghosts that died in vain,--
A little hill, a hard hill
To the souls that died in pain.
There is a hill in Jewry,
Three crosses pierce the sky,
On the midmost He is dying
To save all those who die,--
A little hill, a kind hill
To souls in jeopardy.
_Everard Owen_
_Harrow, December, 1915_
THE RETURN
I heard the rumbling guns. I saw the smoke,
The unintelligible shock of hosts that still,
Far off, unseeing, strove and strove again;
And Beauty flying naked down the hill
From morn to eve: and the stern night cried Peace!
And shut the strife in darkness: all was still,
Then slowly crept a triumph on the dark--
And I heard Beauty singing up the hill.
_John Freeman_
THE MOBILIZATION IN BRITTANY
I
It was silent in the street.
I did not know until a woman told me,
Sobbing over the muslin she sold me.
Then I went out and walked to the square
And saw a few dazed people standing there.
And then the drums beat, the drums beat!
O then the drums beat!
And hurrying, stumbling through the street
Came the hurrying stumbling feet.
O I have heard the drums beat
For war!
I have heard the townsfolk come,
I have heard the roll and thunder of the nearest drum
As the drummer stopped and cried, "Hear!
Be strong! The summons comes! Prepare! "
Closing he prayed us to be calm. . . .
And there was calm in my heart of the desert, of the dead sea,
Of vast plains of the West before the coming storm,
And there was calm in their eyes like the last calm that shall be.
And then the drum beat,
The fatal drum, beat,
And the drummer marched through the street
And down to another square,
And the drummer above took up the beat
And sent it onward where
Huddled, we stood and heard the drums roll,
And then a bell began to toll.
O I have heard the thunder of drums
Crashing into simple poor homes.
I have heard the drums roll "Farewell! "
I have heard the tolling cathedral bell.
Will it ever peal again?
Shall I ever smile or feel again?
What was joy? What was pain?
For I have heard the drums beat,
I have seen the drummer striding from street to street,
Crying, "Be strong! Hear what I must tell! "
While the drums roared and rolled and beat
For war!
II
Last night the men of this region were leaving. Now they are far.
Rough and strong they are, proud and gay they are.
So this is the way of war. . . .
The train was full and we all shouted as it pulled away.
They sang an old war-song, they were true to themselves, they were gay!
We might have thought they were going for a holiday--
Except for something in the air,
Except for the weeping of the ruddy old women of Finistere.
The younger women do not weep. They dream and stare.
They seem to be walking in dreams. They seem not to know
It is their homes, their happiness, vanishing so.
(Every strong man between twenty and forty must go. )
They sang an old war-song. I have heard it often in other days,
But never before when War was walking the world's highways.
They sang, they shouted, the _Marseillaise! _
The train went and another has gone, but none, coming, has brought word.
Though you may know, you, out in the world, we have not heard,
We are not sure that the great battalions have stirred--
Except for something, something in the air,
Except for the weeping of the wild old women of Finistere.
How long will the others dream and stare?
The train went. The strong men of this region are all away, afar.
Rough and strong they are, proud and gay they are.
So this is the way of war. . . .
_Grace Fallow Norton_
THE TOY BAND
(A SONG OF THE GREAT RETREAT)
Dreary lay the long road, dreary lay the town,
Lights out and never a glint o' moon:
Weary lay the stragglers, half a thousand down,
Sad sighed the weary big Dragoon.
"Oh! if I'd a drum here to make them take the road again,
Oh! if I'd a fife to wheedle, Come, boys, come!
You that mean to fight it out, wake and take your load again,
Fall in! Fall in! Follow the fife and drum!
"Hey, but here's a toy shop, here's a drum for me,
Penny whistles too to play the tune!
Half a thousand dead men soon shall hear and see
We're a band! " said the weary big Dragoon.
"Rubadub! Rubadub! Wake and take the road again,
Wheedle-deedle-deedle-dee, Come, boys, come!
You that mean to fight it out, wake and take your load again,
Fall in! Fall in! Follow the fife and drum! "
Cheerly goes the dark road, cheerly goes the night,
Cheerly goes the blood to keep the beat:
Half a thousand dead men marching on to fight
With a little penny drum to lift their feet.
Rubadub! Rubadub! Wake and take the road again,
Wheedle-deedle-deedle-dee, Come, boys, come!
You that mean to fight it out, wake and take your load again,
Fall in! Fall in! Follow the fife and drum!
As long as there's an Englishman to ask a tale of me,
As long as I can tell the tale aright,
We'll not forget the penny whistle's wheedle-deedle-dee
And the big Dragoon a-beating down the night,
Rubadub! Rubadub! Wake and take the road again,
Wheedle-deedle-deedle-dee, Come, boys, come!
You that mean to fight it out, wake and take your load again,
Fall in! Fall in! Follow the fife and drum!
_Henry Newbolt_
THOMAS OF THE LIGHT HEART
Facing the guns, he jokes as well
As any Judge upon the Bench;
Between the crash of shell and shell
His laughter rings along the trench;
He seems immensely tickled by a
Projectile which he calls a "Black Maria. "
He whistles down the day-long road,
And, when the chilly shadows fall
And heavier hangs the weary load,
Is he down-hearted? Not at all.
'T is then he takes a light and airy
View of the tedious route to Tipperary.
His songs are not exactly hymns;
He never learned them in the choir;
And yet they brace his dragging limbs
Although they miss the sacred fire;
Although his choice and cherished gems
Do not include "The Watch upon the Thames. "
He takes to fighting as a game;
He does no talking, through his hat,
Of holy missions; all the same
He has his faith--be sure of that;
He'll not disgrace his sporting breed,
Nor play what isn't cricket. There's his creed.
_Owen Seaman_
_October, 1914_
IN THE TRENCHES
As I lay in the trenches
Under the Hunter's Moon,
My mind ran to the lenches
Cut in a Wiltshire down.
I saw their long black shadows,
The beeches in the lane,
The gray church in the meadows
And my white cottage--plain.
Thinks I, the down lies dreaming
Under that hot moon's eye,
Which sees the shells fly screaming
And men and horses die.
And what makes she, I wonder,
Of the horror and the blood,
And what's her luck, to sunder
The evil from the good?
'T was more than I could compass,
For how was I to think
With such infernal rumpus
In such a blasted stink?
But here's a thought to tally
With t'other. That moon sees
A shrouded German valley
With woods and ghostly trees.
And maybe there's a river
As we have got at home
With poplar-trees aquiver
And clots of whirling foam.
And over there some fellow,
A German and a foe,
Whose gills are turning yellow
As sure as mine are so,
Watches that riding glory
Apparel'd in her gold,
And craves to hear the story
Her frozen lips enfold.
And if he sees as clearly
As I do where her shrine
Must fall, he longs as dearly.
With heart as full as mine.
_Maurice Hewlett_
THE GUARDS CAME THROUGH
Men of the Twenty-first
Up by the Chalk Pit Wood,
Weak with our wounds and our thirst,
Wanting our sleep and our food,
After a day and a night--
God, shall we ever forget!
Beaten and broke in the fight,
But sticking it--sticking it yet.
Trying to hold the line,
Fainting and spent and done,
Always the thud and the whine,
Always the yell of the Hun!
Northumberland, Lancaster, York,
Durham and Somerset,
Fighting alone, worn to the bone,
But sticking it--sticking it yet.
Never a message of hope!
Never a word of cheer!
Fronting Hill 70's shell-swept slope,
With the dull dead plain in our rear.
Always the whine of the shell,
Always the roar of its burst,
Always the tortures of hell,
As waiting and wincing we cursed
Our luck and the guns and the _Boche_,
When our Corporal shouted, "Stand to! "
And I heard some one cry, "Clear the front for the Guards! "
And the Guards came through.
Our throats they were parched and hot,
But Lord, if you'd heard the cheers!
Irish and Welsh and Scot,
Coldstream and Grenadiers.
Two brigades, if you please,
Dressing as straight as a hem,
We--we were down on our knees,
Praying for us and for them!
Lord, I could speak for a week,
But how could you understand!
How should _your_ cheeks be wet,
Such feelin's don't come to _you_.
But when can me or my mates forget,
When the Guards came through?
"Five yards left extend! "
It passed from rank to rank.
Line after line with never a bend,
And a touch of the London swank.
A trifle of swank and dash,
Cool as a home parade,
Twinkle and glitter and flash,
Flinching never a shade,
With the shrapnel right in their face
Doing their Hyde Park stunt,
Keeping their swing at an easy pace,
Arms at the trail, eyes front!
Man, it was great to see!
Man, it was fine to do!
It's a cot and a hospital ward for me,
But I'll tell 'em in Blighty, wherever I be,
How the Guards came through.
_Arthur Conan Doyle_
THE PASSENGERS OF A RETARDED SUBMERSIBLE
NOVEMBER, 1916
THE AMERICAN PEOPLE:
What was it kept you so long, brave German submersible?
We have been very anxious lest matters had not gone well
With you and the precious cargo of your country's drugs and dyes.
But here you are at last, and the sight is good for our eyes,
Glad to welcome you up and out of the caves of the sea,
And ready for sale or barter, whatever your will may be.
THE CAPTAIN OF THE SUBMERSIBLE:
Oh, do not be impatient, good friends of this neutral land,
That we have been so tardy in reaching your eager strand.
We were stopped by a curious chance just off the Irish coast,
Where the mightiest wreck ever was lay crowded with a host
Of the dead that went down with her; and some prayed us to bring them
here
That they might be at home with their brothers and sisters dear.
We Germans have tender hearts, and it grieved us sore to say
We were not a passenger ship, and to most we must answer nay,
But if from among their hundreds they could somehow a half-score choose
We thought we could manage to bring them, and we would not refuse.
They chose, and the women and children that are greeting you here are
those
Ghosts of the women and children that the rest of the hundred chose.
THE AMERICAN PEOPLE:
What guff are you giving us, Captain? We are able to tell, we hope,
A dozen ghosts, when we see them, apart from a periscope.
Come, come, get down to business! For time is money, you know,
And you must make up in both to us for having been so slow.
Better tell this story of yours to the submarines, for we
Know there was no such wreck, and none of your spookery.
THE GHOSTS OF THE LUSITANIA WOMEN AND CHILDREN:
Oh, kind kin of our murderers, take us back when you sail away;
Our own kin have forgotten us. O Captain, do not stay!
But hasten, Captain, hasten: The wreck that lies under the sea
Shall be ever the home for us this land can never be.
_William Dean Howells_
EDITH CAVELL
She was binding the wounds of her enemies when they came--
The lint in her hand unrolled.
They battered the door with their rifle-butts, crashed it in:
She faced them gentle and bold.
They haled her before the judges where they sat
In their places, helmet on head.
With question and menace the judges assailed her, "Yes,
I have broken your law," she said.
"I have tended the hurt and hidden the hunted, have done
As a sister does to a brother,
Because of a law that is greater than that you have made,
Because I could do none other.
"Deal as you will with me. This is my choice to the end,
To live in the life I vowed. "
"She is self-confessed," they cried; "she is self-condemned.
She shall die, that the rest may be cowed. "
In the terrible hour of the dawn, when the veins are cold,
They led her forth to the wall.
"I have loved my land," she said, "but it is not enough:
Love requires of me all.
"I will empty my heart of the bitterness, hating none. "
And sweetness filled her brave
With a vision of understanding beyond the hour
That knelled to the waiting grave.
They bound her eyes, but she stood as if she shone.
The rifles it was that shook
When the hoarse command rang out. They could not endure
That last, that defenceless look.
And the officer strode and pistolled her surely, ashamed
That men, seasoned in blood,
Should quail at a woman, only a woman,--
As a flower stamped in the mud.
And now that the deed was securely done, in the night
When none had known her fate,
They answered those that had striven for her, day by day:
"It is over, you come too late. "
And with many words and sorrowful-phrased excuse
Argued their German right
To kill, most legally; hard though the duty be,
The law must assert its might.
Only a woman! yet she had pity on them,
The victim offered slain
To the gods of fear that they worship. Leave them there,
Red hands, to clutch their gain!
She bewailed not herself, and we will bewail her not,
But with tears of pride rejoice
That an English soul was found so crystal-clear
To be triumphant voice
Of the human heart that dares adventure all
But live to itself untrue,
And beyond all laws sees love as the light in the night,
As the star it must answer to.
The hurts she healed, the thousands comforted--these
Make a fragrance of her fame.
But because she stept to her star right on through death
It is Victory speaks her name.
_Laurence Binyon_
THE HELL-GATE OF SOISSONS
My name is Darino, the poet. You have heard? _Oui, Comedie Francaise_.
Perchance it has happened, _mon ami_, you know of my unworthy lays.
Ah, then you must guess how my fingers are itching to talk to a pen;
For I was at Soissons, and saw it, the death of the twelve Englishmen.
My leg, _malheureusement_, I left it behind on the banks of the Aisne.
Regret? I would pay with the other to witness their valor again.
A trifle, indeed, I assure you, to give for the honor to tell
How that handful of British, undaunted, went into the Gateway of Hell.
Let me draw you a plan of the battle. Here we French and your Engineers
stood;
Over there a detachment of German sharpshooters lay hid in a wood.
A _mitrailleuse_ battery planted on top of this well-chosen ridge
Held the road for the Prussians and covered the direct approach to the
bridge.
It was madness to dare the dense murder that spewed from those ghastly
machines.
(Only those who have danced to its music can know what the
_mitrailleuse_ means. )
But the bridge on the Aisne was a menace; our safety demanded its fall:
"Engineers,--volunteers! " In a body, the Royals stood out at the call.
Death at best was the fate of that mission--to their glory not one was
dismayed.
A party was chosen--and seven survived till the powder was laid.
And _they_ died with their fuses unlighted. Another detachment! Again
A sortie is made--all too vainly. The bridge still commanded the Aisne.
We were fighting two foes--Time and Prussia--the moments were worth more
than troops.
We _must_ blow up the bridge. A lone soldier darts out from the Royals
and swoops
For the fuse! Fate seems with us. We cheer him; he answers--our hopes
are reborn!
A ball rips his visor--his khaki shows red where another has torn.
Will he live--will he last--will he make it? _Helas! _ And so near to the
goal!
A second, he dies! then a third one! A fourth! Still the Germans take
toll!
A fifth, _magnifique_! It is magic! How does he escape them? He may. . . .
Yes, he _does_! See, the match flares! A rifle rings out from the wood
and says "Nay! "
Six, seven, eight, nine take their places, six, seven, eight, nine brave
their hail;
Six, seven, eight, nine--how we count them! But the sixth, seventh,
eighth, and ninth fail!
A tenth! _Sacre nom! _ But these English are soldiers--they know how to
try;
(He fumbles the place where his jaw was)--they show, too, how heroes can
die.
Ten we count--ten who ventured unquailing--ten there were--and ten are
no more!
Yet another salutes and superbly essays where the ten failed before.
God of Battles, look down and protect him! Lord, his heart is as Thine--
let him live!
But the _mitrailleuse_ splutters and stutters, and riddles him into a
sieve.
Then I thought of my sins, and sat waiting the charge that we could not
withstand.
And I thought of my beautiful Paris, and gave a last look at the land,
At France, my _belle France_, in her glory of blue sky and green field
and wood.
Death with honor, but never surrender. And to die with such men--it was
good.
They are forming--the bugles are blaring--they will cross in a moment
and then. . . .
When out of the line of the Royals (your island, _mon ami_, breeds men)
Burst a private, a tawny-haired giant--it was hopeless, but, _ciel! _ how
he ran!
_Bon Dieu_ please remember the pattern, and make many more on his plan!
No cheers from our ranks, and the Germans, they halted in wonderment
too;
See, he reaches the bridge; ah! he lights it! I am dreaming, it _cannot_
be true.
Screams of rage! _Fusillade! _ They have killed him! Too late though, the
good work is done.
By the valor of twelve English martyrs, the Hell-Gate of Soissons is
won!
_Herbert Kaufman_
THE VIRGIN OF ALBERT
(NOTRE DAME DE BREBIERES)
Shyly expectant, gazing up at Her,
They linger, Gaul and Briton, side by side:
Death they know well, for daily have they died,
Spending their boyhood ever bravelier;
They wait: here is no priest or chorister,
Birds skirt the stricken tower, terrified;
Desolate, empty, is the Eastertide,
Yet still they wait, watching the Babe and Her.
Broken, the Mother stoops: the brutish foe
Hurled with dull hate his bolts, and down She swayed,
Down, till She saw the toiling swarms below,--
Platoons, guns, transports, endlessly arrayed:
"Women are woe for them! let Me be theirs,
And comfort them, and hearken all their prayers! "
_George Herbert Clarke_
RETREAT
Broken, bewildered by the long retreat
Across the stifling leagues of southern plain,
Across the scorching leagues of trampled grain,
Half-stunned, half-blinded, by the trudge of feet
And dusty smother of the August heat,
He dreamt of flowers in an English lane,
Of hedgerow flowers glistening after rain--
All-heal and willow-herb and meadow-sweet.
All-heal and willow-herb and meadow-sweet--
The innocent names kept up a cool refrain--
All-heal and willow-herb and meadow-sweet,
Chiming and tinkling in his aching brain,
Until he babbled like a child again--
"All-heal and willow-herb and meadow-sweet. "
_Wilfrid Wilson Gibson_
A LETTER FROM THE FRONT
I was out early to-day, spying about
From the top of a haystack--such a lovely morning--
And when I mounted again to canter back
I saw across a field in the broad sunlight
A young Gunner Subaltern, stalking along
With a rook-rifle held at the ready, and--would you believe it? --
A domestic cat, soberly marching beside him.
So I laughed, and felt quite well disposed to the youngster,
And shouted out "the top of the morning" to him,
And wished him "Good sport! "--and then I remembered
My rank, and his, and what I ought to be doing:
And I rode nearer, and added, "I can only suppose
You have not seen the Commander-in-Chief's order
Forbidding English officers to annoy their Allies
By hunting and shooting. "
But he stood and saluted
And said earnestly, "I beg your pardon, Sir,
I was only going out to shoot a sparrow
To feed my cat with. "
So there was the whole picture,
The lovely early morning, the occasional shell
Screeching and scattering past us, the empty landscape,--
Empty, except for the young Gunner saluting,
And the cat, anxiously watching his every movement.
I may be wrong, and I may have told it badly,
But it struck _me_ as being extremely ludicrous.
_Henry Newbolt_
RHEIMS CATHEDRAL--1914
A winged death has smitten dumb thy bells,
And poured them molten from thy tragic towers:
Now are the windows dust that were thy flower
Patterned like frost, petalled like asphodels.
Gone are the angels and the archangels,
The saints, the little lamb above thy door,
The shepherd Christ! They are not, any more,
Save in the soul where exiled beauty dwells.
But who has heard within thy vaulted gloom
That old divine insistence of the sea,
When music flows along the sculptured stone
In tides of prayer, for him thy windows bloom
Like faithful sunset, warm immortally!
Thy bells live on, and Heaven is in their tone!
_Grace Hazard Conkling_
I HAVE A RENDEZVOUS WITH DEATH. . . .
I have a rendezvous with Death
At some disputed barricade,
When Spring comes back with rustling shade
And apple-blossoms fill the air--
I have a rendezvous with Death
When Spring brings back blue days and fair.
It may be he shall take my hand
And lead me into his dark land
And close my eyes and quench my breath--
It may be I shall pass him still.
I have a rendezvous with Death
On some scarred slope of battered hill,
When Spring comes round again this year
And the first meadow-flowers appear.
* * * * *
In secret he made sharp the bitter blade,
And poison'd it with bane of lies and drew,
And stabb'd--O God! the Cruel Cripple slew;
And cowards fled or lent him trembling aid,
She fell and died--in all the tale of time
The direst deed e'er done, the most accursed crime.
_Ronald Ross_
IN WAR-TIME
(AN AMERICAN HOMEWARD-BOUND)
Further and further we leave the scene
Of war--and of England's care;
I try to keep my mind serene--
But my heart stays there;
For a distant song of pain and wrong
My spirit doth deep confuse,
And I sit all day on the deck, and long--
And long for news!
I seem to see them in battle-line--
Heroes with hearts of gold,
But of their victory a sign
The Fates withhold;
And the hours too tardy-footed pass,
The voiceless hush grows dense
'Mid the imaginings, alas!
That feed suspense.
Oh, might I lie on the wind, or fly
In the wilful sea-bird's track,
Would I hurry on, with a homesick cry--
Or hasten back?
_Florence Earle Coates_
THE ANVIL
Burned from the ore's rejected dross,
The iron whitens in the heat.
With plangent strokes of pain and loss
The hammers on the iron beat.
Searched by the fire, through death and dole
We feel the iron in our soul.
O dreadful Forge! if torn and bruised
The heart, more urgent comes our cry
Not to be spared but to be used,
Brain, sinew, and spirit, before we die.
Beat out the iron, edge it keen,
And shape us to the end we mean!
_Laurence Binyon_
THE FOOL RINGS HIS BELLS
Come, Death, I'd have a word with thee;
And thou, poor Innocency;
And Love--a lad with broken wing;
And Pity, too:
The Fool shall sing to you,
As Fools will sing.
Ay, music hath small sense,
And a tune's soon told,
And Earth is old,
And my poor wits are dense;
Yet have I secrets,--dark, my dear,
To breathe you all: Come near.
And lest some hideous listener tells,
I'll ring my bells.
They're all at war!
Yes, yes, their bodies go
'Neath burning sun and icy star
To chaunted songs of woe,
Dragging cold cannon through a mud
Of rain and blood;
The new moon glinting hard on eyes
Wide with insanities!
Hush! . . . I use words
I hardly know the meaning of;
And the mute birds
Are glancing at Love!
From out their shade of leaf and flower,
Trembling at treacheries
Which even in noonday cower,
Heed, heed not what I said
Of frenzied hosts of men,
More fools than I,
On envy, hatred fed,
Who kill, and die--
Spake I not plainly, then?
Yet Pity whispered, "Why? "
Thou silly thing, off to thy daisies go.
Mine was not news for child to know,
And Death--no ears hath. He hath supped where creep
Eyeless worms in hush of sleep;
Yet, when he smiles, the hand he draws
Athwart his grinning jaws
Faintly their thin bones rattle, and. . . . There, there;
Hearken how my bells in the air
Drive away care! . . .
Nay, but a dream I had
Of a world all mad.
Not a simple happy mad like me,
Who am mad like an empty scene
Of water and willow tree,
Where the wind hath been;
But that foul Satan-mad,
Who rots in his own head,
And counts the dead,
Not honest one--and two--
But for the ghosts they were,
Brave, faithful, true,
When, head in air,
In Earth's dear green and blue
Heaven they did share
With Beauty who bade them there. . . .
There, now! he goes--
Old Bones; I've wearied him.
Ay, and the light doth dim,
And asleep's the rose,
And tired Innocence
In dreams is hence. . . .
Come, Love, my lad,
Nodding that drowsy head,
'T is time thy prayers were said.
_Walter de la Mare_
THE ROAD TO DIEPPE
[Concerning the experiences of a journey on foot through the night of
August 4, 1914 (the night after the formal declaration of war between
England and Germany), from a town near Amiens, in France, to Dieppe,
a distance of somewhat more than forty miles. ]
Before I knew, the Dawn was on the road,
Close at my side, so silently he came
Nor gave a sign of salutation, save
To touch with light my sleeve and make the way
Appear as if a shining countenance
Had looked on it. Strange was this radiant Youth,
As I, to these fair, fertile parts of France,
Where Caesar with his legions once had passed,
And where the Kaiser's Uhlans yet would pass
Or e'er another moon should cope with clouds
For mastery of these same fields. --To-night
(And but a month has gone since I walked there)
Well might the Kaiser write, as Caesar wrote,
In his new Commentaries on a Gallic war,
"_Fortissimi Belgae_. "--A moon ago!
Who would have then divined that dead would lie
Like swaths of grain beneath the harvest moon
Upon these lands the ancient Belgae held,
From Normandy beyond renowned Liege! --
But it was out of that dread August night
From which all Europe woke to war, that we,
This beautiful Dawn-Youth, and I, had come,
He from afar. Beyond grim Petrograd
He'd waked the moujik from his peaceful dreams,
Bid the muezzin call to morning prayer
Where minarets rise o'er the Golden Horn,
And driven shadows from the Prussian march
To lie beneath the lindens of the _stadt_.
Softly he'd stirred the bells to ring at Rheims,
He'd knocked at high Montmartre, hardly asleep;
Heard the sweet carillon of doomed Louvain,
Boylike, had tarried for a moment's play
Amid the traceries of Amiens,
And then was hast'ning on the road to Dieppe,
When he o'ertook me drowsy from the hours
Through which I'd walked, with no companions else
Than ghostly kilometer posts that stood
As sentinels' of space along the way. --
Often, in doubt, I'd paused to question one,
With nervous hands, as they who read Moon-type;
And more than once I'd caught a moment's sleep
Beside the highway, in the dripping grass,
While one of these white sentinels stood guard,
Knowing me for a friend, who loves the road,
And best of all by night, when wheels do sleep
And stars alone do walk abroad. --But once
Three watchful shadows, deeper than the dark,
Laid hands on me and searched me for the marks
Of traitor or of spy, only to find
Over my heart the badge of loyalty. --
With wish for _bon voyage_ they gave me o'er
To the white guards who led me on again.
Thus Dawn o'ertook me and with magic speech
Made me forget the night as we strode on.
Where'er he looked a miracle was wrought:
A tree grew from the darkness at a glance;
A hut was thatched; a new chateau was reared
Of stone, as weathered as the church at Caen;
Gray blooms were coloured suddenly in red;
A flag was flung across the eastern sky. --
Nearer at hand, he made me then aware
Of peasant women bending in the fields,
Cradling and gleaning by the first scant light,
Their sons and husbands somewhere o'er the edge
Of these green-golden fields which they had sowed,
But will not reap,--out somewhere on the march,
God but knows where and if they come again.
One fallow field he pointed out to me
Where but the day before a peasant ploughed,
Dreaming of next year's fruit, and there his plough
Stood now mid-field, his horses commandeered,
A monstrous sable crow perched on the beam.
Before I knew, the Dawn was on the road,
Far from my side, so silently he went,
Catching his golden helmet as he ran,
And hast'ning on along the dun straight way,
Where old men's sabots now began to clack
And withered women, knitting, led their cows,
On, on to call the men of Kitchener
Down to their coasts,--I shouting after him:
"O Dawn, would you had let the world sleep on
Till all its armament were turned to rust,
Nor waked it to this day of hideous hate,
Of man's red murder and of woman's woe! "
Famished and lame, I came at last to Dieppe,
But Dawn had made his way across the sea,
And, as I climbed with heavy feet the cliff,
Was even then upon the sky-built towers
Of that great capital where nations all,
Teuton, Italian, Gallic, English, Slav,
Forget long hates in one consummate faith.
_John Finley_
TO FELLOW TRAVELLERS IN GREECE
MARCH-SEPTEMBER, 1914
'T was in the piping tune of peace
We trod the sacred soil of Greece,
Nor thought, where the Ilissus runs,
Of Teuton craft or Teuton guns;
Nor dreamt that, ere the year was spent,
Their iron challenge insolent
Would round the world's horizons pour,
From Europe to the Australian shore.
The tides of war had ebb'd away
From Trachis and Thermopylae,
Long centuries had come and gone
Since that fierce day at Marathon;
Freedom was firmly based, and we
Wall'd by our own encircling sea;
The ancient passions dead, and men
Battl'd with ledger and with pen.
So seem'd it, but to them alone
The wisdom of the gods is known;
Lest freedom's price decline, from far
Zeus hurl'd the thunderbolt of war.
And so once more the Persian steel
The armies of the Greeks must feel,
And once again a Xerxes know
The virtue of a Spartan foe.
Thus may the cloudy fates unroll'd
Retrace the starry circles old,
And the recurrent heavens decree
A Periclean dynasty.
_W. Macneile Dixon_
"WHEN THERE IS PEACE"
"_When there is Peace our land no more
Will be the land we knew of yore. _"
Thus do our facile seers foretell
The truth that none can buy or sell
And e'en the wisest must ignore.
When we have bled at every pore,
Shall we still strive for gear and store?
Will it be Heaven? Will it be Hell,
When there is Peace?
This let us pray for, this implore:
That all base dreams thrust out at door,
We may in loftier aims excel
And, like men waking from a spell,
Grow stronger, nobler, than before,
When there is Peace.
_Austin Dobson_
A PRAYER IN TIME OF WAR
[ The war will change many things in art and life, and among them,
it is to be hoped, many of our own ideas as to what is, and what is not,
"intellectual. "]
Thou, whose deep ways are in the sea,
Whose footsteps are not known,
To-night a world that turned from Thee
Is waiting--at Thy Throne.
The towering Babels that we raised
Where scoffing sophists brawl,
The little Antichrists we praised--
The night is on them all.
_The fool hath said. . . . The fool hath said. . . . _
And we, who deemed him wise,
We who believed that Thou wast dead,
How should we seek Thine eyes?
How should we seek to Thee for power
Who scorned Thee yesterday?
How should we kneel, in this dread hour?
Lord, teach us how to pray!
Grant us the single heart, once more,
That mocks no sacred thing,
The Sword of Truth our fathers wore
When Thou wast Lord and King.
Let darkness unto darkness tell
Our deep unspoken prayer,
For, while our souls in darkness dwell,
We know that Thou art there.
_Alfred Noyes_
THEN AND NOW
When battles were fought
With a chivalrous sense of should and ought,
In spirit men said,
"End we quick or dead,
Honour is some reward!
Let us fight fair--for our own best or worst;
So, Gentlemen of the Guard,
Fire first! "
In the open they stood,
Man to man in his knightlihood:
They would not deign
To profit by a stain
On the honourable rules,
Knowing that practise perfidy no man durst
Who in the heroic schools
Was nurst.
But now, behold, what
Is war with those where honour is not!
Rama laments
Its dead innocents;
Herod howls: "Sly slaughter
Rules now! Let us, by modes once called accurst,
Overhead, under water,
Stab first. "
_Thomas Hardy_
THE KAISER AND GOD
["I rejoice with you in Wilhelm's first victory. How magnificently God
supported him! "--Telegram from the Kaiser to the Crown Princess. ]
Led by Wilhelm, as you tell,
God has done extremely well;
You with patronizing nod
Show that you approve of God.
Kaiser, face a question new--
This--does God approve of you?
Broken pledges, treaties torn,
Your first page of war adorn;
We on fouler things must look
Who read further in that book,
Where you did in time of war
All that you in peace forswore,
Where you, barbarously wise,
Bade your soldiers terrorize,
Where you made--the deed was fine--
Women screen your firing line.
Villages burned down to dust,
Torture, murder, bestial lust,
Filth too foul for printer's ink,
Crime from which the apes would shrink--
Strange the offerings that you press
On the God of Righteousness!
Kaiser, when you'd decorate
Sons or friends who serve your State,
Not that Iron Cross bestow,
But a cross of wood, and so--
So remind the world that you
Have made Calvary anew.
Kaiser, when you'd kneel in prayer
Look upon your hands, and there
Let that deep and awful stain
From the Wood of children slain
Burn your very soul with shame,
Till you dare not breathe that Name
That now you glibly advertise--
God as one of your allies.
Impious braggart, you forget;
God is not your conscript yet;
You shall learn in dumb amaze
That His ways are not your ways,
That the mire through which you trod
Is not the high white road of God.
_To Whom, whichever way the combat rolls,
We, fighting to the end, commend our souls. _
_Barry Pain_
THE SUPERMAN
The horror-haunted Belgian plains riven by shot and shell
Are strewn with her undaunted sons who stayed the jaws of hell.
In every sunny vale of France death is the countersign.
The purest blood in Britain's veins is being poured like wine.
Far, far across the crimsoned map the impassioned armies sweep.
Destruction flashes down the sky and penetrates the deep.
The Dreadnought knows the silent dread, and seas incarnadine
Attest the carnival of strife, the madman's battle scene.
Relentless, savage, hot, and grim the infuriate columns press
Where terror simulates disdain and danger is largess,
Where greedy youth claims death for bride and agony seems bliss.
It is the cause, the cause, my soul! which sanctifies all this.
Ride, Cossacks, ride! Charge, Turcos, charge! The fateful hour has come.
Let all the guns of Britain roar or be forever dumb.
The Superman has burst his bonds. With Kultur-flag unfurled
And prayer on lip he runs amuck, imperilling the world.
The impious creed that might is right in him personified
Bids all creation bend before the insatiate Teuton pride,
Which, nourished on Valhalla dreams of empire unconfined,
Would make the cannon and the sword the despots of mankind.
Efficient, thorough, strong, and brave--his vision is to kill.
Force is the hearthstone of his might, the pole-star of his will.
His forges glow malevolent: their minions never tire
To deck the goddess of his lust whose twins are blood and fire.
O world grown sick with butchery and manifold distress!
O broken Belgium robbed of all save grief and ghastliness!
Should Prussian power enslave the world and arrogance prevail,
Let chaos come, let Moloch rule, and Christ give place to Baal.
_Robert Grant_
THREE HILLS
There is a hill in England,
Green fields and a school I know,
Where the balls fly fast in summer,
And the whispering elm-trees grow,
A little hill, a dear hill,
And the playing fields below.
There is a hill in Flanders,
Heaped with a thousand slain,
Where the shells fly night and noontide
And the ghosts that died in vain,--
A little hill, a hard hill
To the souls that died in pain.
There is a hill in Jewry,
Three crosses pierce the sky,
On the midmost He is dying
To save all those who die,--
A little hill, a kind hill
To souls in jeopardy.
_Everard Owen_
_Harrow, December, 1915_
THE RETURN
I heard the rumbling guns. I saw the smoke,
The unintelligible shock of hosts that still,
Far off, unseeing, strove and strove again;
And Beauty flying naked down the hill
From morn to eve: and the stern night cried Peace!
And shut the strife in darkness: all was still,
Then slowly crept a triumph on the dark--
And I heard Beauty singing up the hill.
_John Freeman_
THE MOBILIZATION IN BRITTANY
I
It was silent in the street.
I did not know until a woman told me,
Sobbing over the muslin she sold me.
Then I went out and walked to the square
And saw a few dazed people standing there.
And then the drums beat, the drums beat!
O then the drums beat!
And hurrying, stumbling through the street
Came the hurrying stumbling feet.
O I have heard the drums beat
For war!
I have heard the townsfolk come,
I have heard the roll and thunder of the nearest drum
As the drummer stopped and cried, "Hear!
Be strong! The summons comes! Prepare! "
Closing he prayed us to be calm. . . .
And there was calm in my heart of the desert, of the dead sea,
Of vast plains of the West before the coming storm,
And there was calm in their eyes like the last calm that shall be.
And then the drum beat,
The fatal drum, beat,
And the drummer marched through the street
And down to another square,
And the drummer above took up the beat
And sent it onward where
Huddled, we stood and heard the drums roll,
And then a bell began to toll.
O I have heard the thunder of drums
Crashing into simple poor homes.
I have heard the drums roll "Farewell! "
I have heard the tolling cathedral bell.
Will it ever peal again?
Shall I ever smile or feel again?
What was joy? What was pain?
For I have heard the drums beat,
I have seen the drummer striding from street to street,
Crying, "Be strong! Hear what I must tell! "
While the drums roared and rolled and beat
For war!
II
Last night the men of this region were leaving. Now they are far.
Rough and strong they are, proud and gay they are.
So this is the way of war. . . .
The train was full and we all shouted as it pulled away.
They sang an old war-song, they were true to themselves, they were gay!
We might have thought they were going for a holiday--
Except for something in the air,
Except for the weeping of the ruddy old women of Finistere.
The younger women do not weep. They dream and stare.
They seem to be walking in dreams. They seem not to know
It is their homes, their happiness, vanishing so.
(Every strong man between twenty and forty must go. )
They sang an old war-song. I have heard it often in other days,
But never before when War was walking the world's highways.
They sang, they shouted, the _Marseillaise! _
The train went and another has gone, but none, coming, has brought word.
Though you may know, you, out in the world, we have not heard,
We are not sure that the great battalions have stirred--
Except for something, something in the air,
Except for the weeping of the wild old women of Finistere.
How long will the others dream and stare?
The train went. The strong men of this region are all away, afar.
Rough and strong they are, proud and gay they are.
So this is the way of war. . . .
_Grace Fallow Norton_
THE TOY BAND
(A SONG OF THE GREAT RETREAT)
Dreary lay the long road, dreary lay the town,
Lights out and never a glint o' moon:
Weary lay the stragglers, half a thousand down,
Sad sighed the weary big Dragoon.
"Oh! if I'd a drum here to make them take the road again,
Oh! if I'd a fife to wheedle, Come, boys, come!
You that mean to fight it out, wake and take your load again,
Fall in! Fall in! Follow the fife and drum!
"Hey, but here's a toy shop, here's a drum for me,
Penny whistles too to play the tune!
Half a thousand dead men soon shall hear and see
We're a band! " said the weary big Dragoon.
"Rubadub! Rubadub! Wake and take the road again,
Wheedle-deedle-deedle-dee, Come, boys, come!
You that mean to fight it out, wake and take your load again,
Fall in! Fall in! Follow the fife and drum! "
Cheerly goes the dark road, cheerly goes the night,
Cheerly goes the blood to keep the beat:
Half a thousand dead men marching on to fight
With a little penny drum to lift their feet.
Rubadub! Rubadub! Wake and take the road again,
Wheedle-deedle-deedle-dee, Come, boys, come!
You that mean to fight it out, wake and take your load again,
Fall in! Fall in! Follow the fife and drum!
As long as there's an Englishman to ask a tale of me,
As long as I can tell the tale aright,
We'll not forget the penny whistle's wheedle-deedle-dee
And the big Dragoon a-beating down the night,
Rubadub! Rubadub! Wake and take the road again,
Wheedle-deedle-deedle-dee, Come, boys, come!
You that mean to fight it out, wake and take your load again,
Fall in! Fall in! Follow the fife and drum!
_Henry Newbolt_
THOMAS OF THE LIGHT HEART
Facing the guns, he jokes as well
As any Judge upon the Bench;
Between the crash of shell and shell
His laughter rings along the trench;
He seems immensely tickled by a
Projectile which he calls a "Black Maria. "
He whistles down the day-long road,
And, when the chilly shadows fall
And heavier hangs the weary load,
Is he down-hearted? Not at all.
'T is then he takes a light and airy
View of the tedious route to Tipperary.
His songs are not exactly hymns;
He never learned them in the choir;
And yet they brace his dragging limbs
Although they miss the sacred fire;
Although his choice and cherished gems
Do not include "The Watch upon the Thames. "
He takes to fighting as a game;
He does no talking, through his hat,
Of holy missions; all the same
He has his faith--be sure of that;
He'll not disgrace his sporting breed,
Nor play what isn't cricket. There's his creed.
_Owen Seaman_
_October, 1914_
IN THE TRENCHES
As I lay in the trenches
Under the Hunter's Moon,
My mind ran to the lenches
Cut in a Wiltshire down.
I saw their long black shadows,
The beeches in the lane,
The gray church in the meadows
And my white cottage--plain.
Thinks I, the down lies dreaming
Under that hot moon's eye,
Which sees the shells fly screaming
And men and horses die.
And what makes she, I wonder,
Of the horror and the blood,
And what's her luck, to sunder
The evil from the good?
'T was more than I could compass,
For how was I to think
With such infernal rumpus
In such a blasted stink?
But here's a thought to tally
With t'other. That moon sees
A shrouded German valley
With woods and ghostly trees.
And maybe there's a river
As we have got at home
With poplar-trees aquiver
And clots of whirling foam.
And over there some fellow,
A German and a foe,
Whose gills are turning yellow
As sure as mine are so,
Watches that riding glory
Apparel'd in her gold,
And craves to hear the story
Her frozen lips enfold.
And if he sees as clearly
As I do where her shrine
Must fall, he longs as dearly.
With heart as full as mine.
_Maurice Hewlett_
THE GUARDS CAME THROUGH
Men of the Twenty-first
Up by the Chalk Pit Wood,
Weak with our wounds and our thirst,
Wanting our sleep and our food,
After a day and a night--
God, shall we ever forget!
Beaten and broke in the fight,
But sticking it--sticking it yet.
Trying to hold the line,
Fainting and spent and done,
Always the thud and the whine,
Always the yell of the Hun!
Northumberland, Lancaster, York,
Durham and Somerset,
Fighting alone, worn to the bone,
But sticking it--sticking it yet.
Never a message of hope!
Never a word of cheer!
Fronting Hill 70's shell-swept slope,
With the dull dead plain in our rear.
Always the whine of the shell,
Always the roar of its burst,
Always the tortures of hell,
As waiting and wincing we cursed
Our luck and the guns and the _Boche_,
When our Corporal shouted, "Stand to! "
And I heard some one cry, "Clear the front for the Guards! "
And the Guards came through.
Our throats they were parched and hot,
But Lord, if you'd heard the cheers!
Irish and Welsh and Scot,
Coldstream and Grenadiers.
Two brigades, if you please,
Dressing as straight as a hem,
We--we were down on our knees,
Praying for us and for them!
Lord, I could speak for a week,
But how could you understand!
How should _your_ cheeks be wet,
Such feelin's don't come to _you_.
But when can me or my mates forget,
When the Guards came through?
"Five yards left extend! "
It passed from rank to rank.
Line after line with never a bend,
And a touch of the London swank.
A trifle of swank and dash,
Cool as a home parade,
Twinkle and glitter and flash,
Flinching never a shade,
With the shrapnel right in their face
Doing their Hyde Park stunt,
Keeping their swing at an easy pace,
Arms at the trail, eyes front!
Man, it was great to see!
Man, it was fine to do!
It's a cot and a hospital ward for me,
But I'll tell 'em in Blighty, wherever I be,
How the Guards came through.
_Arthur Conan Doyle_
THE PASSENGERS OF A RETARDED SUBMERSIBLE
NOVEMBER, 1916
THE AMERICAN PEOPLE:
What was it kept you so long, brave German submersible?
We have been very anxious lest matters had not gone well
With you and the precious cargo of your country's drugs and dyes.
But here you are at last, and the sight is good for our eyes,
Glad to welcome you up and out of the caves of the sea,
And ready for sale or barter, whatever your will may be.
THE CAPTAIN OF THE SUBMERSIBLE:
Oh, do not be impatient, good friends of this neutral land,
That we have been so tardy in reaching your eager strand.
We were stopped by a curious chance just off the Irish coast,
Where the mightiest wreck ever was lay crowded with a host
Of the dead that went down with her; and some prayed us to bring them
here
That they might be at home with their brothers and sisters dear.
We Germans have tender hearts, and it grieved us sore to say
We were not a passenger ship, and to most we must answer nay,
But if from among their hundreds they could somehow a half-score choose
We thought we could manage to bring them, and we would not refuse.
They chose, and the women and children that are greeting you here are
those
Ghosts of the women and children that the rest of the hundred chose.
THE AMERICAN PEOPLE:
What guff are you giving us, Captain? We are able to tell, we hope,
A dozen ghosts, when we see them, apart from a periscope.
Come, come, get down to business! For time is money, you know,
And you must make up in both to us for having been so slow.
Better tell this story of yours to the submarines, for we
Know there was no such wreck, and none of your spookery.
THE GHOSTS OF THE LUSITANIA WOMEN AND CHILDREN:
Oh, kind kin of our murderers, take us back when you sail away;
Our own kin have forgotten us. O Captain, do not stay!
But hasten, Captain, hasten: The wreck that lies under the sea
Shall be ever the home for us this land can never be.
_William Dean Howells_
EDITH CAVELL
She was binding the wounds of her enemies when they came--
The lint in her hand unrolled.
They battered the door with their rifle-butts, crashed it in:
She faced them gentle and bold.
They haled her before the judges where they sat
In their places, helmet on head.
With question and menace the judges assailed her, "Yes,
I have broken your law," she said.
"I have tended the hurt and hidden the hunted, have done
As a sister does to a brother,
Because of a law that is greater than that you have made,
Because I could do none other.
"Deal as you will with me. This is my choice to the end,
To live in the life I vowed. "
"She is self-confessed," they cried; "she is self-condemned.
She shall die, that the rest may be cowed. "
In the terrible hour of the dawn, when the veins are cold,
They led her forth to the wall.
"I have loved my land," she said, "but it is not enough:
Love requires of me all.
"I will empty my heart of the bitterness, hating none. "
And sweetness filled her brave
With a vision of understanding beyond the hour
That knelled to the waiting grave.
They bound her eyes, but she stood as if she shone.
The rifles it was that shook
When the hoarse command rang out. They could not endure
That last, that defenceless look.
And the officer strode and pistolled her surely, ashamed
That men, seasoned in blood,
Should quail at a woman, only a woman,--
As a flower stamped in the mud.
And now that the deed was securely done, in the night
When none had known her fate,
They answered those that had striven for her, day by day:
"It is over, you come too late. "
And with many words and sorrowful-phrased excuse
Argued their German right
To kill, most legally; hard though the duty be,
The law must assert its might.
Only a woman! yet she had pity on them,
The victim offered slain
To the gods of fear that they worship. Leave them there,
Red hands, to clutch their gain!
She bewailed not herself, and we will bewail her not,
But with tears of pride rejoice
That an English soul was found so crystal-clear
To be triumphant voice
Of the human heart that dares adventure all
But live to itself untrue,
And beyond all laws sees love as the light in the night,
As the star it must answer to.
The hurts she healed, the thousands comforted--these
Make a fragrance of her fame.
But because she stept to her star right on through death
It is Victory speaks her name.
_Laurence Binyon_
THE HELL-GATE OF SOISSONS
My name is Darino, the poet. You have heard? _Oui, Comedie Francaise_.
Perchance it has happened, _mon ami_, you know of my unworthy lays.
Ah, then you must guess how my fingers are itching to talk to a pen;
For I was at Soissons, and saw it, the death of the twelve Englishmen.
My leg, _malheureusement_, I left it behind on the banks of the Aisne.
Regret? I would pay with the other to witness their valor again.
A trifle, indeed, I assure you, to give for the honor to tell
How that handful of British, undaunted, went into the Gateway of Hell.
Let me draw you a plan of the battle. Here we French and your Engineers
stood;
Over there a detachment of German sharpshooters lay hid in a wood.
A _mitrailleuse_ battery planted on top of this well-chosen ridge
Held the road for the Prussians and covered the direct approach to the
bridge.
It was madness to dare the dense murder that spewed from those ghastly
machines.
(Only those who have danced to its music can know what the
_mitrailleuse_ means. )
But the bridge on the Aisne was a menace; our safety demanded its fall:
"Engineers,--volunteers! " In a body, the Royals stood out at the call.
Death at best was the fate of that mission--to their glory not one was
dismayed.
A party was chosen--and seven survived till the powder was laid.
And _they_ died with their fuses unlighted. Another detachment! Again
A sortie is made--all too vainly. The bridge still commanded the Aisne.
We were fighting two foes--Time and Prussia--the moments were worth more
than troops.
We _must_ blow up the bridge. A lone soldier darts out from the Royals
and swoops
For the fuse! Fate seems with us. We cheer him; he answers--our hopes
are reborn!
A ball rips his visor--his khaki shows red where another has torn.
Will he live--will he last--will he make it? _Helas! _ And so near to the
goal!
A second, he dies! then a third one! A fourth! Still the Germans take
toll!
A fifth, _magnifique_! It is magic! How does he escape them? He may. . . .
Yes, he _does_! See, the match flares! A rifle rings out from the wood
and says "Nay! "
Six, seven, eight, nine take their places, six, seven, eight, nine brave
their hail;
Six, seven, eight, nine--how we count them! But the sixth, seventh,
eighth, and ninth fail!
A tenth! _Sacre nom! _ But these English are soldiers--they know how to
try;
(He fumbles the place where his jaw was)--they show, too, how heroes can
die.
Ten we count--ten who ventured unquailing--ten there were--and ten are
no more!
Yet another salutes and superbly essays where the ten failed before.
God of Battles, look down and protect him! Lord, his heart is as Thine--
let him live!
But the _mitrailleuse_ splutters and stutters, and riddles him into a
sieve.
Then I thought of my sins, and sat waiting the charge that we could not
withstand.
And I thought of my beautiful Paris, and gave a last look at the land,
At France, my _belle France_, in her glory of blue sky and green field
and wood.
Death with honor, but never surrender. And to die with such men--it was
good.
They are forming--the bugles are blaring--they will cross in a moment
and then. . . .
When out of the line of the Royals (your island, _mon ami_, breeds men)
Burst a private, a tawny-haired giant--it was hopeless, but, _ciel! _ how
he ran!
_Bon Dieu_ please remember the pattern, and make many more on his plan!
No cheers from our ranks, and the Germans, they halted in wonderment
too;
See, he reaches the bridge; ah! he lights it! I am dreaming, it _cannot_
be true.
Screams of rage! _Fusillade! _ They have killed him! Too late though, the
good work is done.
By the valor of twelve English martyrs, the Hell-Gate of Soissons is
won!
_Herbert Kaufman_
THE VIRGIN OF ALBERT
(NOTRE DAME DE BREBIERES)
Shyly expectant, gazing up at Her,
They linger, Gaul and Briton, side by side:
Death they know well, for daily have they died,
Spending their boyhood ever bravelier;
They wait: here is no priest or chorister,
Birds skirt the stricken tower, terrified;
Desolate, empty, is the Eastertide,
Yet still they wait, watching the Babe and Her.
Broken, the Mother stoops: the brutish foe
Hurled with dull hate his bolts, and down She swayed,
Down, till She saw the toiling swarms below,--
Platoons, guns, transports, endlessly arrayed:
"Women are woe for them! let Me be theirs,
And comfort them, and hearken all their prayers! "
_George Herbert Clarke_
RETREAT
Broken, bewildered by the long retreat
Across the stifling leagues of southern plain,
Across the scorching leagues of trampled grain,
Half-stunned, half-blinded, by the trudge of feet
And dusty smother of the August heat,
He dreamt of flowers in an English lane,
Of hedgerow flowers glistening after rain--
All-heal and willow-herb and meadow-sweet.
All-heal and willow-herb and meadow-sweet--
The innocent names kept up a cool refrain--
All-heal and willow-herb and meadow-sweet,
Chiming and tinkling in his aching brain,
Until he babbled like a child again--
"All-heal and willow-herb and meadow-sweet. "
_Wilfrid Wilson Gibson_
A LETTER FROM THE FRONT
I was out early to-day, spying about
From the top of a haystack--such a lovely morning--
And when I mounted again to canter back
I saw across a field in the broad sunlight
A young Gunner Subaltern, stalking along
With a rook-rifle held at the ready, and--would you believe it? --
A domestic cat, soberly marching beside him.
So I laughed, and felt quite well disposed to the youngster,
And shouted out "the top of the morning" to him,
And wished him "Good sport! "--and then I remembered
My rank, and his, and what I ought to be doing:
And I rode nearer, and added, "I can only suppose
You have not seen the Commander-in-Chief's order
Forbidding English officers to annoy their Allies
By hunting and shooting. "
But he stood and saluted
And said earnestly, "I beg your pardon, Sir,
I was only going out to shoot a sparrow
To feed my cat with. "
So there was the whole picture,
The lovely early morning, the occasional shell
Screeching and scattering past us, the empty landscape,--
Empty, except for the young Gunner saluting,
And the cat, anxiously watching his every movement.
I may be wrong, and I may have told it badly,
But it struck _me_ as being extremely ludicrous.
_Henry Newbolt_
RHEIMS CATHEDRAL--1914
A winged death has smitten dumb thy bells,
And poured them molten from thy tragic towers:
Now are the windows dust that were thy flower
Patterned like frost, petalled like asphodels.
Gone are the angels and the archangels,
The saints, the little lamb above thy door,
The shepherd Christ! They are not, any more,
Save in the soul where exiled beauty dwells.
But who has heard within thy vaulted gloom
That old divine insistence of the sea,
When music flows along the sculptured stone
In tides of prayer, for him thy windows bloom
Like faithful sunset, warm immortally!
Thy bells live on, and Heaven is in their tone!
_Grace Hazard Conkling_
I HAVE A RENDEZVOUS WITH DEATH. . . .
I have a rendezvous with Death
At some disputed barricade,
When Spring comes back with rustling shade
And apple-blossoms fill the air--
I have a rendezvous with Death
When Spring brings back blue days and fair.
It may be he shall take my hand
And lead me into his dark land
And close my eyes and quench my breath--
It may be I shall pass him still.
I have a rendezvous with Death
On some scarred slope of battered hill,
When Spring comes round again this year
And the first meadow-flowers appear.
