No More Learning

_J. E. Stewart_




THE CHALLENGE OF THE GUNS


By day, by night, along the lines their dull boom rings,
And that reverberating roar its challenge flings.
Not only unto thee across the narrow sea,
But from the loneliest vale in the last land's heart
The sad-eyed watching mother sees her sons depart.

And freighted full the tumbling waters of ocean are
With aid for England from England's sons afar.
The glass is dim; we see not wisely, far, nor well,
But bred of English bone, and reared on Freedom's wine,
All that we have and are we lay on England's shrine.

A. N. Field




THE BEACH ROAD BY THE WOOD


I know a beach road,
A road where I would go,
It runs up northward
From Cooden Bay to Hoe;
And there, in the High Woods,
Daffodils grow.

And whoever walks along there
Stops short and sees,
By the moist tree-roots
In a clearing of the trees,
Yellow great battalions of them,
Blowing in the breeze.

While the spring sun brightens,
And the dull sky clears,
They blow their golden trumpets,
Those golden trumpeteers!
They blow their golden trumpets
And they shake their glancing spears.

And all the rocking beech-trees
Are bright with buds again,
And the green and open spaces
Are greener after rain,
And far to southward one can hear
The sullen, moaning rain.

Once before I die
I will leave the town behind,
The loud town, the dark town
That cramps and chills the mind,
And I'll stand again bareheaded there
In the sunlight and the wind.

Yes, I shall stand
Where as a boy I stood
Above the dykes and levels
In the beach road by the wood,
And I'll smell again the sea breeze,
Salt and harsh and good.

And there shall rise to me
From that consecrated ground
The old dreams, the lost dreams
That years and cares have drowned;
Welling up within me
And above me and around
The song that I could never sing
And the face I never found.

_Geoffrey Howard_




GERMAN PRISONERS


When first I saw you in the curious street
Like some platoon of soldier ghosts in grey,
My mad impulse was all to smite and slay,
To spit upon you--tread you 'neath my feet.
But when I saw how each sad soul did greet
My gaze with no sign of defiant frown,
How from tired eyes looked spirits broken down,
How each face showed the pale flag of defeat,
And doubt, despair, and disillusionment,
And how were grievous wounds on many a head.
And on your garb red-faced was other red;
And how you stooped as men whose strength was spent,
I knew that we had suffered each as other,
And could have grasped your hand and cried, "My brother! "

_Joseph Lee_




"--BUT A SHORT TIME TO LIVE"


Our little hour,--how swift it flies
When poppies flare and lilies smile;
How soon the fleeting minute dies,
Leaving us but a little while
To dream our dream, to sing our song,
To pick the fruit, to pluck the flower,
The Gods--They do not give us long,--
One little hour.

Our little hour,--how short it is
When Love with dew-eyed loveliness
Raises her lips for ours to kiss
And dies within our first caress.
Youth flickers out like wind-blown flame,
Sweets of to-day to-morrow sour,
For Time and Death, relentless, claim
Our little hour.

Our little hour,--how short a tune
To wage our wars, to fan our hates,
To take our fill of armoured crime,
To troop our banners, storm the gates.
Blood on the sword, our eyes blood-red,
Blind in our puny reign of power,
Do we forget how soon is sped
Our little hour?

Our little hour,--how soon it dies:
How short a time to tell our beads,
To chant our feeble Litanies,
To think sweet thoughts, to do good deeds.
The altar lights grow pale and dim,
The bells hang silent in the tower--
So passes with the dying hymn
Our little hour.

_Leslie Coulson_




BEFORE ACTION


By all the glories of the day,
And the cool evening's benison:
By the last sunset touch that lay
Upon the hills when day was done;
By beauty lavishly outpoured,
And blessings carelessly received,
By all the days that I have lived,
Make me a soldier, Lord.

By all of all men's hopes and fears,
And all the wonders poets sing,
The laughter of unclouded years,
And every sad and lovely thing:
By the romantic ages stored
With high endeavour that was his,
By all his mad catastrophes,
Make me a man, O Lord.

I, that on my familiar hill
Saw with uncomprehending eyes
A hundred of Thy sunsets spill
Their fresh and sanguine sacrifice,
Ere the sun swings his noonday sword
Must say good-bye to all of this:--
By all delights that I shall miss,
Help me to die, O Lord.

_W. N. Hodgson ("Edward Melbourne")_




COURAGE


Alone amid the battle-din untouched
Stands out one figure beautiful, serene;
No grime of smoke nor reeking blood hath smutched
The virgin brow of this unconquered queen.
She is the Joy of Courage vanquishing
The unstilled tremors of the fearful heart;
And it is she that bids the poet sing,
And gives to each the strength to bear his part.

Her eye shall not be dimmed, but as a flame
Shall light the distant ages with its fire,
That men may know the glory of her name,
That purified our souls of fear's desire.
And she doth calm our sorrow, soothe our pain,
And she shall lead us back to peace again.

_Dyneley Hussey_




OPTIMISM


At last there'll dawn the last of the long year,
Of the long year that seemed to dream no end,
Whose every dawn but turned the world more drear,
And slew some hope, or led away some friend.
Or be you dark, or buffeting, or blind,
We care not, day, but leave not death behind.

The hours that feed on war go heavy-hearted,
Death is no fare wherewith to make hearts fain.
Oh, we are sick to find that they who started
With glamour in their eyes came not again.
O day, be long and heavy if you will,
But on our hopes set not a bitter heel.

For tiny hopes like tiny flowers of Spring
Will come, though death and ruin hold the land,
Though storms may roar they may not break the wing
Of the earthed lark whose song is ever bland.
Fell year unpitiful, slow days of scorn,
Your kind shall die, and sweeter days be born.

_A. Victor Ratcliffe_




THE BATTLEFIELD


Around no fire the soldiers sleep to-night,
But lie a-wearied on the ice-bound field,
With cloaks wrapt round their sleeping forms, to shield
Them from the northern winds. Ere comes the light
Of morn brave men must arm, stern foes to fight.
The sentry stands, his limbs with cold congealed;
His head a-nod with sleep; he cannot yield,
Though sleep and snow in deadly force unite.

Amongst the sleepers lies the Boy awake,
And wide-eyed plans brave glories that transcend
The deeds of heroes dead; then dreams o'ertake
His tired-out brain, and lofty fancies blend
To one grand theme, and through all barriers break
To guard from hurt his faithful sleeping friend.

_Sydney Oswald_




"ON LES AURA! "


SOLDAT JACQUES BONHOMME LOQUITUR:

See you that stretch of shell-torn mud spotted with
pools of mire,
Crossed by a burst abandoned trench and tortured
strands of wire,
Where splintered pickets reel and sag and leprous
trench-rats play,
That scour the Devil's hunting-ground to seek their
carrion prey?
That is the field my father loved, the field that once
was mine,
The land I nursed for my child's child as my fathers
did long syne.

See there a mound of powdered stones, all flattened,
smashed, and torn,
Gone black with damp and green with slime? --Ere
you and I were born
My father's father built a house, a little house and
bare,
And there I brought my woman home--that heap of
rubble there!
The soil of France! Fat fields and green that bred my
blood and bone!
Each wound that scars my bosom's pride burns deeper
than my own.

But yet there is one thing to say--one thing that
pays for all,
Whatever lot our bodies know, whatever fate befall,
We hold the line! We hold it still! My fields are No
Man's Land,
But the good God is debonair and holds us by the
hand.
"_On les aura! _" See there! and there I soaked heaps
of huddled, grey!
My fields shall laugh--enriched by those who sought
them for a prey.

_James H. Knight-Adkin_




TO AN OLD LADY SEEN AT A GUESTHOUSE
FOR SOLDIERS


Quiet thou didst stand at thine appointed place,
There was no press to purchase--younger grace
Attracts the youth of valour. Thou didst not know,
Like the old, kindly Martha, to and fro
To haste. Yet one could say, "In thine I prize
The strength of calm that held in Mary's eyes. "
And when they came, thy gracious smile so wrought
They knew that they were given, not that they bought.
Thou didst not tempt to vauntings, and pretence
Was dumb before thy perfect woman's sense.
Blest who have seen, for they shall ever see
The radiance of thy benignity.

_Alexander Robertson_




THE CASUALTY CLEARING STATION


A bowl of daffodils,
A crimson-quilted bed,
Sheets and pillows white as snow--
White and gold and red--
And sisters moving to and fro,
With soft and silent tread.

So all my spirit fills
With pleasure infinite,
And all the feathered wings of rest
Seem flocking from the radiant West
To bear me thro' the night.

See, how they close me in.
They, and the sisters' arms.
One eye is closed, the other lid
Is watching how my spirit slid
Toward some red-roofed farms,
And having crept beneath them slept
Secure from war's alarms.

_Gilbert Waterhouse_




HILLS OF HOME


Oh! yon hills are filled with sunlight, and the green
leaves paled to gold,
And the smoking mists of Autumn hanging faintly
o'er the wold;
I dream of hills of other days whose sides I loved to
roam
When Spring was dancing through the lanes of those
distant hills of home.

The winds of heaven gathered there as pure and cold
as dew;
Wood-sorrel and wild violets along the hedgerows
grew,
The blossom on the pear-trees was as white as flakes
of foam
In the orchard 'neath the shadow of those distant
hills of home.

The first white frost in the meadow will be shining
there to-day
And the furrowed upland glinting warm beside the
woodland way;
There, a bright face and a clear hearth will be waiting
when I come,
And my heart is throbbing wildly for those distant
hills of home.

_Malcolm Hemphrey_




THE RED CROSS SPIRIT SPEAKS


Wherever war, with its red woes,
Or flood, or fire, or famine goes,
There, too, go I;
If earth in any quarter quakes
Or pestilence its ravage makes,
Thither I fly.

I kneel behind the soldier's trench,
I walk 'mid shambles' smear and stench,
The dead I mourn;
I bear the stretcher and I bend
O'er Fritz and Pierre and Jack to mend
What shells have torn.

I go wherever men may dare,
I go wherever woman's care
And love can live,
Wherever strength and skill can bring
Surcease to human suffering,
Or solace give.

I helped upon Haldora's shore;
With Hospitaller Knights I bore
The first red cross;
I was the Lady of the Lamp;
I saw in Solferino's camp
The crimson loss.

I am your pennies and your pounds;
I am your bodies on their rounds
Of pain afar:
I am _you_, doing what you would
If you were only where you could--
Your avatar.

The cross which on my arm I wear,
The flag which o'er my breast I bear,
Is but the sign
Of what you'd sacrifice for him
Who suffers on the hellish rim
Of war's red line.

_John Finley_




CHAPLAIN TO THE FORCES


["I have once more to remark upon the devotion to duty, courage, and
contempt of danger which has characterized the work of the Chaplains of
the Army throughout this campaign. "--_Sir John French, in the Neuve
Chapelle dispatch_. ]

Ambassador of Christ you go
Up to the very gates of Hell,
Through fog of powder, storm of shell,
To speak your Master's message: "Lo,
The Prince of Peace is with you still,
His peace be with you, His good-will. "

It is not small, your priesthood's price.
To be a man and yet stand by,
To hold your life while others die,
To bless, not share the sacrifice,
To watch the strife and take no part--
You with the fire at your heart.

But yours, for our great Captain Christ,
To know the sweat of agony,
The darkness of Gethsemane,
In anguish for these souls unpriced.
Vicegerent of God's pity you,
A sword must pierce your own soul through.

In the pale gleam of new-born day,
Apart in some tree-shadowed place,
Your altar but a packing-case,
Rude as the shed where Mary lay,
Your sanctuary the rain-drenched sod,
You bring the kneeling soldier God.

As sentinel you guard the gate
'Twixt life and death, and unto death
Speed the brave soul whose failing breath
Shudders not at the grip of Fate,
But answers, gallant to the end,
"Christ is the Word--and I his friend. "

Then God go with you, priest of God,
For all is well and shall be well.
What though you tread the roads of Hell,
Your Captain these same ways has trod.
Above the anguish and the loss
Still floats the ensign of His Cross.

_Winifred M. Letts_




SONG OF THE RED CROSS


O gracious ones, we bless your name
Upon our bended knee;
The voice of love with tongue of flame
Records your charity.
Your hearts, your lives right willingly ye gave,
That sacred ruth might shine;
Ye fell, bright spirits, brave amongst the brave,
Compassionate, divine.

Example from your lustrous deeds
The conqueror shall take,
Sowing sublime and fruitful seeds
Of _aidos_ in this ache.
And when our griefs have passed on gloomy wing,
When friend and foe are sped,
Sons of a morning to be born shall sing
The radiant Cross of Red;
Sons of a morning to be born shall sing
The radiant Cross of Red.

_Eden Phillpotts_




THE HEALERS


In a vision of the night I saw them,
In the battles of the night.
'Mid the roar and the reeling shadows of blood
They were moving like light,

Light of the reason, guarded
Tense within the will,
As a lantern under a tossing of boughs
Burns steady and still.

With scrutiny calm, and with fingers
Patient as swift
They bind up the hurts and the pain-writhen
Bodies uplift,

Untired and defenceless; around them
With shrieks in its breath
Bursts stark from the terrible horizon
Impersonal death;

But they take not their courage from anger
That blinds the hot being;
They take not their pity from weakness;
Tender, yet seeing;

Feeling, yet nerved to the uttermost;
Keen, like steel;
Yet the wounds of the mind they are stricken with,
Who shall heal?

They endure to have eyes of the watcher
In hell, and not swerve
For an hour from the faith that they follow,
The light that they serve.

Man true to man, to his kindness
That overflows all,
To his spirit erect in the thunder
When all his forts fall,--

This light, in the tiger-mad welter,
They serve and they save.
What song shall be worthy to sing of them--
Braver than the brave?

_Laurence Binyon_




THE RED CROSS NURSES


Out where the line of battle cleaves
The horizon of woe
And sightless warriors clutch the leaves
The Red Cross nurses go.
In where the cots of agony
Mark death's unmeasured tide--
Bear up the battle's harvestry--
The Red Cross nurses glide.

Look! Where the hell of steel has torn
Its way through slumbering earth
The orphaned urchins kneel forlorn
And wonder at their birth.
Until, above them, calm and wise
With smile and guiding hand,
God looking through their gentle eyes,
The Red Cross nurses stand.

_Thomas L. Masson_




KILMENY

(A SONG OF THE TRAWLERS)


Dark, dark lay the drifters, against the red west,
As they shot their long meshes of steel overside;
And the oily green waters were rocking to rest
When _Kilmeny_ went out, at the turn of the tide.
And nobody knew where that lassie would roam,
For the magic that called her was tapping unseen,
It was well nigh a week ere _Kilmeny_ came home,
And nobody knew where _Kilmeny_ had been.

She'd a gun at her bow that was Newcastle's best,
And a gun at her stern that was fresh from the Clyde,
And a secret her skipper had never confessed,
Not even at dawn, to his newly wed bride;
And a wireless that whispered above like a gnome,
The laughter of London, the boasts of Berlin.
O, it may have been mermaids that lured her from home,
But nobody knew where _Kilmeny_ had been.

It was dark when _Kilmeny_ came home from her quest,
With her bridge dabbled red where her skipper had died;
But she moved like a bride with a rose at her breast;
And "Well done, Kilmeny! " the admiral cried.

Now at sixty-four fathom a conger may come,
And nose at the bones of a drowned submarine;
But late in the evening _Kilmeny_ came home,
And nobody knew where _Kilmeny_ had been.

There's a wandering shadow that stares at the foam,
Though they sing all the night to old England, their queen,
Late, late in the evening _Kilmeny_ came home,
And nobody knew where _Kilmeny_ had been.

_Alfred Noyes_




THE MINE-SWEEPERS


Dawn off the Foreland--the young flood making
Jumbled and short and steep--
Black in the hollows and bright where it's breaking--
Awkward water to sweep.
"Mines reported in the fairway,
Warn all traffic and detain.
Sent up _Unity_, _Claribel_, _Assyrian_, _Stormcock_, and _Golden
Gain_. "

Noon off the Foreland--the first ebb making
Lumpy and strong in the bight.
Boom after boom, and the golf-hut shaking
And the jackdaws wild with fright.
"Mines located in the fairway,
Boats now working up the chain,
Sweepers--_Unity_, _Claribel_, _Assyrian_, _Stormcock_, and _Golden
Gain_. "

Dusk off the Foreland--the last light going
And the traffic crowding through,
And five damned trawlers with their syreens blowing
Heading the whole review!
"Sweep completed in the fairway.
No more mines remain.
Sent back _Unity_, _Claribel_, _Assyrian_, _Stormcock_, and _Golden
Gain_. "

Rudyard Kipling_




MARE LIBERUM


You dare to say with perjured lips,
"We fight to make the ocean free"?
_You_, whose black trail of butchered ships
Bestrews the bed of every sea
Where German submarines have wrought
Their horrors! Have you never thought,--
What you call freedom, men call piracy!

Unnumbered ghosts that haunt the wave
Where you have murdered, cry you down;
And seamen whom you would not save,
Weave now in weed-grown depths a crown
Of shame for your imperious head,--
A dark memorial of the dead,--
Women and children whom you left to drown.

Nay, not till thieves are set to guard
The gold, and corsairs called to keep
O'er peaceful commerce watch and ward,
And wolves to herd the helpless sheep,
Shall men and women look to thee--
Thou ruthless Old Man of the Sea--
To safeguard law and freedom on the deep!

In nobler breeds we put our trust:
The nations in whose sacred lore
The "Ought" stands out above the "Must,"
And Honor rules in peace and war.
With these we hold in soul and heart,
With these we choose our lot and part,
Till Liberty is safe on sea and shore.

_Henry van Dyke_

_February 11, 1917_




THE DAWN PATROL


Sometimes I fly at dawn above the sea,
Where, underneath, the restless waters flow--
Silver, and cold, and slow,
Dim in the east there burns a new-born sun,
Whose rosy gleams along the ripples run,
Save where the mist droops low,
Hiding the level loneliness from me.

And now appears beneath the milk-white haze
A little fleet of anchored ships, which lie
In clustered company,
And seem as they are yet fast bound by sleep,
Although the day has long begun to peep,
With red-inflamed eye,
Along the still, deserted ocean ways.

The fresh, cold wind of dawn blows on my face
As in the sun's raw heart I swiftly fly,
And watch the seas glide by.
Scarce human seem I, moving through the skies,
And far removed from warlike enterprise--
Like some great gull on high
Whose white and gleaming wings beat on through space.

Then do I feel with God quite, quite alone,
High in the virgin morn, so white and still,
And free from human ill:
My prayers transcend my feeble earth-bound plaints--
As though I sang among the happy Saints
With many a holy thrill--
As though the glowing sun were God's bright Throne.

My flight is done. I cross the line of foam
That breaks around a town of grey and red,
Whose streets and squares lie dead
Beneath the silent dawn--then am I proud
That England's peace to guard I am allowed;
Then bow my humble head,
In thanks to Him Who brings me safely home.

_Paul Bewsher_




DESTROYERS OFF JUTLAND


["If lost hounds could speak when they cast up next day after an
unchecked night among the wild life of the dark they would talk much as
our destroyers do. "--_Rudyard Kipling_. ]

They had hot scent across the spumy sea,
_Gehenna_ and her sister, swift _Shaitan_,
That in the pack, with _Goblin_, _Eblis_ ran
And many a couple more, full cry, foot-free;
The dog-fox and his brood were fain to flee,
But bare of fang and dangerous to the van
That pressed them close. So when the kill began
Some hounds were lamed and some died splendidly.

But from the dusk along the Skagerack,
Until dawn loomed upon the Reef of Horn
And the last fox had slunk back to his earth,
They kept the great traditions of the pack,
Staunch-hearted through the hunt, as they were born,
These hounds that England suckled at the birth.

_Reginald McIntosh Cleveland_




BRITISH MERCHANT SERVICE


Oh, down by Millwall Basin as I went the other day,
I met a skipper that I knew, and to him I did say:
"Now what's the cargo, Captain, that brings you up this way? "

"Oh, I've been up and down (said he) and round about also. . . .
From Sydney to the Skagerack, and Kiel to Callao. . . .
With a leaking steam-pipe all the way to Californ-i-o. . . .

"With pots and pans and ivory fans and every kind of thing,
Rails and nails and cotton bales, and sewer pipes and string. . . .
But now I'm through with cargoes, and I'm here to serve the King!

"And if it's sweeping mines (to which my fancy somewhat leans)
Or hanging out with booby-traps for the skulking submarines,
I'm here to do my blooming best and give the beggars beans!

"A rough job and a tough job is the best job for me,
And what or where I don't much care, I'll take what it may be,
For a tight place is the right place when it's foul weather at sea! "

* * * * *

There's not a port he doesn't know from Melbourne to New York;
He's as hard as a lump of harness beef, and as salt as pickled pork. . . .
And he'll stand by a wreck in a murdering gale and count it part of his
work!

He's the terror of the fo'c's'le when he heals its various ills
With turpentine and mustard leaves, and poultices and pills. . . .
But he knows the sea like the palm of his hand, as a shepherd knows the
hills.

He'll spin you yarns from dawn to dark--and half of 'em are true!
He swears in a score of languages, and maybe talks in two!
And . . . he'll lower a boat in a hurricane to save a drowning crew.

A rough job or a tough job--he's handled two or three--
And what or where he won't much care, nor ask what the risk may be. . . .
For a tight place is the right place when it's wild weather at sea!

_C. Fox Smith_




TO A SOLDIER IN HOSPITAL


Courage came to you with your boyhood's grace
Of ardent life and limb.
Each day new dangers steeled you to the test,
To ride, to climb, to swim.
Your hot blood taught you carelessness of death
With every breath.

So when you went to play another game
You could not but be brave:
An Empire's team, a rougher football field,
The end--perhaps your grave.
What matter? On the winning of a goal
You staked your soul.

Yes, you wore courage as you wore your youth
With carelessness and joy.
But in what Spartan school of discipline
Did you get patience, boy?
How did you learn to bear this long-drawn pain
And not complain?

Restless with throbbing hopes, with thwarted aims,
Impulsive as a colt,
How do you lie here month by weary month
Helpless, and not revolt?
What joy can these monotonous days afford
Here in a ward?

Yet you are merry as the birds in spring,
Or feign the gaiety,
Lest those who dress and tend your wound each day
Should guess the agony.
Lest they should suffer--this the only fear
You let draw near.

Greybeard philosophy has sought in books
And argument this truth,
That man is greater than his pain, but you
Have learnt it in your youth.
You know the wisdom taught by Calvary
At twenty-three.

Death would have found you brave, but braver still
You face each lagging day,
A merry Stoic, patient, chivalrous,
Divinely kind and gay.
You bear your knowledge lightly, graduate
Of unkind Fate.

Careless philosopher, the first to laugh,
The latest to complain.
Unmindful that you teach, you taught me this
In your long fight with pain:
Since God made man so good--here stands my creed--
God's good indeed.

_Winifred M. Letts_




BETWEEN THE LINES


When consciousness came back, he found he lay
Between the opposing fires, but could not tell
On which hand were his friends; and either way
For him to turn was chancy--bullet and shell
Whistling and shrieking over him, as the glare
Of searchlights scoured the darkness to blind day.
He scrambled to his hands and knees ascare,
Dragging his wounded foot through puddled clay,
And tumbled in a hole a shell had scooped
At random in a turnip-field between
The unseen trenches where the foes lay cooped
Through that unending-battle of unseen,
Dead-locked, league-stretching armies; and quite spent
He rolled upon his back within the pit,
And lay secure, thinking of all it meant--
His lying in that little hole, sore hit,
But living, while across the starry sky
Shrapnel and shell went screeching overhead--
Of all it meant that he, Tom Dodd, should lie
Among the Belgian turnips, while his bed. . . .
If it were he, indeed, who'd climbed each night,
Fagged with the day's work, up the narrow stair,
And slipt his clothes off in the candle-light,
Too tired to fold them neatly in a chair
The way his mother'd taught him--too dog-tired
After the long day's serving in the shop,
Inquiring what each customer required,
Politely talking weather, fit to drop. . . .

And now for fourteen days and nights, at least,
He hadn't had his clothes off, and had lain
In muddy trenches, napping like a beast
With one eye open, under sun and rain
And that unceasing hell-fire. . . .
It was strange
How things turned out--the chances! You'd just got
To take your luck in life, you couldn't change
Your luck.
And so here he was lying shot
Who just six months ago had thought to spend
His days behind a counter. Still, perhaps. . . .
And now, God only knew how he would end!

He'd like to know how many of the chaps
Had won back to the trench alive, when he
Had fallen wounded and been left for dead,
If any! . . .
This was different, certainly,
From selling knots of tape and reels of thread
And knots of tape and reels of thread and knots
Of tape and reels of thread and knots of tape,
Day in, day out, and answering "Have you got"'s
And "Do you keep"'s till there seemed no escape
From everlasting serving in a shop,
Inquiring what each customer required,
Politely talking weather, fit to drop,
With swollen ankles, tired. . . .
But he was tired
Now. Every bone was aching, and had ached
For fourteen days and nights in that wet trench--
Just duller when he slept than when he waked--
Crouching for shelter from the steady drench
Of shell and shrapnel. . . .
That old trench, it seemed
Almost like home to him. He'd slept and fed
And sung and smoked in it, while shrapnel screamed
And shells went whining harmless overhead--
Harmless, at least, as far as he. . . .
But Dick--
Dick hadn't found them harmless yesterday,
At breakfast, when he'd said he couldn't stick
Eating dry bread, and crawled out the back way,
And brought them butter in a lordly dish--
Butter enough for all, and held it high,
Yellow and fresh and clean as you would wish--
When plump upon the plate from out the sky
A shell fell bursting. . . . Where the butter went,
God only knew! . . .
And Dick. . . . He dared not think
Of what had come to Dick. . . . or what it meant--
The shrieking and the whistling and the stink
He'd lived in fourteen days and nights. 'T was luck
That he still lived. . . . And queer how little then
He seemed to care that Dick. . . . perhaps 't was pluck
That hardened him--a man among the men--
Perhaps. . . . Yet, only think things out a bit,
And he was rabbit-livered, blue with funk!
And he'd liked Dick . . . and yet when Dick was hit
He hadn't turned a hair. The meanest skunk
He should have thought would feel it when his mate
Was blown to smithereens--Dick, proud as punch,
Grinning like sin, and holding up the plate--
But he had gone on munching his dry hunch,
Unwinking, till he swallowed the last crumb.
Perhaps 't was just because he dared not let
His mind run upon Dick, who'd been his chum.
He dared not now, though he could not forget.

Dick took his luck. And, life or death, 't was luck
From first to last; and you'd just got to trust
Your luck and grin. It wasn't so much pluck
As knowing that you'd got to, when needs must,
And better to die grinning. . . .
Quiet now
Had fallen on the night. On either hand
The guns were quiet. Cool upon his brow
The quiet darkness brooded, as he scanned
The starry sky. He'd never seen before
So many stars. Although, of course, he'd known
That there were stars, somehow before the war
He'd never realised them--so thick-sown,
Millions and millions. Serving in the shop,
Stars didn't count for much; and then at nights
Strolling the pavements, dull and fit to drop,
You didn't see much but the city lights.
He'd never in his life seen so much sky
As he'd seen this last fortnight. It was queer
The things war taught you. He'd a mind to try
To count the stars--they shone so bright and clear.

One, two, three, four. . . . Ah, God, but he was tired. . . .
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.