PR THE CAUSE 005 Poems of the War ♦«■♦ Laurence Binyoia w Class _ Bnnk ,11513 nil fopyrighTN * COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. THE CAUSE POEMS OF THE WAR THE CAUSE POEMS OF THE WAR BY LAURENCE ^INYON BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY (£frc Ctibcrs'i&e press Cambri&0e 1917 COPYRIGHT, I917, BY LAURENCE BINYON ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Published March IQ17 /.JO MAR 20 1917 ©0I.A455954 NOTE Acknowledgments are due to the Editors of the periodicals, English and American, in which most of the poems in this volume originally appeared, for leave to reprint them: also to Messrs. Methuen & Co. for permission to reprint 'Europe, 1901 ' from The Death of Adam, and Other Poems (1903), and to Mr. Heinemann for permission to reprint ' Thunder on the Downs ' from Auguries (191 2). CONTENTS PRELUDES: EUROPE, MDCCCCI THE BELFRY OF BRUGES THUNDER ON THE DOWNS I9I4-I9I6: THE FOURTH OF AUGUST ODE FOR SEPTEMBER THE ANTAGONISTS TO WOMEN FOR TH£ FALLEN THE BEREAVED STRANGE FRUIT THE HARVEST THE NEW IDOL THE CAUSE TO THE BELGIANS LOUVAIN . ORPHANS OF FLANDERS 3 8 12 23 25 31 38 40 42 45 47 48 49 5i 53 55 viii THE CAUSE TO GOETHE 57 YPRES 59 AT RHEIMS 6l to the enemy complaining ... 64 mid-atlantic 65 the anvil 67 gallipoli 68 the healers 72 edith cavell 74 the deportation 78 the zeppelin 82 the english graves . . . . .84 going west 87 fetching the wounded .... 89 the ebb of war 94 la patrie 97 the distant guns ioo men of verdun 102 England's poet 105 the sibyls 106 before the dawn i 14 to the end i 15 PRELUDES EUROPE, MDCCCCI TO NAPOLEON Soars still thy spirit, Child of Fire? Dost hear the camps of Europe hum ? On eagle wings dost hover nigher At the far rolling of the drum ? To see the harvest thou hast sown Smilest thou now, Napoleon ? Long had the world in blinded mirth Or suffering patience dreamed content, When lo ! like thunder over earth Thy challenge pealed, the skies were rent Thy terrible youth rose up alone Against the old world on its throne. With shuddering then the peoples gazed, And such a stupor bound them dumb As those fierce Colchian ranks amazed Who saw the youthful Jason come, And challenging the War God's name Step forth, his fiery yoke to tame. 3 THE CAUSE He took those dread bulls by the horn, Harnessed their fury to his will, And in the furrow swiftly torn The dragon's teeth abroad did spill : Behold, behind his trampling heel The furrow flowered into steel ! A spear, a plume, a warrior sprung — Armed gods in wrath by hundreds ; he Faced all, and full amidst them flung His magic helmet : instantly Their swords upon themselves they drew, And shouting each the other slew. But no Medean spell was thine, Napoleon, nor anointed charm ; Thy will was as a fate divine To wavering men who watched thine arm Drive on through Europe old thy plough. The harvest ripens even now ! Time's purple flauntings, king and crown, Old custom's tall and idle weeds, Were tossed aside and trampled down, While thou didst scatter fiery seeds, EUROPE, MDCCCCI 5 That in the gendering lap of earth Prepared a new world's Titan birth. Then in thy path from underground, Where long benumbed in trance they froze, The Nations, giant forms unbound, Slow to their aching stature rose ; And through their wintry veins again Slow flushed the streams of life in pain. Thy thunder, O Napoleon, passed ; But these whom thou hadst stirred to life, Qn them the imperious doom was cast Of inextinguishable strife. For peace they long, but blood and tears Still blinded the tempestuous years. A hundred years have flown, and still For peace they pine ; peace tarries yet. These groaning armies Europe fill, And war's red planet hath not set. O mockery of peace, that gnaws Their hearts for so abhorred a cause ! Is peace so easy ? Nay, the names That are most dear and most divine THE CAUSE To men, are like the heavenly flames That farthest from possession shine. Peace, love, truth, freedom, unto these The way is through the storming seas. Ye wakened Nations, now no more You battle for a monarch's whim ; The cause is now in your heart's core, Your soul must strive through every limb ; They who with all their soul contend Bear more, but to a nobler end. Be patient in your strife ! And thou, O England, dearer than the rest ; England, with proud looks on thy brow, England, with trouble at thy breast, Seek on in patient fortitude Strong peace, most worthy to be wooed. Take up thy task, O nobly born ! With both hands grasp thy destiny. Easy is ignorance, easy scorn, And fluent pride, unworthy thee. Grand rolls the planet of thy fate : Be thy just passions also great ! EUROPE, MDCCCCI Turn from the sweet lure of content, Rise up among the courts of ease ; Be all thy will as a bow bent, Thy sure oncoming like thy seas. Purge clear within thy deep desires To be our burning altar-fires ! Then welcome peril, so it bring Thy true soul leaping into light ; A glory for our mouths to sing And for our deeds to match in might, Till thou at last our hope enthrone And make indeed thy peace our own. January 1901 THE BELFRY OF BRUGES Keen comes the dizzy air In one tumultuous breath. The tower to heaven lies bare ; Dumb stir the streets beneath. Immeasurable sky Domes upward from the dim Round land, the astonished eye Supposes the world's rim. And through the sea of space Winds drive the furious cloud Silent in endless race ; And the tower rocks aloud. Mine eye now wanders wide, My thought now quickens keen. O cities, far descried, What ravage have you seen Of an enkindled world ? Homes blazing and hearths bare ; 8 THE BELFRY OF BRUGES Of hosts tyrannic hurled On pale ranks of despair, Who fed with warm proud blood The cause unquenchable, For which your heroes stood, For which our Sidney fell ; Sidney, whose starry fame, Mirrored in noble song, Shines, all our sloth to shame, And arms us against wrong ; Bright star, that seems to burn Over yon English shore, Whither my feet return, And my thoughts run before ; Run with this rumour brought By the wild wind's alarms, Dark sounds with battle fraught, Menace of distant arms. O menace harsh, but vain ! For what can peril do io THE CAUSE But search our souls again To sift and find the true ? Prove if the sap of old Shoots yet from the old seed, If faith be still unsold, If truth be truth indeed ? Welcome the blast that shakes The wall wherein we have lain Slumbering, our heart awakes And rends the prison chain. Turn we from prosperous toys And the dull name of ease; Rather than tarnished joys Face we the angry seas I Or if old age infirm Be in our veins congealed, Bow we to Time, our term Fulfilled, and proudly yield. Not each to each we are made, Not each to each we fall, THE BELFRY OF BRUGES n But every true part played Quickens the heart of all That feeds and moves and fires The many-peopled lands, And in our languor tires But in our strength expands. For forward-gazing eyes Fate shall no terror keep. She in our own breast lies : Now let her wake from sleep ! 1898 THUNDER ON THE DOWNS Wide earth, wide heaven, and in the summer air Silence ! The summit of the Down is bare Between the climbing crests of wood ; but those Great sea-winds, wont, when the wet South- West blows, To rock tall beeches and strong oaks aloud And strew torn leaves upon the streaming cloud To-day are idle, slumbering far aloof. Under the solemn height and gorgeous roof Of cloud-built sky, all earth is indolent. Wandering hum of bees and thy my scent Of the short turf enrich pure loneliness ; Scarcely an airy topmost-twining tress Of bryony quivers where the thorn it wreathes ; Hot fragrance from the honeysuckle breathes ; And sweet the rose floats on the arching brier's Green fountain, sprayed with delicate frail fires. 12 THUNDER ON THE DOWNS 13 For clumps of thicket, dark beneath the blaze Of the high westering sun, beset the ways Of smooth grass narrowing where the slope runs steep Down to green woods, and glowing shadows keep A freshness round the mossy roots, and cool The light that sleeps as in a chequered pool Of golden air. O woods, I love you well, I love the flowers you hide, your ferny smell ; But here is sweeter solitude, for here My heart breathes heavenly space ; the sky is near To thought, with heights that fathomlessly glow ; And the eye wanders the wide land below. And this is England ! June's undarkened green Gleams on far woods ; and in the vales be- tween Grey hamlets, older than the trees that shade Their ripening meadows, are in quiet laid, Themselves a part of the warm, fruitful ground. The little hills of England rise around ; i 4 THE CAUSE The little streams that wander from them shine And with their names remembered names entwine Of old renown and honour, fields of blood High causes fought on, stubborn hardihood For freedom spent, and songs, our noblest pride, That in the heart of England never died And, burning still, make splendour of our tongue. Glories enacted, spoken, suffered, sung 1 You lie emblazoned on this land now sleep- ing ; And southward, over leagues of forest sweep- ing White on the verge glistens the famous sea, That English wave, on which so haughtily Towered her sails, and one sail homeward bore Past capes of silently lamenting shore Victory's dearest dead. O shores of home, Since by the vanished watch-fire shields of Rome Dinted this upland turf, what hearts have ached To see you far away, what eyes have waked THUNDER ON THE DOWNS 15 Ere dawn to watch those cliffs of long desire One after one rise in their voiceless choir Out of the twilight over the rough blue Like music ! . . . But now heavy gleams imbrue The inland air. Breathless the valleys hold Their colours in a veil of sultry gold With mingled shadows that have ceased to crawl ; For far in heaven is thunder ! Over all A single cloud in slow magnificence Climbs like a mountain, gradual and immense, With awful head unstirring, and moved on Against the zenith, towers above the sun. And still it thickens luminous fold on fold Of fatal colour, ominously scrolled And fleeced with fire ; above the sun it towers Like some vast thought quickening a world not ours Remote in the waste blue, as if behind Its rim were splendour that could smite us blind, So doom-piled and intense it crests heaven's height And mounting makes a menace of the light. 1 6 THE CAUSE A menace ! Yes, for when light comes, we fear. Light that may touch, as the pure angel-spear, Us to ourselves, make visible, make start The apparition of the very heart And mystery of our thoughts, awaked from under The mask of cheating habit, and to thunder Bare in a moment of white fire what we Have feared and fled, our own reality. And if a lightning now were loosed in flame Out of the darkness of the cloud to claim Thy heart, O England, how wouldst thou be known In that hour ? How to the quick core be shown And seen ? What cry should from thy very soul Answer the judgment of that thunder-roll? I hear a voice arraign thee. " Where is now The exaltation that once lit thy brow? Thou countest all thy ocean-sundered lands. Thou heapest up the labours of thy hands, Thou seest all thy ships upon the seas. But in thine own heart mean idolatries THUNDER ON THE DOWNS 17 Usurp devotion, choke thee and annul Noble excess of spirit, and make dull Thine eyes, enfleshed with much dominion. Art thou so great and is the glory gone ? Do these bespeak thy freedom who deflower Time, and make barren every senseless hour, Who from themselves hurry, like men afraid Lest what they are be to themselves betrayed ? Or those who in their huddled thousands sweat To buy the sleep that helps them to forget ? — Life lies unused, life in its loveliness! While the cry ravens still, ' Possess, Possess I ' And there is no possession. All the lust Of gainful man is quieted in dust ; His faith, his fear, his joy, his doom he owns, No more : the rest is parcelled with his bones Save what the imagination of his heart Can to the labour of his hands impart, Making stones serve his spirit's desire, and breathe. But thou, what dost thou to the world be- queath, Who gatherest riches in a waste of mind Unto what end, O confidently blind, 1 8 THE CAUSE Forgetful of the things that grow not old And alone live and are not bought or sold ! " Speaks that voice truth? Is it for this that great And tender spirits suffered scorn and hate, Loved to the utmost, poured themselves, gave all Nor counted cost, spirits imperial ? Where are they now, they that our memory guard Among the nations ? Shall I say, enstarred And throned aloof ? No, not from heavens of thought Watching our muddied brief procession, not Judges sublime above us, without share In our thronged ways of struggle, hope, despair, But in our blood, our dreams, our deeds they stir, Strive on our lips for language, shame and spur The sluggard in us, out of darkness come Like summoned champions when the world is dumb; Within our hearts they wait with all they gave : Woe to us, woe, if we become their grave ! THUNDER ON THE DOWNS 19 It shall not be. Darken thy pall, and trail, Thunder of heaven, above the valleys pale ! Another England in my vision glows. And she is armed within ; at last she knows Herself, and what to her own soul belongs. Mid the world's irremediable wrongs She keeps her faith ; and nothing of her name Or of her handiwork but doth proclaim Her purpose. Her own soul hath made her free, Not circumstance ; she knows no victory Save of the mind : in her is nothing done, No wrong, no shame, no glory of any one, But is the cause of all and each, a thing Felt like a fire to kindle and to sting The proud blood of a nation. On her brows Is hope ; her body doth her spirit house Express and eloquent, not numb and frore ; And her voice echoes over sea and shore, And all the lands and isles that are her own In choric interchange and antiphon Answer, as fancy hears in yonder cloud From vale to vale repeated low and loud The still-suspended thunder. Hearts of Youth, High-beating, ardent, quick in hope and ruth 20 THE CAUSE And noble anger, O wherever now You dedicate your uncorrupted vow To be an energy of Light, a sword Of the ever-living Will, amid abhorred Din of the reeking street and populous den Where under the great stars blind lusts of men War on each other, or escaped to hills Where peace the solitary evening fills, Or far remote on other soils of earth Keeping the dearness of your fathers' hearth On vast plains of the West, or Austral strands Of the warm under-world, or storied lands Of the orient sun, or over ocean ways Stemming the wave through blue or stormy days, Wherever, as the circling light slopes round, On human lips is heard an English sound, O scattered, silent, hidden and unknown, Be lifted up, for you are not alone ! High-beating hearts, to your deep vows be true! Live out your dreams, for England lives in you. Midsummer 191 1 I9i4- I 9 1 ^ THE FOURTH OF AUGUST Now in thy splendour go before us, Spirit of England, ardent-eyed, Enkindle this dear earth that bore us, In the hour of peril purified. The cares we hugged drop out of vision ; Our hearts with deeper thoughts dilate. We step from days of sour division Into the grandeur of our fate. For us the glorious dead have striven, They battled that we might be free. We to their living cause are given ; We arm for men that are to be. Among the nations nobliest chartered, England recalls her heritage. In her is that which is not bartered, Which force can neither quell nor cage. For her immortal stars are burning, With her the hope that 's never done, 23 24 THE CAUSE The seed that 's in the Spring's returning, The very flower that seeks the sun. She fights the fraud that feeds desire on Lies, in a lust to enslave or kill, The barren creed of blood and iron, Vampire of Europe's wasted will . . . Endure, O Earth ! and thou, awaken, Purged by this dreadful winnowing-fan, O wronged, untameable, unshaken Soul of divinely suffering man. ODE FOR SEPTEMBER On that long day when England held her breath, Suddenly gripped at heart And called to choose her part Between her loyal soul and luring sophistries, We watched the wide, green-bosomed land beneath Driven and tumultuous skies ; We watched the volley of white shower after shower Desolate with fierce drops the fallen flower ; And still the rain's retreat Drew glory on its track, And still, when all was darkness and defeat, Upon dissolving cloud the bow of peace shone back. So in our hearts was alternating beat, With very dread elate ; And Earth dyed all her day in colours of our fate. 25 26 THE CAUSE ii But oh, how faint the image we foretold In fancies of our fear Now that the truth is here ! And we awake from dream yet think it still a dream, It bursts our thoughts with more than thought can hold ; And more than human seem These agonies of conflict ; Elements At war ! yet not with vast indifference Casually crushing; nay, It is as if were hurled Lightnings that murdered, seeking out their prey; As if an earthquake shook to chaos half the world, Equal in purpose as in power to slay ; And thunder stunned our ears Streaming in rain of blood on torrents that are tears. in Around a planet rolls the drum's alarm. Far where the summer smiles ODE FOR SEPTEMBER 27 Upon the utmost isles, Danger is treading silent as a fever-breath. Now in the North the secret waters arm ; Under the wave is Death : They fight in the very air, the virgin air, Hovering on fierce wings to the onset : there Nations to battle stream ; Earth smokes and cities burn ; Heaven thickens in a storm of shells that scream ; The long lines shattering break, turn and again return ; And still across a continent they teem, Moving in myriads ; more Than ranks of flesh and blood, but soul with soul at war ! IV All the hells are awake : the old serpents hiss From dungeons of the mind ; Fury of hate born blind, Madness and lust, despairs and treacheries unclean ; They shudder up from man's most dark abyss. But there are heavens serene 28 THE CAUSE That answer strength with strength ; they stand secure ; They arm us from within, and we endure. Now are the brave more brave, Now is the cause more dear, The more the tempests of the darkness rave, As, when the sun goes down, the shining stars are clear. Radiant the spirit rushes to the grave. Glorious it is to live In such an hour, but life is lovelier yet to give. Alas ! what comfort for the uncomforted, Who knew no cause, nor sought Glory or gain ? they are taught, Homeless in homes that burn, what human hearts can bear. The children stumble over their dear dead, Wandering they know not where. And there is one who simply fights, obeys, Tramps, till he loses count of nights and days, Tired, mired in dust and sweat, Far from his own hearth-stone ; A common man of common earth, and yet ODE FOR SEPTEMBER 29 The battle-winner he, a man of no renown, Where "food for cannon" pays a nation's debt. This is Earth's hero, whom The pride of Empire tosses careless to his doom. VI Now will we speak, while we have eyes for tears And fibres to be wrung And in our mouths a tongue. We will bear wrongs untold but will not only bear ; Not only bear, but build through striving years The answer of our prayer, That whatsoever has the noble name Of man, shall not be yoked to alien shame ; That life shall be indeed Life, not permitted breath Of spirits wrenched and forced to others' need, Robbed of their nature's joy and free alone in death. The world shall travail in that cause," shall bleed, But deep in hope it dwells Until the morning break which the long night foretells. 30 THE CAUSE VII O children filled with your own airy glee Or with a grief that comes So swift, so strange, it numbs, If on your growing youth this page of terror bite, Harden not then your senses, feel and be The promise of the light. O heirs of Man, keep in your hearts not less The divine torrents of his tenderness 1 'T is ever war : but rust Grows on the sword ; the tale Of earth is strewn with empires heaped in dust Because they dreamed that force should pun- ish and prevail. The will to kindness lives beyond their lust ; Their grandeurs are undone : Deep, deep within man's soul are all his vic- tories won. THE ANTAGONISTS Caverns mouthed with blackness more than night, Fever-jungle deep in strangling brier, Venom-breeding slime that loathest light, Who has plumbed your secret ? who the blind desire Hissing from the viper's lifted jaws, Maddening the beast with scent of prey Tracked through savage glooms on robber paws Till the slaughter gluts him red and reeking ? Nay, Man, this breathing mystery, this intense Body beautiful with thinking eyes, Master of a spirit outsoaring sense, Spirit of tears and laughter, who has measured all the skies, — Is he also the lair Of a lust, of a sting That hides from the air Yet is lurking to spring 31 32 THE CAUSE From the nescient core Of his fibre, alert At the trumpet of war And hungry to hurt, When he hears from abysses of time Aboriginal mutters, replying To something he knew not within him, And the Demon of Earth crying : " I am the will of the Fire That bursts into boundless fury ; I am my own implacable desire. "lam the will of the Sea That shoulders the ships and breaks them ; There is none other but me." Heavy forests bred them, The race that dreamed. In the bones of savage earth Their dreams had birth : Darkness fed them. And the full brain grossly teemed With thoughts compressed, with rages Obstinate, stark, obscure — THE ANTAGONISTS 33 Thirsts no time assuages, But centuries immure. As the sap of trees, behind Crumpled bark of bossy boles, Presses up its juices blind, Buried within their souls The dream insatiate still Nursed its fierceness old And violent will, Haunted with twilight where the Gods drink full Ere they renew their revelry of slaying, And warriors leap like the lion on the bull, And harsh horns in the northern mist are braying. Tenebrous in them lay the dream Like a fire that under ashes Smoulders heavy-heaped and dim Yet with spurted stealthy flashes Sends a goblin shadow floating Crooked on the rafters — then Sudden from its den Springs in splendour. So should burst Destiny from dream, from thirst Rapture gloating 34 THE CAUSE On a vision of earth afar Stretched for a prize and a prey ; And the secular might of the Gods re-risen Savage and glorious, waiting its day, Should shatter its ancient prison And leap like the panther to slay, Magnificent I Storm, then, and thunder The haughty to crush with the tame, For the world is the strong man's plunder Whose coming is swifter than flame ; And the nations unready, decayed, Unworthy of fate or afraid, Shall be stricken and torn asunder Or yield in shame. The Dream is fulfilled. Is it this that you willed, O patient ones ? For this that you gave Young to the grave Your valiant sons ? For this that you wore Brave faces, and bore The burden heart-breaking — Sublimely deceived, THE ANTAGONISTS 35 You that bled and believed — For the Dream ? or the Waking ? ii No drum-beat, pulsing challenge and desire, Sounded, no jubilant boast nor fierce alarm Cried throbbing from enfevered throats afire For glory, when from vineyard, forge, and farm, From wharf and warehouse, foundry, shop, and school, From, the unreaped cornfield and the office- stool France called her sons ; but loth, but grave, But silent, with their purpose proud and hard Within them, as of men that go to guard More than life, yet to dare More than death : France, it was their France to save ! Nor now the fiery legend of old fames And that imperial Eagle whose wide wings Hovered from Vistula to Finistere, Who plucked the crown from Kings, Filled her ; but France was arming in her mind : 36 THE CAUSE The world unborn and helpless, not the past Victorious with banners, called her on ; And she assembled not her sons alone From city and hamlet, coast and heath and hill, But deep within her bosom, deeper still Than any fear could search, than any hope could blind, Beyond all clamours of her recent day, Hot smouldering of the faction and the fray, She summoned her own soul. In the hour of night, In the hush that felt the armed tread of her foes, Like a star, silent out of seas, it rose. Most human France ! In those clear eyes of light Was vision of the issue, and all the cost To the last drop of generous blood, the last Tears of the orphan and the widow ; and yet She shrank not from the terror of the debt, Seeing what else were with the cause undone, The very skies barred with an iron threat, The very mind of freedom lost THE ANTAGONISTS 37 Beneath that shadow bulked across the sun. Therefore did she abstain From all that had renowned her, all that won The world's delight : thought-stilled With deep reality to the heart she burned, And took upon her all the load of pain Foreknown ; and her sons turned From wife's and children's kiss Simply, and steady-willed With quiet eyes, with courage keen and clear, Faced Eastward. — If an English voice she hear, That has no speech worthy of her, let this Be of that day remembered, with what pride Our ancient island thrilled to the oceans wide, And our hearts leapt to know that England then, Equal in faith of free and loyal men, Stept to her side. TO WOMEN Your hearts are lifted up, your hearts That have foreknown the utter price. Your hearts burn upward like a flame Of splendour and of sacrifice. For you, you too, to battle go, Not with the marching drums and cheers But in the watch of solitude And through the boundless night of fears. Swift, swifter than those hawks of war, Those threatening wings that pulse the air, Far as the vanward ranks are set, You are gone before them, you are there ! And not a shot comes blind with death And not a stab of steel is pressed Home, but invisibly it tore And entered first a woman's breast. Amid the thunder of the guns, The lightnings of the lance and sword 38 TO WOMEN 39 Your hope, your dread, your throbbing pride, Your infinite passion is outpoured From hearts that are as one high heart Withholding naught from doom and bale, Burningly offered up, — to bleed, To bear, to break, but not to fail I FOR THE FALLEN With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children, England mourns for her dead across the sea. Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit, Fallen in the cause of the free. Solemn the drums thrill : Death august and royal Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres. There is music in the midst of desolation And a glory that shines upon our tears. They went with songs to the battle, they were young, Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow. They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted, They fell with their faces to the foe. They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old : Age shall not weary them, nor the years con- demn. 40 FOR THE FALLEN 41 At the going down of the sun and in the morning We will remember them. They mingle not with their laughing comrades again ; They sit no more at familiar tables of home ; They have no lot in our labour of the day- time; They sleep beyond England's foam. But where our desires are and our hopes pro- found, Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight, To the innermost heart of their own land they are known As the stars are known to the Night ; As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust, Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain, As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness, To the end, to the end, they remain. THE BEREAVED We grudged not those that were dearer than all we possessed, Lovers, brothers, sons. Our hearts were full, and out of a full heart We gave our beloved ones. Because we loved, we gave. In the hardest hour When at last — so much unsaid In the eyes — they went, simply, with tender smile, Our hearts to the end they read. They to their deeds ! To things that their soul hated And yet to splendours won From smoking hell by the spirit that moved in them ; But we to endure alone. Their hearts rested on ours ; their homing thoughts Met ours in the still of the night. 42 THE BEREAVED 43 We ached with the ache of the long waiting, and throbbed With the throbs of the surging fight. O had we failed them, then were we desolate now And separated indeed. What should have comforted, what should have helped us then In the time of our bitter need 1 But now, though sorrow be ever fresh, sor- row Is tender as love ; it knows That of love it was born, and Love with the shining eyes The hard way chose. And out of deeps eternal, night and day, A strength our sorrow frees, Flooding us, full as the tide up the rivers flows From the depth of the silent seas, 44 THE CAUSE A strength that is mightier far than we, yet a strength Whereof our spirit is breath, Hope of the world, that is strange to hazard and fear, And the wounds of Time, and Death. STRANGE FRUIT This year the grain is heavy-ripe ; The apple shows a ruddier stripe ; Never berries so profuse Blackened with so sweet a juice On brambly hedges, summer-dyed. The yellow leaves begin to glide ; But Earth in careless lap-ful treasures Pledge of over-brimming measures, As if some rich unwonted zest Stirred prodigal within her breast. And now, while plenty 's left uncared, The fruit unplucked, the sickle spared, Where men go forth to waste and spill, Toiling to burn, destroy, and kill, Lo, also side by side with these Beast-hungers, ravening miseries, The heart of man has brought to birth Splendours richer than his earth. Now in the thunder-hour of fate Each one is kinder to his mate ; 45 46 THE CAUSE The surly smile ; the hard forbear ; There 's help and hope for all to share ; And sudden visions of good-will, Transcending all the scope of ill, Like a glory of rare weather Link us in common light together, A clearness of the cleansing sun, Where none 's alone and all are one ; And touching each a priceless pain We find our own true hearts again. No more the easy masks deceive : We give, we dare, and we believe. THE HARVEST Red reapers under these sad August skies, Proud War-Lords, careless of ten thousand dead, Who leave earth's kindly crops unharvested As you have left the kindness of the wise For brutal menace and for clumsy lies, The spawn of insolence by bragging fed, With power and fraud in faith's and honour's stead, Accounting these but good stupidities ; You reap a heavier harvest than you know. Disnaturing a nation, you have thieved Her name, her patient genius, while you thought To fool the world and master it. You sought Reality. It comes in hate and woe. In the end you also shall not be deceived. 47 THE NEW IDOL Magnificent the Beast ! Look in the eyes Of the fell tiger towering on his prey, Beautiful in his power to pounce and slay And effortless in action. He denies All but himself. He gloats on his weak prize, Roaring the anger of wild beast at bay, Blank anger like an element whose way Is mere annihilation ! Terrible eyes 1 But there is one more to be feared, who can Escape the prison of his own wrath ; whose will Lives beyond life ; who smiles with quiet lips ; Most terrible because most tender, Man, — Not only uncowed but irresistible When the cause fires him to the finger-tips. 48 THE CAUSE Out of these throes that search and sear What is it so deep arises in us Above the shaken thoughts of fear, — Whatever thread the Fates may spin us, - Above the horror that would drown And tempest that would strike us down ? It is to stand in cleansing light, The cloud of dullard habit lifted, To use a certainty of sight And breathe an air by peril sifted, The things that once we deemed of price Consumed in smoke of sacrifice. It is to feel the world we knew Changed to a wonder past our knowing ; The grass, the trees, the skiey blue, The very stones are inly glowing With something infinite behind These shadows, ardently divined. 49 50 THE CAUSE We went our ways ; each bosom bore Its spark of separate desire ; But each now kindles to the core With faith from this transfusing fire, Whereto our inmost longings run To be made infinitely one With that which nothing can destroy, Which lives when all is crushed and taken, The home of dearer than our joy, By all save by the soul forsaken, — The soul that strips her clean of care Because she breathes her native air, Yet not in scorn of lovely earth And human sweetness born of living, For these are grown of dearer worth, A gift more precious in the giving, Since through this raiment's hues and lines The glory of the spirit shines. Faces of radiant youth, that go Like rivers singing to the sea ! You count no careful cost ; you know ; Of that far secret you are free ; And life in you its splendour spending Sings the stars' song that has no ending. TO THE BELGIANS O race that Caesar knew, That won stern Roman praise, What land not envies you The laurel of these days ? You built your cities rich Around each towered hall, — Without, the statued niche, Within, the pictured wall. Your ship-thronged wharves, your marts With gorgeous Venice vied. Peace and her famous arts Were yours : though tide on tide Of Europe's battle scourged Black field and reddened soil, From blood and smoke emerged Peace and her fruitful toil. Yet when the challenge rang, " The War-Lord comes ; give room ! " 5i 52 THE CAUSE Fearless to arms you sprang Against the odds of doom. Like your own Damien Who sought that lepers' isle To die a simple man For men with tranquil smile, So strong in faith you dared Defy the giant, scorn Ignobly to be spared, Though trampled, spoiled, and torn, And in your faith arose And smote, and smote again, Till those astonished foes Reeled from their mounds of slain, The faith that the free soul, Untaught by force to quail, Through fire and dirge and dole Prevails and shall prevail. Still for your frontier stands The host that knew no dread, Your little, stubborn land's Nameless, immortal dead. LOUVAIN To Dom Bruno Destree, O.S.B. I It was the very heart of Peace that thrilled In the deep minster-bell's wide-throbbing sound When over old roofs evening seemed to build Security this world has never found. Your cloister looked from Caesar's rampart, high O'er the fair city : clustered orchard-trees Married their murmur with the dreaming sky. It was the house of lore and living peace. And there we talked of youth's delightful years In Italy, in England. Now, O Friend, I know not if I speak to living ears Or if upon you too is come the end. Peace is on Louvain ; dead peace of spilt blood Upon the mounded ashes where she stood. 53 54 THE CAUSE ii But from that blood, those ashes there arose Not hoped-for terror cowering as it ran, But divine anger flaming upon those Defamers of the very name of man, Abortions of their blind hyena-creed, Who for " protection " of their battle-host Against the unarmed of them they had made to bleed, Whose hearts they had tortured to the utter- most Without a cause, past pardon, fired and tore The towers of fame and beauty, while they shot And butchered the defenceless in the door. But History shall hang them high, to rot Unburied, in the face of times unborn, Mankind's abomination and last scorn. ORPHANS OF FLANDERS Where is the land that fathered, nourished, poured The sap of a strong race into your veins, Land of wide tilth, of farms and granaries stored, Of old towers chiming over peaceful plains ? It is become a vision, barred away- Like light in cloud, a memory and belief. On those lost plains the Glory of yesterday Builds her dark towers for the bells of Grief. It is become a splendour-circled name For all the world ; a torch against the skies Burns on that blood-spot, the unpardoned shame Of them that conquered : but your homeless eyes See rather some brown pond by a white wall, Red cattle crowding in the rutty lane, 55 56 THE CAUSE A garden where the hollyhocks were tall In the Augusts that shall never be again. There your thoughts cling as the long-thrust- ing root Clings in the ground ; your orphaned hearts are there. O mates of sunburnt earth, your love is mute But strong like thirst and deeper than despair. You have endured what pity can but grope To feel : into that darkness enters none. We have but hands to help ; yours is the hope Whose courage rises silent with the sun. TO GOETHE Goethe, who saw and who foretold A world revealed New-springing from its ashes old On Valmy field, When Prussia's sullen hosts retired Before the advance Of ragged, starved, but freedom-fired Soldiers of France ; If still those clear, Olympian eyes Through smoke and rage Your ancient Europe scrutinize, What think you, Sage ? Are these the armies of the Light That seek to drown The light of lands where freedom's fight Has won renown ? Will they blot also out your name Because you praise 57 58 THE CAUSE All works of men that shrine the flame Of beauty's ways, Wherever men have proved them great, Nor, drunk with pride, Saw but a single swollen State And naught beside, Nor dreamed of drilling Europe's mind With threat and blow The way professors have designed Genius should go ? Or shall a people rise at length And see, and shake The fetters from its giant strength, And grandly break This pedantry of feud and force, To man untrue, Thundering and blundering on its course To death and rue ? YPRES On the road to Ypres, on the long road, Marching strong, We '11 sing a song of Ypres, of her glory And her wrong. Proud rose her towers in the old time, Long ago. Trees stood on her ramparts, and the water Lay below. Shattered are the towers into potsherds — Jumbled stones. Underneath the ashes that were rafters Whiten bones. Blood is in the cellar where the wine was, On the floor. Rats run on the pavement where the wives met At the door. But in Ypres there 's an army that is biding, Seen of none. 59 60 THE CAUSE You 'd never hear their tramp nor see their shadow In the sun. Thousands of the dead men there are waiting Through the night, Waiting for a bugle in the cold dawn Blown for fight. Listen when the bugle 's calling Forward ! They '11 be found, Dead men, risen in battalions From underground, Charging with us home, and through the foe- men Driving fear Swifter than the madness in a madman, As they hear Dead men ring the bells of Ypres For a sign, Hear the bells and fear them in the Hunland Over Rhine ! AT RHEIMS Their hearts were burning in their breasts Too hot for curse or cries. They stared upon the towers that burned Before their smarting eyes. There where, since France began to be, Anointed kings knelt down, There where the Maid, the unafraid, Received her vision's crown, The senseless shell with nightmare scream Burst, and fair fragments fell Torn from their centuries of peace As by the rage of hell. What help for wrath, what use for wail ? Before a dumb despair All ancient, high, heroic France Seemed burning, bleeding there. 61 62 THE CAUSE Within, the pillars soar to gloom Lit by the glimmering Rose ; Spirits of beauty shrined in stone Afar from mortal woes, Hearing not, though their haunted shade Is stricken, and all around With splintering flash and brutal crash The ghostly aisles resound. And there, upon the pavement stretched, The German wounded groan To see the dropping flames of death And feel the shells their own. Too fierce the fire ! Helped by their foes They stagger out to air. The green-grey coats are seen, are known Through all the crowded square. Ah. now for vengeance ! Deep the groan A death-knell ! Quietly Soldiers unsling their rifles, lift And aim with steady eye. AT RHEIMS 63 But sudden in the hush between Death and the doomed, there stands Against those levelled guns a priest, Gentle, with outstretched hands. Be not as gtrilty as they ! he cries . . . Each lets his weapon fall, As if a vision showed him France And vengeance vain and small. TO THE ENEMY COMPLAINING Be ruthless, then; scorn slaves of scruple; avow The blow, planned with such patience, that you deal So terribly ; hack on, and care not how The innocent fall ; live out your faith of steel. Then you speak speech that we can compre- hend. It cries from the unpitied blood you spill. And so we stand against you, and to the end Flame as one man, the weapon of one will. But when your lips usurp the loyal phrase Of honour, querulously voluble Of " chivalry " and " kindness," and you praise What you despise for weakness of the fool, Then the gorge rises. Bleat to dupe the dead ! The wolf beneath the sheepskin drips too red. 64 MID-ATLANTIC If this were all ! — A dream of dread Ran through me; I watched the waves that fled Pale-crested out of hollows black, The hungry lift of helpless waves, A million million tossing graves, A wilderness without a track Beneath the barren moon : If this were all ! The stars of night remotely strewn Looked on that restless heave and fall. I seemed with them to watch this old Bright planet through the ages rolled, Self -tortured, burning splendours vain And fevered with its greeds insane And with the blood of peoples red ; I watched it, grown an ember cold, Join in the dancing of the dead. The chilly half -moon sank; the sound Of naked surges roared around, 65 66 THE CAUSE And through my heart the darkness poured Surges as of a sea unshored. somewhere far and lost from light Blind Europe battled in the night ! Then sudden through the darkness came The vision of a child, A child with feet as light as flame Who ran across the bitter waves, Across the tumbling of the graves — With arms stretched out he smiled. 1 drank the wine of life again, I breathed among my brother men, I felt the human fire. I knew that I must serve the will Of beauty and love and wisdom still ; Though all my hopes were overthrown, Though universes turned to stone, I have my being in this alone And die in that desire. On board the Lusitania December 19 14 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 ! 67 GALLIPOLI Isles of the iEgean, Troy, and waters of Hel- lespont, You we have known from of old Since boyhood stammering glorious Greek was entranced In the tale that Homer told. There scornful Achilles towered and flamed through the battle Defying the gods ; and there Hector armed, and Andromache proudly held up his boy to him, Knowing not yet despair. We beheld them as presences moving beauti- ful and swift In the radiant morning of Time, Far from reality, far from dulness of daily doing And from cities of fog and grime, — Unattainable day-dream, heroes, gods and god- desses Matched in splendour of war, 68 GALLIPOLI 69 Days of a vanished world, days of a grandeur perished, Days that should bloom no more. But now shall our boyhood learn to tell a new tale, And a new song shall be sung, And the sound of it shall praise not magnifi- cence of old time But the glory and the greatness of the young; Deeds of this our own day, marvellous deeds of our own blood ; Sons that their sires excel, Lightly going into peril and taking death by the hand : — Of these they shall sing, they shall tell. How in ships sailing the famed Mediterranean From armed banks of Nile Men from far homes in sunny Austral Domin- ions And the misty mother-isle, Met in the great cause, joined in the vast ad- venture, Saw first in April skies, 70 THE CAUSE Beyond storied islands, Gallipoli's promontory, Impregnably ridged, arise. And how from the belly of the black ship driven beneath Towering scarp and scaur Hailing hidden rages of fire in terrible gusts On the murdered space of shore, Into the water they leapt, they rushed, and across the beach With impetuous shout, all Inspired beyond men, climbed and were over the crest As a flame leaps over a wall. Not all the gods in heaven's miraculous pan- oply Could have hindered or stayed them, so Irresistibly came they, scaled the unscaleable and sprang To stab the astonished foe : Marvellous doers of deeds, lifted past our im- agining To a world where death is nought, GALLIPOLI 71 As a spirit against spirit, as a liberated ele- ment, As fire in flesh they fought. Now to the old twilight and pale legendary glories By our own youth outdone, Those shores recede ; not there, but in mem- ory everlasting The immortal heights were won. Of them that triumphed, of them that fell, there is only now Silence and sleep and fame, And in night's immensity, far on that prom- ontory's altar The invisibly burning flame. 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 ; 72 THE HEALERS 73 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 ? 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. * 74 EDITH CAVELL 75 " 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. 76 THE CAUSE And the officer strode and pistolled her surely, ashamed That men, seasoned in blood, Should quail at a woman, only a woman, — dead 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. EDITH CAVELL 77 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 com- forted — these Make a fragrance of her fame. But because she stept to her star right on through death It is Victory speaks her name. THE DEPORTATION In vain, in vain, in vain ! Conqueror, you are conquered : though you grind These bodies, heel on neck ; and though you twist Out of them the exquisite last wrench of pain, They rise, they rise again, Rise quivering and eternally resist All cunning that all cruelty can find To mock the heart and lacerate the mind In vain, in vain ! ii The train stands packed for exile, truck on truck. Men thronged like oxen, pressed against each other, With worse than anger in their dangerous eyes, Look on their drivers, armed and helmeted, — Then forget all in sudden stormy cries As past the bayonets sister, wife, and mother 78 THE DEPORTATION 79 Strain up to them, clutch fingers tight, are struck And beaten back, but struggle and press again, Catch desolated kisses, fight for breath To sob their widowed hearts out in a word Their man shall hear, reckless of wound or death So they come nigh him ; a farewell insane, A passion as if the earth that bore them heard And in her bones groaned ! And white children held On shoulders where the torn dress hangs in strips Cry Father ! and mute answers wring the lips Of the exiles, in their torture still unquelled. A whistle screams. The guards drive, shout, beat. Then An inspiration like an ecstasy Seizes these women, and they rush to throw Their sobbing bodies prone upon the tracks Before the panting engine. If their men Into that night of slavery must go, They '11 be with death before them ! Prostrate there, 80 THE CAUSE Tear-blinded, with tense arms and heaving backs, Young wife and child and mother of grey hair Clutch the rails, anguished and athirst to die, While over them the towering engine throbs, Blind, ignorant, deaf, and ready. But you spare Such easiness of end, you who did this Which the sun looked on, and which History Shall see for ever. Though they cling with sobs To their own earth, frenzied and bleeding, swift They are harried up ; the bayonets prise and lift And tear away their hands' despairing grasp : They are tossed on either side : at the engine's hiss The wheels begin that road which curses pave Between those piteous heaps that cry and gasp Helpless, and cheated even of their grave. in But something lives and burns More perilous to assail Than flesh of bodies frail : It waits and it returns. THE DEPORTATION 81 And when in the night you dream Of the day that you did this thing, When you see those eyes and the bayonets' gleam And the shrieks to your very heart's blood ring As you do your deed in your dream again, The soul of the race that you racked, to do Your Lord's command, that you thought to have cowed, Shall sharpen the bitterness thrice for you As it rises before you, crying aloud : You did it in vain, in vain ! THE ZEPPELIN Guns ! far and near Quick, sudden,' angry, They startle the still street. Upturned faces appear, Doors open on darkness, There is a hurrying of feet, And whirled athwart gloom White fingers of alarm Point at last there Where illumined and dumb A shape suspended Hovers, a demon of the starry air Strange and cold as a dream Of sinister fancy, It charms like a snake, Poised deadly in the gleam, While bright explosions Leap up to it and break. 82 THE ZEPPELIN 83 Is it terror you seek To exult in ? Know then Hearts are here That the plunging beak Of night-winged murder Strikes not with fear So much as it strings To a deep elation And a quivering pride That at last the hour brings For them too the danger Of those who died, Of those who yet fight Spending for each of us Their glorious blood In the foreign night. — That now we are neared to them Thank we God. THE ENGLISH GRAVES The rains of yesterday are flown, And light is on the farthest hills ; The homeliest rough grass by the stone To radiance thrills ; And the wet bank above the ditch, Trailing its thorny bramble, shows Soft apparitions, clustered rich, Of the pure primrose. The shining stillness breathes, vibrates From simple earth to lonely sky, A hinted wonder that awaits The heart's reply. O lovely life ! the chaffinch sings High on the hazel, near and clear. Sharp to the heart's blood, sweetness springs In the morning here. 84 THE ENGLISH GRAVES 85 But my heart goes with the young cloud That voyages the April light Southward, across the beaches loud And cliffs of white To fields of France, far fields that spread Beyond the tumbling of the waves, And touches as with shadowy tread The English graves. There too is Earth that never weeps, The unrepining Earth, that holds The secret of a thousand sleeps And there unfolds Flowers of sweet ignorance on the slope Where strong arms dropped and blood choked breath, Earth that forgets all things but hope And smiles on death. They poured their spirits out in pride, They throbbed away the price of years : Now that dear ground is glorified With dreams, with tears. 86 THE CAUSE A flower there is sown, to bud And bloom beyond our loss and smart. Noble France, at its root is blood From England's heart. GOING WEST Just as I came Into the empty, westward-facing room, A sudden gust blew wide The tall window; at once A shock of sudden light, vibrating like a flame, Entered, as if it were the wind's bright spirit Stealing to me upon some secret quest. The wonder of the West Burst open ; under dark and rushing cloud That rained illumined drops, it glorified Each corner where so dazzlingly it struck : The shadows cowered, the brilliance over- flowed. As suddenly, all faded. Wet, wild air blew in At the idly-swinging door Stormily crumpled fallen shreds of leaves, Dried scarlet and burnt yellow and ashy-brown: They fluttered in like fears and blew across the floor. And I, to the heart invaded, 87 88 THE CAUSE Felt as that wild light palpitated through me And died in a moment down, Exalted by a visionary fear That from the light more than the shadow fell; A divination of splendid spirits near, Of glorious parting and of great farewell. FETCHING THE WOUNDED At the road's end glimmer the station lights ; How small beneath the immense hollow of Night's Lonely and living silence ! Air that raced And tingled on the eyelids as we faced The long road stretched between the poplars flying To the dark behind us, shuddering and sigh- ing With phantom foliage, lapses into hush. Magical supersession ! The loud rush Swims into quiet : midnight reassumes Its solitude ; there's nothing but great glooms, Blurred stars ; whispering gusts ; the hum of wires. And swerving leftwards upon noiseless tires We glide over the grass that smells of dew. A wave of wonder bathes my body through ! For there in the headlamps' gloom-surrounded beam Tall flowers spring before us, like a dream, 89 9 o THE CAUSE Each luminous little green leaf intimate And motionless, distinct and delicate With powdery white bloom fresh upon the stem, As if that clear beam had created them Out of the darkness. Never so intense I felt the pang of beauty's innocence, Earthly and yet unearthly. A sudden call ! We leap to ground, and I forget it all. Each hurries on his errand ; lanterns swing ; Dark shapes cross and re-cross the rails ; we bring Stretchers, and pile and number them ; and heap The blankets ready. Then we wait and keep A listening ear. Nothing comes yet; all's still. Only soft gusts upon the wires blow shrill Fitfully, with a gentle spot of rain. Then, ere one knows it, the long gradual train Creeps quietly in and slowly stops. No sound But a few voices' interchange. Around Is the immense night-stillness, the expanse Of faint stars over all the wounds of France, FETCHING THE WOUNDED 91 Now stale odour of blood mingles with keen Pure smell of grass and dew. Now lantern sheen Falls on brown faces opening patient eyes And lips of gentle answers, where each lies Supine upon his stretcher, black of beard Or with young cheeks ; on caps and tunics smeared And stained, white bandages round foot or head Or arm, discoloured here and there with red. Sons of all corners of wide France ; from Lille, Douay, the land beneath the invader's heel, Champagne, Touraine, the fisher-villages Of Brittany, the valley ed Pyrenees, Blue coasts of the South, old Paris streets. Argonne Of ever smouldering battle, that anon Leaps furious, brothered them in arms. They fell In the trenched forest scarred with reeking shell. Now strange the sound comes round them in the night Of English voices. By the wavering light 92 THE CAUSE Quickly we have borne them, one by one, to the air, And sweating in the dark lift up with care, Tense-sinewed, each to his place. The cars at last Complete their burden : slowly, and then fast We glide away. And the dim round of sky, Infinite and silent, broods unseeingly Over the shadowy uplands rolling black Into far woods, and the long road we track Bordered with apparitions, as we pass, Of trembling poplars and lamp-whitened grass, A brief procession flitting like a thought Through a brain drowsing into slumber; nought But we awake in the solitude immense ! But hurting the vague dumbness of my sense Are fancies wandering the night : there steals Into my heart, like something that one feels In darkness, the still presence of far homes Lost in deep country, and in little rooms The vacant bed. I touch the world of pain That is so silent. Then I see again Only those infinitely patient faces FETCHING THE WOUNDED 93 In the lantern beam, beneath the night's vast spaces, Amid the shadows and the scented dew ; And those illumined flowers, springing anew In freshness like a smile of secrecy From the gloom-buried earth, returns to me. The village sleeps ; blank walls, and windows barred. But lights are moving in the hushed court- yard As we glide up to the open door. The Chief Gives every man his order, prompt and brief. We carry up our wounded, one by one. The first cock crows : the morrow is begun. THE EBB OF WAR In the seven-times taken and retaken town Peace ! The mind stops ; sense argues against sense. The August sun is ghostly in the street As if the Silence of a thousand years Were its familiar. All is as it was At the instant of the shattering : flat-thrown walls ; Dislocated rafters ; lintels blown awry And toppling over ; what were windows, merely Gapings on mounds of dust and shapelessness ; Charred posts caught in a bramble of twisted iron ; Wires sagging tangled across the street ; the black Skeleton of a vine wrenched from the old house It clung to; a limp bell-pull ; here and there Little printed papers pasted on the wall. It is like a madness crumpled up in stone, Laughterless, tearless, meaningless ; a frenzy 94 THE EBB OF WAR 95 Stilled, like at ebb the shingle in sea-caves Where the imagined weight of water swung Its senseless crash with pebbles in myriads churned By the random seethe. But here was flesh and blood, Seeing eyes, feeling nerves ; memoried minds With the habit of the picture of these fields And the white roads crossing the wide green plain. All vanished ! One could fancy the very fields Were memory's projection, phantoms ! All Silent ! The stone is hot to the touching hand. Footsteps come strange to the sense. In the sloped churchyard, Where the tower shows the blue through its great rents, Shadow falls over pitiful wrecked graves, And on the gravel a bare-headed boy, Hands in his pockets, with brown absent eyes, Whistles the Marseillaise : To Arms, To Arms ! There is no other sound in the bright air. It is as if they heard under the grass, The dead men of the Marne, and their thin voice 96 THE CAUSE Used those young lips to sing it from their graves, The song that sang a nation into arms. And far away to the listening ear in the silence Like remote thunder throb the guns of France. Maurupt 1915 LA PATRIE Through storm-blown gloom the subtle light persists. Shapes of tumultuous, ghostly cloud appear, Trailing a dark shower from hill-drenching mists ; Dawn, desolate in majesty, is here. But ere the wayside trees show leaf and form, Invisible larks in all the air around Ripple their songs up through the gloom and storm, As if the foiled light had won wings of sound. A wounded soldier on his stretcher waits His turn for the ambulance, by the glimmer- ing rails. He is wrapt in a rough brown blanket like his mates ; And over him dawn broadens, the cloud pales. Muscular, swart, bearded, and quite still, He lies, too tired to think, to wonder. Drops 97 98 THE CAUSE From a leaf fall by him. For spent nerve and will The world of shattering and stunned effort stops. He feels the air, song-thrilled and fresh and dim, And close about him smells the rainy soil. It is ever-living Earth recovers him, Friend and companion of old, fruitful toil. He is patient with her patience. Hurt, he takes Strength from her rooted, still tenacities. Her will to heal, that secretly re-makes Like slumber, holds his dark, contented eyes. For she, though — never reckoning of the cost — Full germs of all profusion she prepares, Knows tragic hours, too, parching famine, frost And wreck ; and in her children's hurt she shares. LA PATRIE 99 Build what we may, house us in lofty mind's Palaces, wean the fine-wrought spirit apart, Earth touches where the fibre throbs, and winds The threads about us of her infinite heart. And some dear ground with its own changing sky, As if it were our feeling flesh, is wrought Into the very body's dignity And private colour of least conscious thought. O when the loud invader burned and bruised This ordered land's old kindness, with brute blows Shamed and befouled and plundered and abused, Was it not Earth that in her soldier rose And armed him, terrible and simple ? He Takes his wound, mute as Earth is, yet as strong. The funeral clouds trail, wet wind shakes the tree, But all the wild air of the dawn is song. Lairecy 1916 THE DISTANT GUNS Negligently the cart-track descends into the valley ; The drench of the rain has passed, and the clover breathes ; Scents are abroad ; in the valley a mist whitens Along the hidden river, where the evening smiles. The trees are asleep, their shadows are longer and longer, Melting blue in the tender twilight ; above, In a pallor barred with lilac and ashen cloud Delicate as a spirit the young moon brightens ; And, distant, a bell intones the hour of peace Where roofs of the village, grey and red, cluster In leafy dimness. Peace, old as the world ! The crickets, shrilling in the high, wet grass, And gnats clouding upon the frail wild roses, Murmur of you. But hark ! like a shudder upon the air ioo THE DISTANT GUNS 101 Ominous and alien, knocking on the farther hills As with airy hammers, the ghosts of terrible sound — Guns ! From afar they are knocking on hu- man hearts Everywhere over the silent evening country, Knocking with fear and dark presentiment. Only The moon's beauty, where no life or joy is, Brightening softly and seeing nothing, has peace. Arc-en-Barrois 1916 MEN OF VERDUN There are five men in the moonlight That by their shadows stand. Three hobble humped on crutches, And two lack each a hand. Frogs somewhere near the roadside Chorus their chant absorbed : But a hush breathes out of the dream-light That far in heaven is orbed. It is gentle as sleep falling And wide as thought can span, The ancient peace and wonder That brims the heart of man. Beyond the hills it shines now On no peace but the dead, On reek of trenches thunder-shocked, Tense fury of wills in wrestle locked, A chaos crumbled red ! 102 MEN OF VERDUN 103 The five men in the moonlight Chat, joke, or gaze apart. They talk of days and comrades, But each one hides his heart. They wear clean cap and tunic As when they went to war ; A gleam comes where the medal 's pinned ; But they will fight no more. The shadows maimed and antic Gesture and shape distort, Like mockery of a demon dumb Out of the hell-din whence they come That dogs them for his sport : But as if dead men were risen And stood before me there With a terrible fame about them blown In beams of spectral air, I see them now, transfigured As in a dream, dilate Fabulous with the Titan-throb Of battling Europe's fate. 104 THE CAUSE For history 's hushed before them, And legend flames afresh ; Verdun, the name of thunder, Is written on their flesh. ENGLAND'S POET To other voices, other majesties, Removed this while, Peace shall resort again. But he was with us in our darkest pain And stormiest hour : his faith royally dyes The colours of our cause ; his voice replies To all our doubt, dear spirit ! heart and vein Of England's old adventure ! his proud strain Rose from our earth to the sea-breathing skies. Even over chaos and the murdering roar Comes that world-winning music, whose full stops Sounded all man, the bestial and divine; Terrible as thunder, fresh as April drops. He stands, he speaks, the soul-transfigured sign Of all our story, on the English shore. 105 THE SIBYLS Rending the waters of a night unknown The ship with tireless pulses bore me, On the shadowy deck musing late and lone, Over waste ocean. The rustling of the cordage in the dewy wind And the sound of idle surges Falling prolonged and for ever again up- thrown Drowsed me; I slept, I dreamed. Out of the seas that streamed In ghostly turbulence moving and glimmer- ing about me I saw the rising of vast and visionary forms. Like clouds, like continents of cloud, they rose, August as the shape of storms In the silence before the thunder, or of moun- tains Alone in a sky of sunken light : they rose Slowly, with shrouded grandeur 1 06 THE SIBYLS 107 Of queenly bosom and shoulder ; and afar Their countenances were lifted, although veiled, Although heavy as with thought and with si- lence, In the heights where dimly gathered Star upon solitary star. And it seemed to me, as I dreamed, That these were the forms of the Sibyls of old, Prophetesses whose eyes were aflame with in- terior fire, Who passionately prophesied and none com- prehended, In the womb of whose thought was quickened the world's desire, Who saw, and because they saw, chastised With voices terribly chanting on the wind The folly of the faithlessness of men. But not as they haunted then In cavernous and wild places, Each inaccessibly sequestered And sought with furtive steps 108 THE CAUSE Through wizard leaves of whispering laurel feared, Now to me they appeared. But rather like Queens of fabulous dominion, Like Queens, voices of a voiceless people, Queens of old time, with aweing faces, With burdened brows but with proud eyes, Assembled in solemn parley, to shape Futurity and the nations' glory and doom, They were met in the night together. And lo ! beneath them The immeasurable circle of the gloom Phantasmally disclosed In apparition all the coasts of the world, Veined with rivers afar to the frozen moun- tains. And I saw the shadow of maniac Death Like a reveller there stagger glutted and gloating. I saw murdered cities That raised like a stiffened arm One blackened tower to heaven ; I saw Processions of the homeless crawling into the distances ; THE SIBYLS 109 And sullen leagues of interminable battle ; And peoples arming afar ; the very earth, The very bowels of the earth infected With the rages and the agonies of men. For a moment the vision gleamed, and then was gone. Gloom rushed down like rain. But out of the midst of the darkness My flesh was aware of a sound, The peopled sound of moving millions And the voices of human pain. I lifted my gaze to the Sibyls, The Sibyls of the Continents, where they rose Looking one on another. Ancestral Asia, mother of musing mind, Was there ; and over against her Towered in the gates of the West a shape Of youth gigantic, troubled and vigilant ; Patient with eager dumbness in dark eyes, Africa rose ; and ardent out of the South The youngest of those great sisters ; and proud, With fame upon her for mantle, and regal- browed, The stature of Europe old. no THE CAUSE It seemed they listened to the murmur Of the anguished lands beneath them In sombre reverberation rising and upward rolled. Everywhere battle and arming for battle, Famine and torture, odour of burning and blood, Doubt, hatred, terror, Rage and lamenting ! I heard sweet Pity crying between the earth and sky : But who had leisure for her call? or who hearkened to her cry ? Not with our vision, and not with our horizon The gaze of the Sibyls was filled. Their trouble was trouble beyond the shaping of our fear, Their hope full-sailed upon oceans beyond our ken; Their thoughts were the thoughts that build Towers for the dawn unseen. But nearer than ever before They drew to each other, sister to shrouded sister, THE SIBYLS in Queen to superb Queen. What counsel took they together? or what word Of power- and of parturition Passed their lips ? What saw they, Conferring among the stars ? My blood tingled, and I heard Syllables, O too vast For capacity of my ears ; yet within me, In the innermost bones and caves of my being I felt a voice like the voice of a sea, And the sound of it seemed to be crying: " Endure ! Humble yourselves, O dreamers of dreams, In whose bosom is peril fiercer than fire or beast, Humble yourselves, O desolaters of your own dreams, Then arise and remember ! Though now you cry in astonishment and an- guish 'What have we done to the beauty of the world That ruins about us in ashes and blood ? ' 112 THE CAUSE Remember the Spirit that moulded and made you In the beauty of the body Shaped as the splendour of speech to thought, The Spirit that wills with one desire, With infinite else unsatisfied desire, Peace not made by conquerors and armies, Peace born in the soul, that asks not shelter or a pillow. The peace of truth, unshaken amid the thunder, Unaffrighted by fury of shrivelling fire, And neither time nor tempest, Neither slumber nor calamity, Neither rending of the flesh nor breaking of the heart, Shall stay you from that desire." That sound floated like a cloud in heaven, Lingering ; and like an answer Came the sound of the rushing of spirits triumphant, Of young men dying for a cause. I lifted my eyes in wonder, And silence filled me. THE SIBYLS 113 And with the silence I was aware Of a breath moving in the glimmer of the air. The stars had vanished ; but again I beheld those Sibyls august Over stilled ocean, And on their faces the dawn. Even as I looked they lifted up their heads, They lifted their heads, like eagles That slowly shake and widen their wondrous wings ; They arose and vanished like the stars. The light of the changed world, the world new-born, Brimmed over the silence of the seas ; But even in the rising of its beam I remembered the light in their eyes. BEFORE THE DAWN Blacker the night grows ere the dawn be risen, Keener the cost, and fiercer yet the fight. But hark ! above the thunder and the terror A trumpet blowing splendid through the night. It is the challenge of our dead undying, Calling, Remember ! We have died for you. It is the cry of perilled earth's hereafter — Sons of our sons — Be glorious ! Be true ! > Now in the hour when either world is witness, Never or now shall we be proven great, Rise to the height of all our strain and story, Aye, and beyond ! For we ourselves are Fate. 114 TO THE END Because the storm has stript us bare Of all things but the thing we are, Because our faith requires us whole, And we are seen to the very soul, Rejoice ! From now all meaner fears are fled. Because we have no prize to win Auguster than the truth within, And by consuming of the dross Magnificently lose our loss, Rejoice ! We have not vainly borne and bled. Because we chose beyond recall And for dear honour hazard all, And summoned to the last attack Refuse to falter or look back, Rejoice! We die, the Cause is never dead. THE END CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS U . S . A Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide Treatment Date: May 2009 PreservationTechnologies A WORLD LEADER IN COLLECTIONS PRESERVATION 111 Thomson Park Drive Cranberry Township, PA 16066