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POEMS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
, THE BELGIAN SCHOLARSHIP COMMITTEE 
 Washington, D.C. 
 
 The Aims of the Committee are briefly expressed as follows : — 
 
 1. To give to Belgian scholars, writers and artists 
 a chance to resume their work. 
 
 2. To raise a fund to assist in the reconstruction 
 of a new and greater Belgium in the educational field, 
 as soon as the war is over. 
 
 Nevil Monroe Hopkins, 
 
 Chairman. 
 
POEMS 
 
 OF 
 
 THE GREAT WAR 
 
 SELECTED BY 
 
 J. W. CUKLIFFE 
 ii 
 
 PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH AND ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR OF THE 
 SCHOOL OF JOURNALISM OF COLUMBIA UNI- 
 VERSITY IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK 
 
 ON BEHALF OF THE BELGIAN 
 SCHOLARSHIP COMMITTEE 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 1916 
 
 All rights reserved 
 

 COPYBI&HT, 1916, 
 
 By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. 
 
 Set up and electrotyped. Published November, 1916. 
 
 NOV 23 1916 
 
 Norinootr ^teas 
 
 J. S. Cushing Co. — Berwick & Smith Co. 
 
 Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. 
 
 CI.A445754 
 
 ■k 
 
PREFACE 
 
 The responsibility for the selection of the poems 
 included in this volume rests entirely on my shoul- 
 ders, though I am pleased to acknowledge the very 
 kind help on this side of the Atlantic of Mr. Ed- 
 ward C. Marsh of the Macmillan Company, Miss 
 Helen Rex Keller, Librarian of the School of Jour- 
 nalism, and Professor A. H. Thorndike of Colum- 
 bia University ; in England of Mr. F. Madan, 
 Bodley's Librarian, Mr. G. W. Wheeler and 
 Mr. J. W. Small wood of the Radcliffe Camera, 
 Oxford, Sir Walter Raleigh, Lady Scallon, Mr. A. 
 R. Waller, Sir Adolphus Ward, and Sir Herbert 
 Warren. While poetic merit has been, of course, 
 the paramount consideration, I have endeavored 
 to exercise a catholic judgment, and to give fair 
 representation to various schools of thought and 
 expression as well as to the various phases of the 
 War. If undue prominence seems to be given to 
 what may be called its more personal aspects — the 
 spirit of sacrifice and devotion which inspired men 
 and women to give themselves and those dearest to 
 them to a great cause — I must plead in excuse 
 
 v 
 
vi PREFACE 
 
 that during much of the time of the preparation 
 
 of this volume my mind was full of the memory of 
 
 my friend Lieut. -Col. G. H. Baker of the 5th 
 
 Canadian Mounted Rifles, who fell in command of 
 
 his battalion during the third battle of Ypres on 
 
 June 2, 1916. 
 
 J. W. CUNLIFFE. 
 
CLASSIFIED CONTENTS AND 
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 
 
 The Belgian Scholarship Committee returns its sin- 
 cere and hearty thanks to the authors and publishers 
 whose generosity has made this volume possible. 
 Details of indebtedness are given below, the permis- 
 sion of the owner of the copyright, whether for Great 
 Britain or for the United States or for both, having 
 been obtained in all cases except one or two where 
 difficulties of communication made the consent of the 
 actual copyright holders impossible ; in these cases 
 their authorized representatives were consulted to 
 make sure that they would have no objection. 
 
 AUSTRALIA 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Sandes, John : AUSTRALIANS TO THE FRONT . 223 
 From The Sydney Daily Telegraph. 
 
 Strong, Archibald T. : AUSTRALIA TO ENGLAND . 250 
 
 From Sonnets of the Empire (Macmillan & Co.). 
 
 vii 
 
viii CONTENTS AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 
 
 CANADA 
 
 PAOX 
 
 Campbell, Wilfred : LANGEMARCK . . . .46 
 From The Ottawa Evening Journal. 
 
 Holland, Norah M. : APRIL IN ENGLAND . . .133 
 From the University Magazine (Montreal). 
 
 McRae, John : IN FLANDERS FIELDS . . .180 
 
 From Punch. 
 
 Middleton, J. E. : OFF HELIGOLAND . . . .185 
 
 Pickthall, Marjorie L. C. : CANADA TO ENGLAND . 213 
 From the London Times. 
 
 Roberts, Charles G. D. : TO SHAKESPEARE, 1916 . 215 
 
 From A Book of Homage to Shakespeare, edited by 
 Professor Israel Gollancz (Oxford University Press). 
 
 Scott, (Canon) F. G. (of the Canadian Expeditionary 
 
 Force) : REQUIESCANT . . . .229 
 
 From the London Times. 
 
 "Seranus": THE MOTHER 234 
 
 Stead, Robert J. C. : KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM . 245 
 From the Calgary Albertan. 
 
 Watson, Albert D.: MOTHER OF NATIONS . . 279 
 
 INDIA 
 
 Jung, (Nawab) Nizamat (Judge of the High Court of 
 
 Hyderabad) : INDIA TO ENGLAND . . 140 
 
 From the London Daily Telegraph. 
 
 Tagore, (Sir) Rabindranath : THE TRUMPET . . 253 
 From the London Times. 
 
CONTENTS AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ix 
 UNITED KINGDOM 
 
 PAOB 
 
 WRITTEN ON SERVICE IN EGYPT .... 1 
 
 From The Poetry Beview. 
 
 Aldington, Richard : WAR YAWP 3 
 
 From Poetry. 
 
 Alexander, Eleanor : A NEGLECTED GARDEN . . 7 
 From the London Times. 
 
 Allsop, Henry : YOUNG AND OLD .... 9 
 
 From Songs from a Dale in War Time (G. Bell & 
 Sons, Ltd.). 
 
 Asquith, (Lieut.) Herbert: THE FALLEN SUBAL- 
 TERN 10 
 
 From The Volunteer and Other Poems (Sidgwick 
 and Jackson, Ltd. ) . 
 
 Begbie, Harold : NEUTRAL ? 15 
 
 From Fighting Lines and Various Reinforcements 
 (Constable & Co., Ltd.). 
 
 Binyon, Laurence : FOR THE FALLEN ... 21 
 
 From The Winnowing Fan, Poems on the Great 
 War (Elkin Mathews ; Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, 
 U.S.A.). 
 
 Blair, Wilfrid : A BALLAD OF DEATHLESS DONS . 23 
 From 'Tis Simple Mirth (Black well, Oxford). 
 
 Bliss, H. W.: "ANY FRIEND TO ANY FRIEND" . 28 
 
 From England, My England, a War Anthology, 
 edited by George Goodchild (Jarrold & Sons). 
 
 Bourdillon, F. W. : HERE : AND THERE ... 30 
 
 From Christmas Roses for 1914 (A. L. Hum- 
 phreys) . 
 
X CONTENTS AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Bridges, Robert : LORD KITCHENER .... 31 
 From the London Times. 
 
 Brooke, Rupert : THE SOLDIER 38 
 
 Erom 1914 cind Other Poems (Sidgwick & Jackson, 
 Ltd.) and The Collected Poems of Bupert Brooke 
 (John Lane Company, New York). 
 
 Burghclere, Lord : AFTERMATH 39 
 
 From Pro Patria et Bege, edited by Professor W. 
 A. Knight (J. & J. Bennett, Ltd.). 
 
 Chalmers, Patrick R. : GUNS OF VERDUN ... 61 
 From Punch. 
 
 Chartres, Annie Vivanti : THE BROKEN ROSE . . 52 
 From King Albert's Book (Hodder & Stoughton). 
 
 Chesterton, Gilbert K. : THE WIFE OF FLANDERS . 54 
 From War Poems (Burns & Oates) and Poems 
 (John Lane Co., New York). 
 
 Clayton, (The Rev.) Philip Byard: THEY HELD 
 
 THEIR GROUND 56 
 
 From Lest We Forget, edited by H. D. Elliott (Jar- 
 rold & Sons) . 
 
 Courtney, W. L. : BY THE NORTH SEA ... 71 
 
 From King Albert's Book. 
 
 Crewe, Lord : A HARROW GRAVE IN FLANDERS . 74 
 From The Harrovian. 
 
 Crow, Gerald H. : WHEN THEY HAVE MADE AN 
 
 END 75 
 
 From Chosen Poems (A. H. Bullen). 
 
 de la Mare, Walter : HOW SLEEP THE BRAVE . . 76 
 From the London Times. 
 
CONTENTS AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xi 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Drinkwater, John : THE DEFENDERS .... 77 
 
 From The " Country Life " Anthology of Verse, 
 edited "by P. Anderson Graham. 
 
 Faber, Geoffrey: "FOR THOSE AT SEA" ... 84 
 From Interflow (Constable & Co., Ltd.). 
 
 Fagan, James Bernard : THE MAN IN THE TRENCH 85 
 From the London Daily Telegraph. 
 
 Falconer, Agnes S. : TERRITORIALS .... 87 
 From Tlie " Country Life" Anthology of Verse. 
 
 Frankau, (Adjutant) Gilbert : HEADQUARTERS . . 90 
 From The Guns (Chatto & Windus) and A Song of 
 the Guns (Houghton Mifflin Co.) 
 
 Freeman, John : THE RETURN 92 
 
 From the Westminster Gazette. 
 
 Freston, H. Rex : THE GIFT 93 
 
 From The Quest of Truth (Blackwell, Oxford). 
 
 Friedlaender, (Miss) V. H. : PASSOVER ... 95 
 From The " Country Life" Anthology of Verse. 
 
 G. A. J. C. : IRELAND 97 
 
 From the London Times. 
 
 Gard, Lillian : HER « ALLOWANCE " .... 99 
 From The " Country Life " Anthology of Verse. 
 
 Gibson, Wilfrid Wilson : BETWEEN THE LINES . 100 
 
 From Battle (Elkin Mathews; The Macmillan Co., 
 New York). 
 
 Gilbert, Bernard : "I HAVE NO RING" . . .110 
 From the English Beview and War Workers. 
 
Xll CONTENTS AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Gillespie, Violet : THE DEAD Ill 
 
 Prom Poems of 1915 (Erskine Macdonald). 
 
 Goddard, Gregg : THE AIRMAN 114 
 
 From The Poetry Beview. 
 
 Graves, Alfred Perceval : BROTHERS IN ARMS . . 115 
 From The Contemporary Beview. 
 
 Grenfell, Julian : INTO BATTLE 118 
 
 From the London Times. 
 
 Griffiths, Nord : THE WYKEHAMIST . . . .121 
 From The " Country Life'''' Anthology of Verse. 
 
 Hamilton, Cicely : NON-COMBATANT . . . .125 
 From the Westminster Gazette. 
 
 Hardy, Thomas: "MEN WHO MARCH AWAY" . 126 
 
 From Satires of Circumstance (Macmillan and Co.; 
 The Macmillan Co., New York) . 
 
 Harwood, H. C. : FROM THE YOUTH OF ALL NA- 
 TIONS 128 
 
 From Oxford Poetry 1915 (Blackwell, Oxford). 
 
 Hewlett, Maurice : SOLDIER, SOLDIER . . .131 
 From Gai Saber : Tales and Songs (Elkin Mathews). 
 
 Hussey, (Lieut.) Dyneley: THINGS THAT WERE 
 
 YOURS 134 
 
 From Fleur de Lys (Erskine Macdonald). 
 
 J. H. S. : JOAN OF FRANCE TO AN ENGLISH SIS- 
 TER 135 
 
 From the Oxford Magazine. 
 
 Jacob, (Mrs.) Violet: THE TWA WEELUMS . . 136 
 From Country Life. 
 
CONTENTS AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xiii 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Jenkins, Elinor : A LEGEND OF YPRES . . .138 
 From Poems (Sidgwick & Jackson, Ltd.). 
 
 John, Edmund: IN MEMORIAM (To Field Marshal 
 
 Lord Roberts) 139 
 
 From The Wind in the Temple (Erskine Macdonald). 
 
 Letts, Winifred M. : THE SPIRES OF OXFORD . . 167 
 From the Westminster Gazette. 
 
 Lucas, E. V. : THE DEBT 166 
 
 From The Sphere. 
 
 Lulham, Habberton : HIS ONLY WAY . . . .169 
 
 From The Other Side of Silence (Simpkin, Mar- 
 shall, Hamilton, Kent & Co.). 
 
 Mackereth, James A. : A HYMN OF LOYALTY . . 172 
 From The Poetry Beview. 
 
 Masefield, John : THE ISLAND OF SKYROS . . 175 
 
 From Good Friday and Other Poems (The Mac- 
 millan Co., New York). 
 
 Meugens, (Miss) M. G. : THE FLEETS . . . .181 
 From The " Country Life " Anthology of Verse. 
 
 Meynell, Alice : SUMMER IN ENGLAND, 1914 . . 183 
 From the London Times. 
 
 N. M. H.: A. K. S., JULY 14, 1915 192 
 
 From the Oxford Magazine. 
 
 Nesbit, E.: A SONG OF PEACE AND HONOR . . 193 
 
 From The New Witness. 
 
 Nicklin, John A. : THE FISHER LAD . . . .196 
 
 From " And They Went to the War" (Sidgwick & 
 Jackson, Ltd.). 
 
xiv CONTENTS AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Noyes, Alfred : THE SEARCHLIGHTS . . . .197 
 From A Salute from the Fleet (Methuen) and The 
 Lord of Misrule (The Frederick A. Stokes Co., New- 
 York). 
 
 O. M. : MASTER AND PUPIL 199 
 
 From The Spectator. 
 
 "Observer, Royal Flying Corps": TWO PICTURES . 202 
 From Oxford and Flanders (Blackwell). 
 
 Ogilvie, W. H. : CANADIANS 203 
 
 From The " Country Life 1 ''' Anthology of Verse. 
 
 Oswald, (Major) Sydney : THE DEAD SOLDIER . 204 
 
 From The Poetry Beview. 
 
 Pain, Barry : THE KAISER AND GOD . . .205 
 
 From the London Times. 
 
 Phillips, Stephen : REVENGE FOR RHEIMS . . 212 
 
 From Panama and Other Poems (John Lane ; The 
 John Lane Co., New York). 
 
 Pope, Jessie : SOCKS 214 
 
 From Jessie Pope's War Poems (Grant Richards, 
 Ltd.). 
 
 Robinson, A. Mary F. (Madame Duclaux) : BELGIUM 
 
 THE BAR-LASS 216 
 
 From the London Times. 
 
 Ross, (Lt. Col.) Sir Ronald: SHAKESPEARE, 1916 . 221 
 From A Book of Homage to Shakespeare. 
 
 Sandford, Egbert: HER PRAYER — FOR HIM . . 225 
 From Brookdown (Erskine Macdonald). 
 
CONTENTS AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS XV 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Seaman, (Sir) Owen : THE WAYSIDE CALVARY . 230 
 Erom Made in England (Constable & Co., Ltd.). 
 
 Shillito, (TheKev.) Edward: A THANKSGIVING . 235 
 Erom Pro Patria et Bege. 
 
 Sidgwick, Frank :" FORM FOURS " . . . .236 
 From Some Verse, by F. S. (Sidgwick & Jackson, 
 Ltd.). 
 
 Sinclair, May : FIELD AMBULANCE IN RETREAT . 238 
 From King Albert's Book. 
 
 Smith, (The Rev.) Isaac Gregory : CLOSE YOUR RANKS 240 
 From Pro Patria et Bege. 
 
 Sorley, Charles Hamilton: ALL THE HILLS AND 
 
 VALES ALONG 243 
 
 From Marlborough and Other Poems (Cambridge 
 University Press) . 
 
 Stephens, James : THE SPRING IN IRELAND : 1916 . 246 
 
 From Green Branches (The Macmillan Co., New 
 York). 
 
 Stuart, Andrew John (Viscount) : SAILOR, WHAT OF 
 
 THE DEBT WE OWE YOU ? . . .251 
 
 From the London Times. 
 
 Taylor, Frank : ENGLAND'S DEAD . . . .255 
 From The Spectator. 
 
 Thomas, Gilbert : THE UNCONQUERED HOPE . . 262 
 From The Further Goal (Erskine Macdonald). 
 
 Tollemache, (The Hon. ) Grace E. : SONNET (Oct. 1, 1914) 264 
 From Lyrics and Short Poems (Elkin Mathews). 
 
xvi CONTENTS AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Tripp, (Lance Corporal) D. Howard : AFTERMATH . 266 
 From The Poetry Beview. 
 
 Tynan, Katharine : A GIRL'S SONG . . . .267 
 From Flower of Youth (Sidgwick & Jackson, Ltd.) 
 
 Vickridge, Alberta : THE CONSCRIPT . . . .274 
 From The Poetry Beview. 
 
 Walker, A. Stodart : IN A SLUM 276 
 
 From Verses of Consolation and Other Lines Written 
 in War Time (Maclehose & Sons, Glasgow). 
 
 Warren, (Sir) Herbert: ENGLAND TO DENMARK, 
 
 August, 1915 278 
 
 From The Spectator. 
 
 Watson, William : OUR MEN 281 
 
 From the London Evening News. 
 
 Watt, (The Rev.) Lauchlan Maclean (Chaplain to the 
 
 Forces) : THE REAPERS . . . .283 
 
 From the London Times. 
 
 Williams, Iolo Aneurin ■ FROM A FLEMISH GRAVE- 
 YARD .288 
 
 From Poems (Methuen & Co., Ltd.). 
 
 Woods, (Mrs.) Margaret L. : THE FIRST BATTLE OF 
 
 YPRES 290 
 
 From the Fortnightly Beview. 
 
 X. : KITCHENER 296 
 
 From the Sunday Times. 
 
 Young, (Lieut.) Francis Brett, R.A.M.C. : MARCH- 
 ING ON TANGA 297 
 
 From the London Times. 
 
CONTENTS AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS XV11 
 UNITED STATES 
 
 PAOB 
 
 Baker, Karle Wilson : UNSER GOTT . . . .11 
 From Poetry. 
 
 Ben6t, William Rose : THE RED COUNTRY . . 17 
 From Beedy^s Mirror. 
 
 Bodenheim, Maxwell : THE CAMP FOLLOWER . . 29 
 From Poetry. 
 
 Brody, Alter : KARTfrSHKIYA-BEROZA ... 32 
 From the Atlantic Monthly. 
 
 Burnet, Dana : THE RETURN 41 
 
 From Poems (Harper and Bros., New York and 
 London) . 
 
 Burr, Amelia Josephine: KITCHENER'S MARCH . 44 
 
 From The Outlook. 
 Colcord, Lincoln : VISION OF WAR ; CANTO I . 58 
 
 From Vision of War (The Macmillan Co.). 
 Corbin, Alice : FALLEN 70 
 
 From Poetry. 
 Crawford, Charlotte Holmes : VIVE LA FRANCE ! . . 72 
 
 From Scribner's Magazine. 
 
 Driscoll, Louise : THE METAL CHECKS ... 78 
 From Poetry. 
 
 Foulke, William Dudley : HONOR TO FRANCE . . 88 
 From The Indianapolis Star. 
 
 Frank, (Mrs.) Florence Kiper : THE JEWISH CON- 
 SCRIPT 89 
 
 From The Jew to Jesus, and Other Poems (Mitchell 
 Kennerley). 
 
XV111 CONTENTS AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Giddings, Franklin H. : ULTIMATE HELL . . .107 
 From The New York Times.. 
 
 Glaenzer, Kichard Butler : "SURE, IT'S EUN ! " . . 112 
 From The Boston Transcript. 
 
 Hagedorn, Hermann : THE PYRES . . . .122 
 
 From The Outlook. 
 
 KaufEman, Reginald Wright : THE NATIONS' DAVID 142 
 From the London Daily Express. 
 
 Kaufman, Herbert : THE HELL-GATE OF SOISSONS 146 
 
 From The Song of the Guns (T. Fisher Unwin, 
 London) and Little Old Belgium (Henry Altemus 
 Co., Philadelphia). 
 
 Kilmer, Joyce : THE WHITE SHIPS AND THE RED 151 
 From The New York Times. 
 
 Kreymborg, Alfred : OVERHEARD IN AN ASYLUM 155 
 
 From Others, an Anthology of the New Verse 
 (Alfred Knopf). 
 
 Lindsay, Vachel : ABRAHAM LINCOLN WALKS AT 
 
 MIDNIGHT 159 
 
 From The Congo and Other Poems (The Mac- 
 millan Co.). 
 
 Lowell, Amy : PATTERNS 161 
 
 From Some Imagist Poets (Houghton Mifflin Co.). 
 
 MacKaye, Percy : CHRISTMAS, 1915 . . . .171 
 From Poems and Plays (The Macmillan Co.). 
 
 Masters, Edgar Lee : GLORIOUS FRANCE . . 177 
 From Songs and Satires (The Macmillan Co.). 
 
CONTENTS AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xix 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Mitchell, Ruth Comfort : HE WENT FOR A SOLDIER 187 
 From Smart Set and The Night Court and Other 
 Verses (The Century Co.). 
 
 Monroe, Harriet : ON THE PORCH . . . .190 
 
 From Poetry. 
 
 Peabody, Josephine Preston : MEN HAVE WINGS AT 
 
 LAST • .207 
 
 From Harvest Moon (Houghton Mifflin Co.). 
 
 Robinson, Edwin Arlington : CASSANDRA . . .218 
 From The Man against the Sky (The Macmillan 
 Co.). 
 
 Sandburg, Carl : STATISTICS 222 
 
 From Others, an Anthology of the New Verse 
 (Alfred Knopf). 
 
 Scollard, Clinton : THE VALE OF SHADOWS . . 226 
 From The Vale of Shadows and other Verses of 
 the Great War (Lawrence J. Gomme). 
 
 Seeger, Alan: I HAVE A RENDEZVOUS WITH 
 
 DEATH 232 
 
 From The North American Beview. 
 
 Smith, Marion C. : HEART OF ALL THE WORLD . 242 
 
 From The Nation. 
 
 Swift, (Mrs.) Elizabeth Townsend : FROM AMERICA 252 
 From Pro Patria et Bege. 
 
 Teasdale, Sara : SPRING IN WAR TIME . . .259 
 From Bivers to the Sea (The Macmillan Co.). 
 
XX CONTENTS AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Thomas, Edith M.: SAID ATTILA THE HUN TO — 260 
 
 From The White Messenger (Eichard G. Badger, 
 Boston). 
 
 Towne, Charles Hanson : TO MY COUNTRY . . 265 
 From Today and Tomorrow (George H. DoranCo.) 
 
 Untermeyer, Louis : THE LAUGHERS . . . .269 
 From The Masses. 
 
 Van Vorst, Marie : THE AMERICAN VOLUNTEERS 273 
 From War Poems (Gay & Hancock, London). 
 
 Wharton, (Mrs.) Edith: BELGIUM. La Belgique ne 
 
 Begrette Bien 285 
 
 From King Albert's Book. 
 
 Widdemer, Margaret : THE WAKENED GOD . . 286 
 From Poetry. 
 
POEMS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
POEMS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 WRITTEN ON SERVICE IN EGYPT 1 
 
 Behind us in vermilion state 
 
 The sun fell to the rustling sea, 
 
 The grey-green twilight came and went, 
 
 And night involved my friend and me. 
 
 Now Egypt donned her fairest robes 
 Of glimmering moonshine cool and clear : 
 No more we talked, and silently 
 Made o'er the waste to Abu Qir. 
 
 For, with the twilight, twilight dreams 
 Had come and borne our souls away, 
 Though still our bodies onward fared 
 Toward the palm-trees and the bay. 
 
 And my companion now, I think, 
 With brother-artists once again 
 Was painting in the atelier, 
 Or down some dear Parisian lane 
 
 1 When last heard from, the author, who is a British 
 officer, was on service at Khartoum. 
 
 B 1 
 
ANONYMOUS 
 
 Was seeking with a motley throng 
 That well-remembered brasserie, 
 And Trilby, hanging on his arm, 
 Was laughing at him merrily. 
 
 But I, ah, where was I ? Afar 
 I'd flown to that enchanted shore, 
 Where o'er white-flashing waves the wind 
 From Donegal to Mullaghmore 
 Comes gallivanting bold and free — 
 God grant again I there may be, 
 At Mullaghmore, with Rosalind. 
 
RICHARD ALDINGTON 
 
 WAR YAWP 
 
 America ! 
 
 England's cheeky kid brother, 
 
 Who bloodily assaulted your august elder 
 
 At Bunker Hill and similar places 
 
 (Not mentioned in our history books), 
 
 What can J[ tell you of war or of peace f 
 
 Say, have you forgotten 1861 f 
 
 Bull Run, Gettysburg, Fredericksburg f 
 
 Your million dead f 
 
 Tell me, 
 
 Was that the greatest time of your lives 
 
 Or the most disastrous f 
 
 Who knows? Not you; not I. 
 
 Who can tell the end of this war f 
 
 And say, brother Jonathan, 
 
 D'you know what it's all about f 
 
 Let me whisper you a secret — we don't ! 
 
 We were all too fat with peace, 
 
 Or perhaps we didn't quite know how good peace was, 
 
 And so here we are, 
 
 And we're going to win. . . . 
 
 It's fine to be a soldier, 
 
 To get accepted by the recruiting sergeant, 
 
RICHARD ALDINGTON 
 
 Be trained, fitted with a uniform and a gun, 
 
 Say good-bye to your girl, 
 
 And go off to the front 
 
 Whistling, "It's a long way to Tipperary." 
 
 It's good to march forty miles a day, 
 
 Carrying ninety-one pounds on your back, 
 
 To eat good coarse food, get blistered, tired out, 
 
 wounded, 
 Thirst, starve, fight like a devil 
 (i.e., like you an' me, Jonathan), 
 With the Maxims zip-zipping 
 And the shrapnel squealing, 
 And the howitzers rumbling like the traffic in Picca- 
 
 dilly. 
 
 Civilization ? — 
 
 Jonathan, if you could hear them 
 
 Whistling the Marseillaise or Marching Through 
 
 Georgia, 
 You'd want to go too. 
 Twenty thousand a day, Jonathan ! 
 Perhaps you're more civilized just now than we are, 
 Perhaps we've only forgotten civilization for a 
 
 moment, 
 Perhaps we're really fighting for peace. 
 And after all it will be more fun afterwards — 
 More fun for the poets and the painters — 
 When the cheering's all over 
 
RICHARD ALDINGTON 
 
 And the dead men buried 
 
 And the rest gone back to their jobs. 
 
 It'll be more fun for them to make their patterns, 
 
 Their word-patterns and color-patterns. 
 
 And after all, there is always war and always peace, 
 
 Always the war of the crowds, 
 
 Always the great peace of the arts. 
 
 Even now, 
 
 With the war beating in great waves overhead, 
 
 Beating and roaring like great winds and mighty 
 
 waters, 
 The sea-gods still pattern the red seaweed fronds, 
 Still chip the amber into neck-chains 
 For Leucothea and Thetis. 
 Even now, 
 
 When the Marseillaise screams like a hurt woman, 
 And Paris — grisette among cities — trembles with 
 
 fear, 
 The poets still make their music 
 Which nobody listens to, 
 Which hardly anyone ever listened to. 
 
 The great crowds go by, 
 
 Fighting over each other's bodies in peace-time, 
 
 Fighting over each other's bodies in war-time. 
 
 Something of the strife comes to them 
 
 In their little, high rock-citadel of art, 
 
6 RICHARD ALDINGTON 
 
 Where they hammer their dreams in gold and 
 
 copper, 
 Where they cut them in pine-wood, in Parian stone, 
 
 in wax, 
 Where they sing them in sweet bizarre words 
 To the sound of antiquated shrill instruments ; 
 And they are happy. 
 
 The little rock-citadel of the artists 
 
 Is always besieged ; 
 
 There, though they have beauty and silence, 
 
 They have always tears and hunger and despair. 
 
 But that little citadel has held out 
 
 Against all the wars of the world — 
 
 Like England, brother Jonathan. 
 
 It will not fall during the great war. 
 
 There is always war and always peace ; 
 Always the war of the crowds, 
 Always the great peace of the arts. 
 
 1914. — Richard Aldington. 
 
 (No. 24,965, " E" Company, 11th Devons.) 
 
 
ELEANOR ALEXANDER 
 
 A NEGLECTED GARDEN 
 
 Barren the garden lies, undressed ; 
 Long weeds like serpents coil and squeeze 
 Forsaken loves of faithless bees, 
 Boughs broken, to the ground are pressed ; 
 Columbines, heartsease, picotees 
 No more greet evening from the West, 
 Nor lilies give their beauty to the night — 
 Where are the roses of our lost delight ? 
 
 Deep rooted, to the sun they glow 
 
 In a new world's eternal Spring ; 
 
 Low at our feet the tendrils cling, 
 
 High as the Himalayan snow 
 
 The birds among their branches sing ; 
 
 From crag and strand and plain they grow, 
 
 France, utmost Africa, the cold North Sea, 
 
 Mesopotamia and Gallipoli. 
 
 Let the neglected garden lie ! 
 There is no need for English flowers, 
 These, by a right divine, are ours, 
 These bloom forever under every sky, 
 Droop in no drought, thirst for no showers, 
 
8 ELEANOR ALEXANDER 
 
 These by no frosts of Autumn die, 
 Immortal loveliness for the bleak years, 
 Fed with our heart's blood, watered with our tears. 
 
 — Eleanor Alexander. 
 
HENRY ALLSOPP 9 
 
 YOUNG AND OLD 
 
 Young. What makes the dale so strange, my dear ? 
 
 What makes the dale so strange ? 
 Old. The men have gone from the dale, my dear, 
 
 And that makes all the change. 
 
 Young. The lanes and glens are still at night, 
 No laughter or songs I hear. 
 
 Old. Our lover-lads have marched to the fight 
 And maidens are lonely, my dear. 
 
 Young. The kine are slow to come to the call 
 That once were all so quick. 
 
 Old. They miss the voice known best of all, 
 Of John or brother Dick. 
 
 Young. And will the dale be always strange 
 And dull and sad, my dear ? 
 
 Old. Ay, lassie, we shall feel the change 
 For many a mournful year. 
 
 — Henry Allsopp. 
 
10 LIEUT. HERBERT ASQUITH 
 
 THE FALLEN SUBALTERN 
 
 The starshells float above, the bayonets glisten ; 
 We bear our fallen friend without a sound ; 
 Below the waiting legions lie and listen 
 To us, who march upon their burial-ground. 
 
 Wound in the flag of England, here we lay him ; 
 The guns will flash and thunder o'er the grave ; 
 What other winding sheet should now array him, 
 What other music should salute the brave ? 
 
 As goes the Sun-god in his chariot glorious, 
 When all his golden banners are unfurled, 
 So goes the soldier, fallen but victorious, 
 And leaves behind a twilight in the world. 
 
 And those who come this way in days hereafter 
 Will know that here a boy for England fell, 
 Who looked at danger with the eyes of laughter, 
 And on the charge his days were ended well. 
 
 One last salute ; the bayonets clash and glisten ; 
 With arms reversed we go without a sound : 
 One more has joined the men who lie and listen 
 To us, who march upon their burial-ground. 
 
 — Herbert Asquith. 
 
 1915. 
 
KARLE WILSON BAKER 11 
 
 UNSER GOTT 
 
 They held a great prayer-service in Berlin, 
 
 And augured German triumph from some words 
 
 Said to be spoken by the Jewish God 
 
 To Gideon, which signified that He 
 
 Was staunchly partial to the Israelites. 
 
 The aisles were thronged ; and in the royal box 
 
 (I had it from a tourist who was there, 
 
 Clutching her passport, anxious, like the rest), 
 
 There sat the Kaiser, looking "very sad." 
 
 And then they sang ; she said it shook the heart. 
 
 The women sobbed ; tears salted bearded lips 
 
 Unheeded ; and my friend looked back and saw 
 
 A young girl crumple in her mother's arms. 
 
 They carried out a score of them, she said, 
 
 While German hearts, through bursting German 
 
 throats 
 Poured out, Ein Feste Burg 1st Unser Gott ! 
 
 (Yea, " Unser Gott ! Our strength is Unser Gott ! 
 Not that light-minded Bon Dieu of France ! ") 
 
 I think we all have made our God too small. 
 There was a young man, a good while ago, 
 
12 KARLE WILSON BAKER 
 
 Who taught that doctrine . . . but they murdered 
 
 him 
 Because he wished to share the Jewish God 
 With other folk. 
 
 They are long-lived, these fierce 
 Old hating Gods of nations ; but at last 
 There surely will be spilled enough of blood 
 To drown them all ! The deeps of sea and air, 
 Of old the seat of gods, no more are safe, 
 For mines and monoplanes. The Germans, now, 
 Can surely find and rout the God of France 
 With Zeppelins, or some slim mother's son 
 Of Paris, or of Tours, or Brittany, 
 Can drop a bomb into the Feste Burg, 
 And, having crushed the source of German strength, 
 Die happy in his blazing monoplane. 
 
 Sad jesting ! If there be no God at all, 
 
 Save in the heart of man, why, even so — 
 
 Yea, all the more, — since we must make our God, 
 
 Oh, let us make Him large enough for all, 
 
 Or cease to prate of Him ! If kings must fight, 
 
 Let them fight for their glory, openly, 
 
 And plain men for their lands and for their homes, 
 
 And heady youths, who go to see the fun, 
 
 Blaspheme not God. True, maybe we might leave 
 
 The God of Germany to some poor frau 
 
 Who cannot go, who can but wait and mourn, 
 
KARLE WILSON BAKER 13 
 
 Except that she will teach Him to her sons — 
 A God quite scornful of the Slavic soul, 
 And much concerned to keep Alsace-Lorraine. 
 They should go godless, too — the poor, benumbed 
 Crushed, anguished women, till their hearts can 
 
 hold 
 A greater Comforter ! 
 
 (Yet it is hard 
 To make Him big enough ! For me, I like 
 The English and the Germans and the French, 
 The Russians, too ; and Servians, I should think, 
 Might well be very interesting to God. 
 But, do the best I may, my God is white, 
 And hardly takes a nigger seriously 
 This side of Africa. Not those, at least 
 Who steal my wood, and of a summer night 
 Keep me awake with shouting, where they sit 
 With monkey-like fidelity and glee 
 Grinding through their well-oiled sausage-mill — 
 The dead machinery of the white man's church — 
 Raw jungle-fervor, mixed with scraps sucked dry 
 Of Israel's old sublimities : not those. 
 And when they threaten us, the Higher Race, 
 Think you, which side is God's ? Oh, let us pray 
 Lest blood yet spurt to wash that black skin white, 
 As now it flows because a German hates 
 A Cossack, and an Austrian a Serb !) 
 
14 KARLE WILSON BAKER 
 
 What was it that he said so long ago, 
 The young man who outgrew the Jewish God — 
 " Not a sparrow f alleth — ? " Ah, God, God, 
 And there shall fall a million murdered men ! 
 
 — Karle Wilson Baker. 
 
HAROLD BEGBIE 15 
 
 NEUTRAL? 
 
 To the Humanity op America 
 
 When men are told in years ahead 
 
 How Fury forced the Belgian door 
 And ravished maids, struck children dead, 
 
 And fired the houses of the poor, 
 Will none, if still that nation lives 
 
 Our sires with blood and sweat begat, 
 Ask with the pride your greatness gives, 
 
 "What said America to that?" 
 
 Your children — taught how Belgium stood 
 
 In flames that once were called Louvain, 
 And dashing from her eyes the blood 
 
 Struck at her foe and struck again — 
 Shall feel their hearts within them burn 
 
 To know that righteous word you said ; 
 God ! When the silent truth they learn, 
 
 Surely your sons will hang the head. 
 
 We ask not that of all your hosts 
 One man, one sword be sacrificed : 
 
 Your cousins guard these ancient coasts, 
 Your kinsmen charge this Antichrist : 
 
16 HAROLD BEGBIE 
 
 But we expect your mighty voice 
 
 With judgment through the world to run, 
 
 O land of freedom, make your choice, 
 Are you for Belgium or the Hun ? 
 
 We ask not that your shells should shriek 
 
 Above the flaming hills we climb, 
 But speak, O sons of Lincoln, speak ! 
 
 Silence in such an hour is crime. 
 Your children judge you if you stand 
 
 In hearing of the Belgian cry, 
 Not only with the folded hand, 
 
 But with the cold, averted eye ! 
 
 The soul has got its piercing steel, 
 
 The heart its fierce consuming fire, 
 Oh, make your voice like thunder peal, 
 
 All nations of the earth inspire ! 
 We know your heart for Belgium bleeds, 
 
 But speak your soul, declare your mind, 
 Speak till the sin-red tyrant heeds 
 
 The voice of God and all mankind. 
 
 — Harold Begbie. 
 
WILLIAM ROSE BEKET 17 
 
 THE RED COUNTRY 
 
 In the red country 
 
 The sky flowers 
 
 All day. 
 
 Strange mechanical birds 
 
 With struts of wire and glazed wings 
 
 Cross the impassive sky 
 
 Which burgeons ever and again 
 
 With ephemeral unfolding flowers, 
 
 White and yellow and brown, 
 
 That spread and dissolve. 
 
 And smaller rapid droning birds go by, 
 
 And bright metallic bees whose sting is death. 
 
 Behind the hills, 
 
 Behind the whispering woods whose leaves are fall- 
 ing 
 Yellow and red to cover the red clay, 
 Misshapen monsters squat with wide black maws 
 Gulping smoke and belching flame. 
 From the mirk reed beds of the age of coal, 
 Wallowing out of their sleep in the earlier slime, 
 They are resurrected and stagger forth to slay — 
 The prehistoric Beasts we thought were dead. 
 
18 WILLIAM ROSE BEN&T 
 
 They are blinded with long sleep, 
 
 But men with clever weapons 
 
 Goad them to fresh pastures. 
 
 Beside still waters 
 
 They drink of blood and neigh a horrible laughter, 
 
 And their ponderous tread shakes happy cities 
 
 down, 
 And the thresh of their flail-like tails 
 Makes acres smoulder and smoke 
 Blackened of golden harvest. 
 
 The Beasts are back, 
 
 And men, in their spreading shadow, 
 
 Inhale the odor of their nauseous breath. 
 
 Inebriate with it they fashion other gods 
 
 Than the gods of day-dream. 
 
 Of iron and steel are little images 
 
 Made of the Beasts. 
 
 And men rush forth and fling themselves for ritual 
 
 Before these gods, before the lumbering Beasts, — 
 
 And some make long obeisance. 
 
 Umber and violet flowers of the sky, 
 
 The sun, like a blazing Mars, clanks across the 
 
 blue 
 And plucks you, to fashion into a nosegay 
 To offer Venus, his old-time paramour. 
 But now she shrinks 
 
WILLIAM ROSE BEN ft T 19 
 
 And pales 
 
 Like Cynthia, her more ascetic sister . . . 
 
 Vulcan came to her arms in the grimy garb 
 
 Of toil, he smelt of the forge and the racketing work- 
 shop, 
 
 But not of blood. 
 
 And, if she smells these flowers, they bubble ruby 
 blood 
 
 That trickles between her fingers. 
 
 Yet is a dream flowing over the red country, 
 
 Yet is a light growing, for all the black furrows of the 
 
 red country . . . 
 The machines are foe or friend 
 As the world desires. 
 The Beasts shall sleep again. 
 And in that sleep, when the land is twilight-still 
 And men take thought among the frozen waves of 
 
 the dead, 
 The Sowers go forth once more, 
 Sowers of vision, sowers of the seed 
 Of peace or war. 
 Shall it be peace indeed ? 
 Great shadowy figures moving from hill to hill 
 Of tangled bodies, with rhythmic stride and cowled 
 
 averted head, 
 What do you sow with hands funereal — 
 New savageries imperial, 
 
20 WILLIAM ROSE BENET 
 
 Unthinking pomps for arrogant, witless men ? 
 Or seed for the people in strong democracy ? 
 What do you see 
 
 With your secret eyes, and sow for us, that we must 
 reap again? 
 
 — William Rose Benet. 
 
LAURENCE BIN YON 21 
 
 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 stanch to the end against odds uncounted, 
 They fell with their faces to the foe. 
 
 They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old : 
 Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. 
 At the going down of the sun and in the morning 
 We will remember them. 
 
 They mingle not with their laughing comrades again ; 
 They sit no more at familiar tables of home ; 
 They have no lot in our labour of the day-time ; 
 They sleep beyond England's foam. 
 
22 LAURENCE BIN YON 
 
 But where our desires are and our hopes profound, 
 
 Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight, 
 
 To the innermost heart of their own land they are 
 
 known 
 As the stars are known to the Night ; 
 
 As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust, 
 Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain ; 
 As the stars that are starry in the time of our dark- 
 ness, 
 To the end, to the end, they remain. 
 
 — Laurence Binyon. 
 
WILFRID BLAIR 23 
 
 A BALLAD OF DEATHLESS DONS 
 OR: 
 "WHEN THE ASSAULT WAS INTENDED 
 TO THE CITY" 
 
 (In honor of an Oxford Corps composed of those con- 
 cerning whom it may be said most truly, in Mr. Belloc's 
 words, that they are 
 
 " Dons admirable ! Dons of Might ! . . . 
 Dons English, worthy of the land.") 
 
 The Regulars fight with all their might, the Navy 
 
 keeps the seas, 
 The Terrier * sniffs on bridges and cliffs, wherever a 
 
 foe might sneeze, 
 K's keen recruit is learning to shoot, the Boy Scout 
 
 scouteth still, — 
 And after them all, the dons, the dons ! — the aged 
 
 dons do drill ! 
 
 1 Obsolete word signifying a mere voluntary fighter unfit 
 even for adequate defence purposes. 
 
24 WILFRID BLAIR 
 
 They know, they know how well things go on the 
 
 Merton fields of France ; 
 But the S.C.R.'s must be fields of Mars — they dare 
 
 leave nought to chance ; 
 "Louvain \" is the word, and their souls are stirred ; 
 
 for they think of their matchless tuns, 
 And the ground shall be dusted ere Oxford's crusted 
 
 port shall be broached by Huns. 
 
 II 
 
 The proud Professors toe the line 
 
 And turn to the left for right incline. 
 
 Forgot, forgot are their divers lores 
 
 In the patriot stress of forming fours. 
 
 Their mortar-boards are a hive for bees 
 
 (Which they often were) as they stand at ease. 
 
 Though every morn they are wisdom's fount 
 
 In matters which nowadays hardly count, 
 
 Each afternoon each neophyte 
 
 Gets totally mixed between left and right 
 
 (And a don at maths, and a logic don 
 
 Turn each to each and are pounced upon) . 
 
 At the terrible voice of the tu — the sergeant 
 
 Their gills go gules and their locks more argent. 
 
 And still as the breath comes short, and the knees 
 
 Wobble in places, and many a wheeze 
 
 Is torn from the depth of complaining turns, 
 
 Down the weak line the whisper comes : 
 
WILFRID BLAIR 25 
 
 "Memento Louvain !" — or "Rheims, fiefivrjade I" 
 " Oxford ! " they cry, " shall beer-swillers fleece thee ? " 
 And still — though their breath comes yet more 
 
 short — 
 They drill like mad to preserve her port. 
 
 Ill 
 
 See, in the foremost rank, 
 
 His brow with sudor dank, 
 
 His gown unpipeclayed in his loyal hurry, 
 
 Private Professor Gilbert Murray ! — 
 
 Hear, oh, hear, 
 
 With almost swooning ear, 
 
 The sergeant (Chiron in disguise), 
 
 With how sarcastic drawl he 
 
 Damneth the eyes 
 
 Of Private Prof. Eng. Lit. Sir Walter Raleigh ! — 
 
 See yet again 
 
 With uncontrolled pleasure 
 
 There, marking time amain 
 
 As with such feet as make a lyric measure, 
 
 Like iEschylus upon the Marathon day, — 
 
 Next to that nice ex-proctor, — 
 
 Private and Poet Laureate Dr. 
 
 Bridges, M.A. ! — 
 
 And see — but let your eyes with pride be dim ! — 
 
 Him who professes Art and Archaeology 
 
 Standing as rear-rank man to him 
 
 Of Anthropology. 
 
26 WILFRID BLAIR 
 
 (Well knows the latter how to dodge, 
 
 That bullets in no deadly place may lodge !) — 
 
 Him of Eng. Law behold, 
 
 Not overbold 
 
 To reason why when sergeants bid him charge : 
 
 Him of Greek History, him of Geography, 
 
 All very fine arid large, 
 
 This, swift to seize advantage of topography, 
 
 That, to announce how ne'er a corps did train 
 
 So well since Sparta went upon the wane. 
 
 And there be others : 
 
 A publisher and sundry heads of houses, 
 
 Spurred by North Oxford spouses, 
 
 Bidden go forth by yet more aged mothers ; 
 
 And, standing desperately at attention 
 
 (But looking forward to their tea and scones), 
 
 Innumerable dons 
 
 And parsons beyond mention. 
 
 IV 
 
 They are not afraid of the Boys' Brigade, for they've 
 
 taken the kiddies' guns, 
 Which shoot nohow — but they've learnt by now to 
 
 depend on the end that stuns. 
 And all the rules of the Final Schools combine in a 
 
 splendid spur, 
 When the Pyrrhic phalanx does right-about-turn 
 
 and the order is "As you were !" 
 
WILFRID BLAIR 27 
 
 Oh, K's recruit is learning to shoot, the Boy Scout 
 
 scouteth still, — 
 But after them all, the dons, the dons ! — the deathless 
 
 dons do drill ! 
 " Loumin!" is the word, and their souls are stirred; 
 
 for they think of their matchless tuns, 
 And the ground shall be dusted ere Oxford's crusted 
 
 port shall be broached by Huns ! 
 
 — Wilfrid Blair. 
 
28 H. W. BLISS 
 
 "ANY FRIEND TO ANY FRIEND" 
 
 Ev'n as I thought of you your soul had sped, 
 
 Friend of old, happy, far-off boyhood days, 
 
 And, as across the sea I turned my gaze, 
 
 The soil of France with your brave blood was red ! 
 
 Blame not the shears that slit the thin yarn thread. 
 
 Though life be lost, immortal is the praise ! 
 
 Would I were with you crowned with victory's 
 
 bays, 
 O Happy Warrior 'midst our English dead ! 
 
 Yea ! God of Battles, what a time to die ! 
 Thy Courts are echoing to the tuck of drum, 
 The wide days flame with comet souls that fly 
 Triumphant, at a bound, from Earth to Heaven, 
 The nights ablaze, with their white passage riven, 
 As, trailing clouds of glory, swift they come. 
 
 — H . W. Bliss. 
 
MAXWELL BODENHEIM 29 
 
 THE CAMP-FOLLOWER 
 
 We spoke, the camp-follower and I. 
 
 About us was a cold, pungent odor — 
 
 Gun-powder, stale wine, wet earth, and the smell of 
 thousands of men. 
 
 She said it reminded her of the scent 
 
 In the house of prostitutes she had lived in. 
 
 About us were soldiers — hordes of scarlet women, 
 stupidly, smilingly giving up their bodies 
 
 To a putrid-lipped, chuckling lover — Death ; 
 
 While their mistress in tinsel whipped them on. . . . 
 
 She spoke of a woman she had known in Odessa, 
 
 Owner of a huge band of girls, 
 
 Who had pocketed their earnings for years, 
 
 Only to be used, swindled and killed by some noble- 
 man. . . . 
 
 She said she thought of this grinning woman 
 
 Whenever she saw an officer brought back from 
 battle, dead. . . . 
 
 And I sat beside her and wondered. 
 
 — Maxwell Bodenheim. 
 
30 F. W. BOURDILLON 
 
 HERE: AND THERE 
 
 September, 1914 
 
 HERE 
 
 Soft benediction of September sun ; 
 Voices of children, laughing as they run; 
 Green English lawns, bright flowers and butterflies; 
 And over all the blue embracing skies. 
 
 THERE 
 
 Tumult and roaring of the incessant gun; 
 Dead men and dying, trenches lost and won ; 
 Blood, mud, and havoc, bugles, shoutings, cries; 
 And over all the blue embracing skies. 
 
 — F. W. Bourdillon. 
 
ROBERT BRIDGES 31 
 
 LORD KITCHENER 
 
 Unflinching hero, watchful to foresee 
 
 And face thy country's peril wheresoever, 
 
 Directing war and peace with equal care, 
 
 Till by long toil ennobled thou wert he 
 
 Whom England call'd and bade "Set my arm free 
 
 To obey my will and save my honour fair" — 
 
 What day the foe presumed on her despair 
 
 And she herself had trust in none but thee : 
 
 Among Herculean deeds the miracle 
 
 That mass'd the labour of ten years in one 
 
 Shall be thy monument. Thy work is done 
 
 Ere we could thank thee ; and the high sea swell 
 
 Surgeth unheeding where thy proud ship fell 
 
 By the lone Orkneys, ere the set of sun. 
 
 — Robert Bridges. 
 June 8, 1916. 
 
32 ALTER BRODY 
 
 KARTUSHKIYA-BEROZA 
 
 It is twelve years since I have been there — 
 
 I was born there, 
 
 In the little town, by the river — 
 
 It all comes back to me now 
 
 Reading in the newspaper : 
 
 " The Germans have seized the bridge-head at Kartush- 
 kiya-Beroza; 
 
 The Russians are retreating in good order across the 
 marshes; 
 
 The town is inflames." 
 
 Kartushkiya-Beroza ! 
 Sweet-sounding, time-scented name — 
 Smelling of wide-extending marshes of hay ; 
 Smelling of cornfields ; 
 Smelling of apple-orchards ; 
 Smelling of cherry-trees in full blossom ; 
 Smelling of all the pleasant recollections of my child- 
 hood — 
 Smelling of Grandmother's kitchen, 
 Grandmother's freshly-baked dainties, 
 Grandmother's plum-pudding — 
 Kartushkiya-Beroza ! 
 
ALTER BRODY 33 
 
 I see before me a lane running between two rows of 
 
 straggling cottages — 
 I cannot remember the name of the lane ; 
 I do not know whether it has any name at all ; 
 But I remember it was broad and unpaven and 
 
 shaded with wide-branching chestnuts — 
 And enters the market-place 
 Just a few houses after my Grandfather's — 
 Kartushkiya-Beroza ! 
 
 I can see it even now 
 
 My Grandfather's house — 
 
 On the lane, to the right, as you come from the mar- 
 ket-place ; 
 
 A big, hospitable frame building — 
 
 Big like my Grandfather's own heart, 
 
 And hospitable like Grandmother's smile — 
 
 I can see it even now, 
 
 With the white-pillared porch in the centre and the 
 sharp-gabled roof 
 
 Pierced with little windows ; 
 
 And the great quadrangular garden behind it ; 
 
 And the tall fence surrounding the garden ; 
 
 And the old well in the corner of the garden ; 
 
 With the bucket-lift 
 
 Rising over the fence — 
 
 Kartiishkiva-Beroza ! 
 
34 ALTER BRODY 
 
 I can see him even now, 
 
 My Grandfather — 
 
 Bending over me, tall and sad-eyed and thought- 
 ful- 
 Lifting me up and seating me on his knees 
 
 Lovingly, 
 
 And listening to all my childish questions and con- 
 fessions ; 
 
 Pardoning, admonishing, remonstrating — 
 
 Satisfying my interrogative soul with good-humored 
 indulgence — 
 
 And my Grandmother, 
 
 Dear little woman ! 
 
 I can never dissociate her from plum-pudding and 
 apple dumplings, 
 
 And raisin-cakes and almond cakes and crisp potato- 
 pancakes 
 
 And the smell of fish frying on the fire — 
 
 And then there is my cousin, Miriam, 
 
 Who lived in the yellow house across the lane — 
 
 A freckle-faced, cherry-eyed little girl with a puckered- 
 up nose. 
 
 I was very romantic about her ; 
 
 And then there is my curse, my rival at school, my 
 arch-enemy — 
 
 Jacob, 
 
 The synagogue sexton's boy, 
 
 On whom I was always warring — 
 
ALTER BRODY 35 
 
 God knows on what battlefield he must be lying 
 
 now! 
 And then there is Nathan and Joseph and Berel and 
 
 Solomon 
 And Ephraim, the baker's boy, 
 And Baruch and Gershen and Mendel 
 And long-legged, sandy-haired Emanuel who fell into 
 
 the pond with me that time, 
 While we were skating on the ice — 
 Kartushkiya-Beroza ! 
 
 I can see myself even now 
 
 In the lane on a summer's day, 
 
 Cap in hand, chasing after dragon-flies — 
 
 Suddenly, near by, sounds the noise of drums and 
 
 bugles — 
 I know what that means ! 
 Breathlessly I dash up the lane — 
 It is the regiment quartered in the barracks at the 
 
 end of the town, in its annual parade on the 
 
 highway — 
 How I would wish to be one of those gray-coated 
 
 heroes ! 
 I watch them eager-eyed — 
 And run after them until they reach the Gentile 
 
 Quarter — 
 And then I turn back — 
 Kartushkiya-Beroza ! 
 
36 ALTER BRODY 
 
 I am in the market-place — 
 
 At a Fair ; 
 
 The market-place is a heaving mass of carts and 
 
 horses and oxen ; 
 The oxen are lowing, the horses are neighing, the 
 
 peasants are cursing in a dozen different dia- 
 lects — 
 I am in Grandfather's store, 
 On the lower end of the market-place, right opposite 
 
 the public well — 
 The store is full of peasants and peasant women, 
 
 bargaining at the top of their voices ; 
 The men are clad in rough sheepskin coats and fur 
 
 caps; 
 The women are gay in bright-colored cottons and 
 
 wear red kerchiefs around their heads ; 
 My Grandfather is standing behind the counter 
 
 measuring out rope to some peasants ; 
 Grandmother is cutting a strip of linen for a peasant 
 
 woman, chaffering with another one at the same 
 
 time, about the price of a pair of sandals — 
 And I am sitting there, behind the counter, on a 
 
 sack of flour, 
 Playing with my black-eyed little cousin — 
 
 Kartfishkiya-Beroza ! 
 Karttishkiya-Beroza ! 
 It comes back to me suddenly 
 
ALTER BRODY 37 
 
 That I am sitting here, with a newspaper in my hand, 
 
 Reading : 
 
 " The Germans have seized the bridge-head at Kartush- 
 
 kiya-Beroza; 
 The Russians are retreating in good order across the 
 
 marshes; 
 The town is inflames!" 
 
 — Alter Brody. 
 
38 RUPERT BROOKE 
 
 THE SOLDIER 
 
 If I should die, think only this of me : 
 
 That there's some corner of a foreign field 
 That is for ever England. There shall be 
 
 In that rich earth a richer dust concealed ; 
 A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware, 
 
 Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam, 
 A body of England's, breathing English air, 
 
 Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home. 
 
 And think, this heart, all evil shed away, 
 A pulse in the eternal mind, no less 
 
 Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England 
 given ; 
 Her sights and sounds ; dreams happy as her day ; 
 And laughter, learnt of friends ; and gentleness, 
 In hearts at peace, under an English heaven. 
 
 — Rupert Brooke. 
 
 (A sublieutenant in the volunteer Naval Reserve, 
 Rupert Brooke died from sunstroke on his way to the 
 Dardanelles on April 23, 1915, and was buried in the 
 Greek island of Skyros.) 
 
LORD BURGHCLERE 39 
 
 AFTERMATH 
 
 Yes, he is gone, there is the message, see ! 
 
 Slain by a Prussian bullet as he led 
 
 The men that loved him — dying, cheered them 
 
 on — 
 My son, my eldest son. So be it, God ! 
 
 This is no time for tears, no time to mourn, 
 No time for sombre draperies of woe. 
 Let the aggressors weep ! for they have sinned 
 The sin of Satan. Lust of power and pride, 
 Mean envy of their neighbors' weal, a plot 
 Hatched amidst glozing smiles and prate of peace 
 Through the false years ; until the Day, the Day 
 When all this worship at the Devil's feet 
 Should win the world. Ay, let them weep ! 
 
 But we 
 With eyes undimmed march on; our mourning 
 
 robes 
 Be-jewelled by the deeds of those that die, 
 Lustre on lustre, till no sable patch 
 Peeps through their brilliance. 
 
 In the years to come, 
 When we have done our work, and God's own peace, 
 
40 LORD BURGHCLERE 
 
 The Peace of Justice, Mercy, Righteousness, 
 Like the still radiance of a summer's dawn, 
 With tranquil glory floods a troubled world ; 
 Why then, perhaps, in the old hall at home, 
 Where once I dreamed my eldest-born should stand 
 The master, as I stand the master now, 
 Our eyes, my wife, shall meet and gleam, and mark 
 Niched on the walls in sanctity of pride, 
 Hal's sword, Dick's medal, and the cross he won 
 Yet never wore. That is the time for tears, 
 Drawn from a well of love deep down ; deep down, 
 Deep as the mystery of immortal souls, 
 That is the time for tears ; not now, not now ! 
 
 — Burghclere. 
 
DANA BURNETT 41 
 
 THE RETURN 
 
 Home across the clover 
 
 When the war was over 
 
 Came the young men slowly with an air of being old, 
 
 On a morning blue and gold 
 
 Through the weed-grown meadow-places 
 
 Marched young soldiers with old faces, 
 
 Marched the columns of the Emperor with dull, 
 
 bewildered eyes, 
 And the day was like a rose upon the skies ; 
 But they feared both light and life, 
 Feared the aftermath of strife. 
 Slow they came — 
 
 Now that it was over — 
 Silent and sick and lame, 
 
 Home across the clover. 
 
 A woman knelt in a garden by the road, 
 
 Patting a little mound of earth 
 With aimless hands. Along the highway flowed 
 
 The gray tide, while the day was at its birth. 
 She heard the drums, looked up, half smiled : 
 
 "Why do you march," she said, "and play at 
 soldiers ? 
 
42 DANA BURNET 
 
 There's none to laugh at you — no little child ! 
 
 Not one. They've all gone back to sleeping." 
 
 She fell to awful weeping. 
 
 "Why do you play at soldiers?" 
 Then dropped down 
 
 To pat the little grave. The line went on and on 
 into the town. 
 
 They saw it first in the city's eyes, 
 
 Old men grouped by their fright, ran here and there 
 In startled herds, with shrill unmeaning cries. 
 
 And there was white in every woman's hair, 
 And when a window yielded them a face 
 
 'Twas like a flower blasted by the sun; 
 
 Children there were none. 
 The world seemed robbed of joyousness and grace, 
 
 A young girl with a head of snow 
 Sat weaving garlands in the market-place 
 
 With hands unearthly slow, 
 As though her toil must be 
 The very measure of eternity. 
 
 A boy ran from the ranks, stooped, touched her brow ; 
 " M argot, M argot ! Is it thou f " 
 She did not glance up at the white-faced lad. 
 
 Deep in the gray line rang a sudden shout : 
 " They're mad ! They're mad ! " 
 
 " Silence, you dogs, until you're mustered out. 
 Forward, to greet the Emperor /" 
 
DANA BURNET 43 
 
 The line 
 Wavered and moaned and stumbled through the 
 town 
 Like some dark serpent with a broken spine. 
 Before the palace gate, in cloak and crown, 
 A shriveled figure sat with shaking hands, 
 Forming toy soldiers into various bands. 
 A figure in a jeweled diadem, 
 
 Who, as the swords leaped with a ringing noise, 
 Lifted his wasted eyes and looked at them. 
 "Ah I" said the Emperor, and smiled : 
 "More toys!" 
 
 — Dana Burnet. 
 
44 AMELIA JOSEPHINE BURR 
 
 KITCHENER'S MARCH 
 
 Not the muffled drums for him 
 Nor the wailing of the fife. 
 Trumpets blaring to the charge 
 Were the music of his life. 
 Let the music of his death 
 Be the feet of marching men ; 
 Let his heart a thousandfold 
 Take the field again. 
 
 Of his patience, of his calm, 
 Of his quiet faithfulness, 
 England, raise your hero's cairn 
 He is worthy of no less. 
 Stone by stone, in silence laid, 
 Singly, surely, let it grow. 
 He whose living was to serve, 
 Would have had it so. 
 
 There's a body drifting down 
 For the mighty sea to keep. 
 There's a spirit cannot die 
 While a heart is left to leap 
 In the land he gave his all, 
 Steel alike to praise and hate. 
 
AMELIA JOSEPHINE BURR 45 
 
 He has saved the life he spent, 
 Death has struck too late. 
 
 Not the muffled drums for him. 
 Nor the wailing of the fife — 
 Trumpets blaring to the charge 
 Were the music of his life. 
 Let the music of his death 
 Be the feet of marching men ! 
 Let his heart a thousandfold 
 Take the field again ! 
 
 — Amelia Josephine Burr. 
 
46 WILFRED CAMPBELL 
 
 LANGEMARCK AT YPRES 
 
 This is the ballad of Langemarck, 
 
 A story of glory and might ; 
 Of the vast Hun horde, and Canada's part 
 
 In the great, grim fight. 
 
 It was April fair on the Flanders Fields, 
 
 But the dreadest April then, 
 That ever the years, in their fateful flight, 
 
 Had brought to this world of men. 
 
 North and east, a monster wall, 
 
 The mighty Hun ranks lay, 
 With fort on fort, and iron-ringed trench, 
 
 Menacing, grim and gray. 
 
 And south and west, like a serpent of fire, 
 
 Serried the British lines, 
 And in between, the dying and dead, 
 And the stench of blood, and the trampled mud, 
 
 On the fair, sweet Belgian vines. 
 
 And far to the eastward, harnessed and taut, 
 
 Like a scimitar, shining and keen, 
 Gleaming out of that ominous gloom, 
 
 Old France's hosts were seen. 
 
WILFRED CAMPBELL 47 
 
 When out of the grim Hun lines one night, 
 
 There rolled a sinister smoke ; — 
 A strange, weird cloud, like a pale, green shroud, 
 
 And death lurked in its cloak. 
 
 On a fiend-like wind it curled along 
 
 Over the brave French ranks, 
 Like a monster tree its vapors spread, 
 
 In hideous, burning banks 
 Of poisonous fumes that scorched the night 
 
 With their sulphurous demon danks. 
 
 And men went mad with horror, and fled 
 From that terrible strangling death, 
 
 That seemed to sear both body and soul 
 With its baleful, flaming breath. 
 
 Till even the little dark men of the south, 
 
 Who feared neither God nor man, 
 Those fierce, wild fighters of Afric's steppes, 
 
 Broke their battalions and ran ; — 
 
 Ran as they never had run before, 
 
 Gasping, and fainting for breath ; 
 For they knew 'twas no human foe that slew ; 
 
 And that hideous smoke meant death. 
 
 Then red in the reek of that evil cloud, 
 The Hun swept over the plain ; 
 
48 WILFRED CAMPBELL 
 
 And the murderer's dirk did its monster work, 
 Mid the scythe-like shrapnel rain. 
 
 Till it seemed that at last the brute Hun hordes 
 
 Had broken that wall of steel ; 
 And that soon, through this breach in the freeman's 
 dyke, 
 
 His trampling hosts would wheel ; — 
 
 And sweep to the south in ravaging might, 
 
 And Europe's peoples again 
 Be trodden under the tyrant's heel, 
 
 Like herds, in the Prussian pen. 
 
 But in that line on the British right, 
 
 There massed a corps amain, 
 Of men who hailed from a far west land 
 
 Of mountain and forest and plain ; 
 
 Men new to war and its dreadest deeds, 
 
 But noble and staunch and true ; 
 Men of the open, East and West, 
 Brew of old Britain's brew. 
 
 These were the men out there that night, 
 
 When Hell loomed close ahead ; 
 Who saw that pitiful, hideous rout, 
 
 And breathed those gases dread ; 
 While some went under and some went mad ; 
 
 But never a man there fled. 
 
WILFRED CAMPBELL 49 
 
 For the word was "Canada," theirs to fight, 
 
 And keep on fighting still ; — 
 Britain said, fight, and fight they would, 
 
 Though the Devil himself in sulphurous mood, 
 Came over that hideous hill. 
 
 Yea, stubborn, they stood, that hero band, 
 
 Where no soul hoped to live ; 
 For five, 'gainst eighty, thousand men, 
 
 Were hopeless odds to give. 
 
 Yea, fought they on ! 'Twas Friday eve, 
 When that demon gas drove down ; 
 
 'Twas Saturday eve that saw them still 
 Grimly holding their own ; 
 
 Sunday, Monday, saw them yet, 
 
 A steadily lessening band, 
 With "no surrender" in their hearts, 
 
 But the dream of a far-off land, 
 
 Where mother and sister and love would weep 
 For the hushed heart lying still ; — 
 
 But never a thought but to do their part, 
 And work the Empire's will. 
 
 Ringed round, hemmed in, and back to back, 
 
 They fought there under the dark, 
 And won for Empire, God and Right, 
 
 At grim, red Langemarck. 
 
 E 
 
50 WILFRED CAMPBELL 
 
 Wonderful battles have shaken this world, 
 
 Since the Dawn-God overthrew Dis ; 
 Wonderful struggles of right against wrong, 
 Sung in the rhymes of the world's great song, 
 But never a greater than this. 
 
 Bannockburn, Inkerman, Balaclava, 
 
 Marathon's god-like stand ; 
 But never a more heroic deed, 
 And never a greater warrior breed, 
 
 In any warman's land. 
 
 This is the ballad of Langemarck, 
 
 A story of glory and might ; 
 Of the vast Hun horde, and Canada's part 
 
 In the great, grim fight. 
 
 — Wilfred Campbell. 
 
 Editorial Note: A son of Mr. Wilfred Campbell, the 
 poet, is now fighting at St. Eloi. He is Capt. Basil Camp- 
 bell, of the Second Pioneers. 
 
PATRICK R. CHALMERS 51 
 
 GUNS OF VERDUN 
 
 (Reprinted by the special permission of the proprietors 
 of Punch.) 
 
 Guns of Verdun point to Metz 
 From the plated parapets ; 
 Guns of Metz grin back again 
 O'er the fields of fair Lorraine. 
 
 Guns of Metz are long and grey 
 Growling through a summer day ; 
 Guns of Verdun, grey and long, 
 Boom an echo of their song. 
 
 Guns of Metz to Verdun roar, 
 "Sisters, you shall foot the score;" 
 Guns of Verdun say to Metz, 
 "Fear not, for we pay our debts." 
 
 Guns of Metz they grumble, "When?" 
 Guns of Verdun answer then, 
 "Sisters, when to guard Lorraine 
 Gunners lay you East again !" 
 
 — Patrick R. Chalmers. 
 
52 ANNIE VIVANTI CHARTRES 
 
 THE BROKEN ROSE 
 
 TO KING ALBERT 
 
 Shy, youthful, silent — and misunderstood 
 
 In the white glare of Kinghood thou didst stand. 
 
 The sceptre in thy hand 
 
 Seemed but a flower the Fates had tossed to thee, 
 
 And thou wert called, perchance half -scornfully, 
 
 Albert the Good. 
 
 To-day thou standest on a blackened grave, 
 Thy broken sword still lifted to the skies. 
 Thy pure and fearless eyes 
 Gaze into Death's grim visage unappalled 
 And by the storm-swept nations thou art called 
 Albert the Brave. 
 
 Tossed on a blood-red sea of rage and hate 
 
 The frenzied world rolls forward to its doom. 
 
 But high above the gloom 
 
 Flashes the fulgent beacon of thy fame, 
 
 The nations thou hast saved exalt thy name — 
 
 Albert the Great ! 
 
ANNIE VIVANTI CHARTRES 53 
 
 Albert the good, the brave, the great, thy land 
 
 Lies at thy feet, a crushed and morient rose 
 
 Trampled and desecrated by thy foes. 
 
 One day a greater Belgium will be born, 
 
 But what of this dead Belgium wracked and torn ? 
 
 What of this rose flung out upon the sand? . . . 
 
 Behold ! Afar where sky and waters meet 
 A white-robed Figure walketh on the sea. 
 (Peace goes before Him and her face is sweet.) 
 As once He trod the waves of Galilee 
 He comes again — the tumult sinks to rest, 
 The stormy waters shine beneath His feet. 
 He sees the dead rose lying in the sand, 
 He lifts the dead rose in His holy hand 
 And lays it at His breast. 
 
 O broken rose of Belgium, thou art blest ! 
 
 — Annie Vivanti Chartres. 
 
54 GILBERT K. CHESTERTON 
 
 THE WIFE OF FLANDERS 
 
 Low and brown barns thatched and repatched and 
 tattered 
 
 Where I had seven sons until to-day, 
 A little hill of hay your spur has scattered . . . 
 
 This is not Paris. You have lost the way. 
 
 You, staring at your sword to find it brittle, 
 Surprised at the surprise that was your plan, 
 
 Who, shaking and breaking barriers not a little, 
 Find never more the death-door of Sedan. 
 
 Must I for more than carnage call you claimant, 
 Paying you a penny for each son you slay ? 
 
 Man, the whole globe in gold were no repayment 
 For what you have lost. And how shall I 
 repay ? 
 
 What is the price of that red spark that caught 
 me 
 From a kind farm that never had a name ? 
 What is the price of that dead man they brought 
 me? 
 For other dead men do not look the same. 
 
GILBERT K. CHESTERTON 55 
 
 How should I pay for one poor graven steeple 
 Whereon you shattered what you shall not know, 
 
 How should I pay you, miserable people ? 
 How should I pay you everything you owe ? 
 
 Unhappy, can I give you back your honor ?] 
 Though I forgave would any man forget ? 
 
 While all the great green land has trampled on her 
 The treason and terror of the night we met. 
 
 Not any more in vengeance or in pardon 
 An old wife bargains for a bean that's hers. 
 
 You have no word to break ; no heart to harden. 
 Ride on and prosper. You have lost your spurs. 
 
 — Gilbert K. Chesterton. 
 
56 THE REV. PHILIP BYARD CLAYTON 
 
 THEY HELD THEIR GROUND 
 
 Grey broke the light of that Sabbath dawn 
 
 On the English pickets, 
 Gold rose the sun o'er the unreaped corn 
 
 And the Hainault thickets. 
 Through the park at home, where the young rooks 
 
 caw'd, 
 And the dew lay deep on the churchyard sward, 
 Went Mary, arisen to meet her Lord — 
 While Mons must be held for England. 
 
 Clear broke the day as the bugles blew, — 
 
 Who shall hear them to-morrow ? 
 Sternly the thunder of Edom grew, 
 
 And the tally of sorrow. 
 Right wing, left wing, centre attacked, 
 Legions launched like a cataract, 
 But the English stood to their plighted pact, — 
 Yes, Mons must be held for England ! 
 
 Pitiless noon, when the screaming shard 
 
 Left the air acrid. 
 But they looked on Malplaquet and Oudenarde, 
 
 So the soil was sacred. 
 
THE REV. PHILIP BYARD CLAYTON 57 
 
 And they thought (who knows?) on some Surrey 
 
 lane, 
 On some mother's kiss, or some school refrain, 
 And they tightened the girths of their saddles 
 
 again, 
 Since Mons must be held for England. 
 
 Red set the sun in the angry skies 
 
 Ere the fight was over. 
 Fierce were the beams of the cruisers' eyes 
 
 By the cliffs of Dover. 
 News — ill news — for Namur is lost ! 
 No need for the Eagle to count the cost. 
 But Mons was the merest hill at the most, 
 Yet Mons had been held for England. 
 
 Lord, Who hast known what a slain Son is, 
 
 Judge Thou their labor ! 
 Lifted they eyes to the vanities ? 
 
 Deceived their neighbor ? 
 Sift Thou the souls that are utterly Thine, 
 Clean are those cold hands of covert design ; 
 Silent they lie in their last long line, 
 Who died to hold Mons for England ! 
 
 — Philip Byard Clayton. 
 
58 LINCOLN COLCORD 
 
 VISION OF WAR 
 
 1. 
 
 I went out into the night of quiet stars ; 
 
 I looked up at the wheeling heavens, at the myste- 
 rious firmament ; 
 
 I thought of the awful distances out there, of the 
 incredible magnitudes, of space and silence and 
 eternity ; 
 
 I thought of man, his life, his love, his dream ; 
 
 I thought of his body, how it is born and grows, and 
 of his spirit that cannot be explained. 
 
 All about me slept the land in peace, and nature 
 
 slept in deep serenity ; 
 An off-shore wind had died at sunset, the bay was 
 
 calm and golden as twilight fell ; 
 Not a cloud broke the clear and tender blue of the 
 
 evening sky. 
 Then the quiet stars came out, the air grew cool with 
 
 the breath of night ; 
 A land-breeze flurried, wafting the odor of damp 
 
 woods and late hay-fields ; 
 A gentle breeze, that scarcely turned the sleeping 
 
 leaves. 
 
LINCOLN COLCORD 59 
 
 I walked on through the village, I saw the lights go 
 out in houses as men and women prepared for 
 bed; 
 
 Safe and secure, the homes of my neighbors rested 
 in the shadow of tall trees, that had been 
 growing there peacefully a long time ; 
 
 I passed on into the country, crickets were singing 
 in the fields, fireflies were glimmering in the 
 pastures among low growths of spruce and 
 pine; 
 
 I mounted a hill, high overhead brooded the ma- 
 jestic and silent heavens ; 
 
 On the eastern horizon a great bright star arose, 
 casting a track across the bay. 
 
 I have never seen the world so calm, the air so clear 
 
 and still ; 
 I have never known an hour so full of quietness. 
 
 2. 
 
 Hour of the War ! 
 
 Now, now — and here — on this same earth, and 
 
 under this same sky ! 
 Now ! — Now ! — The War ! — The War ! — The 
 
 War! 
 
 Night, and a sodden field, and starlight over all, 
 And on the ground the bodies of dead men lying ; 
 
60 LINCOLN COLCORD 
 
 Tumbled, broken, grotesque, in attitudes unhuman, 
 in lumpish, swollen heaps, they lie, 
 
 Where death suddenly snatched them up and flung 
 them down. 
 
 A strange, dark, silent scene ; 
 
 Here passed the awful charge three days ago ; 
 
 Here met the choking volley, shattered out and fell. 
 
 Three days and nights they have been lying here ; 
 No help could reach them, cast between the battle 
 
 lines ; 
 No help is needed now. 
 
 Slowly above their heads the conflict wore itself 
 
 away ; 
 Calm settled on the shaking, riven air ; 
 The sharp cries of the wounded stopped one by one, 
 
 their groans grew fainter ; 
 A few crawled off — the others lay as they had 
 
 fallen, under the sun and stars ; 
 Then the third night, and peace at last, the quietness 
 
 restored. 
 
 3. 
 
 Listen ! — could one be living ? — come this way ; 
 
 Here where a score of bodies are drawn mysteriously 
 
 together, 
 A turning face catches a gleam of starlight, 
 
 A hand moves, winnowing the air. 
 
LINCOLN COLCORD 61 
 
 " Water ! " — No use, no use — too late ; 
 
 His breast is shot away — don't move him — God, 
 
 how he bled ! 
 What is it, comrade? A letter — make a light: 
 " We have not heard since you left home. ... 7 cannot 
 
 bear it. . . . " 
 Turn the sheet over: — "Oh, my dear, be careful !" 
 Here is the signature — the address — a distant 
 
 village ; 
 I have been there — an ancient, quiet village of the 
 
 north, 
 Fronting the open sea. 
 Yes, comrade, I will write — he smiles : 
 To lie here, thinking, suffering, remembering ; 
 To be left to die alone ! 
 
 4. 
 
 But not alone : 
 
 Passing brother, you have yet a grim companion; 
 
 Along the edge of the thicket just now, as I went to 
 the brook down there for water, 
 
 I stumbled over something that must have been left 
 from the charge a week ago : 
 
 A body that held the remnants of a man. 
 
 He had dragged himself to the brook, he lay im- 
 bedded in tall waving grass ; 
 
 His stomach had been ripped open by shrapnel, 
 maggots were heaving in the wound ; 
 
62 LINCOLN COLCORD 
 
 (Did you know that a man could live while maggots 
 formed in his flesh ?) 
 
 His muscles twitched convulsively, he was barely 
 conscious ; 
 
 He did not notice the match I struck, his eyes were 
 filmed over, he would not drink ; 
 
 The region that he inhabited was an unknown, un- 
 imaginable land. 
 
 (At home, a woman waits for news of him : 
 It is well that she can never hear.) 
 
 5. 
 
 Pass on, pass on! Behold the mobilization of 
 
 armies ; 
 The men leaving their work at the counter and 
 
 factory, dropping the plow where it stands in 
 
 the field, 
 Flocking together, filling the towns, saying good-by 
 
 to wife and children, taking a last look around ; 
 (Our country calls ! Our country, and our King !) 
 
 Behold the flinging forward of nations in the wake of 
 
 armies ; 
 The marvellous, massive engines, the enormous 
 
 paraphernalia ; 
 The powerful mechanical conveyances, the long 
 
 lines of them carrying supplies ; 
 
LINCOLN COLCORD 63 
 
 The immense stores of provisions at the depot, the 
 stacks of clothing and other necessities, the 
 huge piles of fodder and grain for the horses ; 
 
 The flaring illuminations, the sweating gangs work- 
 ing beneath them, ceaselessly receiving, sorting, 
 distributing ; 
 
 The field guns, the heavy artillery, their ponderous 
 steady movements through the villages ; 
 
 The stout-wheeled wagons full of dangerous, costly 
 ammunition ; 
 
 The roaring trains, arriving and departing, some 
 laden with supplies, some packed with hu- 
 manity, alive or dead; 
 
 The vast and systematic commissariat, the grist of 
 war. 
 
 6. 
 
 Behold the columns, advancing, advancing, ad- 
 vancing ; 
 
 Tramping steadily onward, seen behind on the hills, 
 and seen ahead to the distant turn of the 
 road; 
 
 Streaming along the valleys, gaining and crossing 
 the passes, flanking the mountain ranges, net- 
 ting the land with a lethal web ; 
 
 Accoutrements flashing and jangling, thunder of 
 tread, regular motion swaying and undulating 
 the lines ; 
 
64 LINCOLN COLCORD 
 
 Countless miles of indomitable marching men; 
 (Our country calls ! Our country, and our King !) 
 
 Behold the front, the million-manned intrenchments, 
 
 continent-spanning ; 
 The infinite detail of day-works and night-works ; 
 The burrowing, roofing, screening, the placing of 
 
 barbed-wire entanglements ; 
 The stealthy advance in the darkness, the hasty 
 
 and desperate digging-in under fire ; 
 The shifting and rushing forward of artillery, the 
 
 lashing of horses, the running of wires for 
 
 communication ; 
 The searchlights feeling afar through the night, like 
 
 cold white fingers ; 
 The life of the trenches, after all is completed ; 
 The hidden underground chambers, the well-con- 
 cealed passages, the bomb-proof quarters; 
 The men laughing and singing, some of them making 
 
 music on simple instruments, some playing 
 
 cards, some smoking and talking ; 
 Passing backwards and forwards, eating, sleeping, 
 
 fighting, or taking their leisure, all out of sight, 
 
 in tunnels and cavities below the surface : 
 A serious new game for earnest, grown-up children. 
 
 (Hark, hark ! Aloft — look up ; 
 A great bird sails across the sky, with loud and 
 strident whirr of wings ; 
 
LINCOLN COLCORD 65 
 
 Terribly swift — a moment — it is gone. 
 Can men be passing there on high, so swiftly through 
 the air?) 
 
 7. 
 
 Pass on ! Behold the charge ; 
 
 (Ready ! Run low ! Run wide ! 
 
 Our country calls ! Our country , and our King !) 
 
 Over the open fields, trampling the crops, dropping 
 to fire, rising to run ; 
 
 (Some never rising, never again to rise ;) 
 
 Straggling, thinning, wavering, (God, it is hopeless ! 
 — it is too much !) 
 
 Onward, onward pressing, rushing and driving on- 
 ward; 
 
 (I did not know that men could be so Teckless and 
 brave !) 
 
 Mounting the opposite slope, cutting their way 
 through entanglements ; 
 
 Gaining the outer trenches, (deadly work for the 
 bayonets !) 
 
 Shouting, cursing, groaning, stabbing, wrestling, 
 clubbing with butts, fighting at last with bare 
 fists; 
 
 Annihilating the enemy, ' capturing the posi- 
 tion! 
 
 (Victory ! Victory ! Victory f 
 
 Our country calls ! Our country, and our King !) 
 
66 LINCOLN COLCORD 
 
 (On the open field lie many huddled shapes ; 
 
 The wounded are stirring feebly out there, like men 
 
 awaking from a violent dream ; 
 They lift their heads, they stretch their arms, they 
 
 struggle to rise on their elbows ; 
 They sit up, staring around — they crawl like snails 
 
 among the crops ; 
 A screaming horse dashes athwart the line, dragging 
 
 his entrails on the ground.) 
 
 8. 
 
 Behold the ships at sea ; 
 
 A long and weary time they had been waiting, con- 
 stantly on the alert, nerves strained to breaking ; 
 
 In smothering, foggy weather, in gloomy days, in 
 pitch-black nights, in wild and desperate gales ; 
 
 Anxious for battle, longing to sight the enemy, 
 every one on the lookout, chafing and growling ; 
 
 Anything, anything, boys, to end this tedious 
 monotony ! 
 
 (Maybe an unseen deliverer is at hand.) 
 
 The captain was walking the bridge that morning, 
 the crew were at breakfast, the navigating 
 officer was winding his chronometers ; 
 
 Suddenly, from forward, a frantic cry ! A man runs 
 aft, pointing to windward ; 
 
 The captain whips out his glasses, scans the horizon ; 
 
LINCOLN COLCORD 67 
 
 For a while, he does not pick up a little white streak 
 
 on the water, not very far away, drawing 
 
 rapidly nearer ; 
 A streak like the wake of a shark's fin, cutting along 
 
 on the weather bow. 
 He sees it ! Quick, to the signal ! Stop ! Full 
 
 speed astern ! 
 Over, there, with the helm ! 
 
 Too late, too late, captain of ship and lives ; 
 
 Away from the little wake springs a broader wake; 
 
 A murderous fish drives straight towards you, churn- 
 ing the water as he goes. 
 
 Close compartment doors ! — the last command ; 
 
 Then to the end of the bridge, and stand there 
 waiting ; 
 
 Press tight the lips, fold the arms on the breast, 
 throw back the head : 
 
 Below, along the weather rail, a line of men stands 
 silently, watching death come ; 
 
 (Our country calls ! Our country, and our King !) 
 
 A whitish object skims on the surface of the blue 
 
 sea; 
 The torpedo strikes below the magazine ; 
 The ship is instantly blown in two — she sinks like 
 
 lead; 
 A faint cheer finds no listener but God. 
 
68 LINCOLN COLCORD 
 
 A few men struggle on the water, where she went 
 
 down; 
 They cling for a while to fragments of wreckage ; 
 There is no help in sight — they cannot be saved. 
 
 (Down in the close, tight shell — in the unseen, 
 
 mysterious vessel, 
 Crouching in a dim chamber, in utter silence, 
 
 wrapped in impenetrable privacy, apart from 
 
 life, cut off from world of land and sea, 
 A man sits, breathing hard, clenching his hands; 
 Far above him, where sunlight strikes on breaking 
 
 wave, a secret eye looks out, 
 A secret mirror throws down to him the story there ; 
 One long, intense, absorbing glance — then to the 
 
 signal stretches out his hand ; 
 Turning away, as darkly as she came, the submarine 
 
 speeds homeward, 
 Leaving the sea to seal her work and bury her dead.) 
 
 9. 
 
 Behold! Hour of the War ! 
 
 Life everywhere flowing in strange new channels ! 
 
 The world aroused, awakened ! The silence rent ! 
 Peace shattered and overthrown ! 
 
 The well-ordered conventions rudely broken up ! 
 The illusions dissipated ! The motives sud- 
 denly disclosed ! 
 
LINCOLN COLCORD 69 
 
 Men face to face with nature, death, and pain ! 
 The elemental shown ! And dim and far, the 
 truth appearing ! 
 
 The hovering dream ! The distant and divine con- 
 ception ! 
 
 (I sing no battles lost, retreating armies : 
 
 O, I tell you, in this campaign there are no defeats ! 
 
 O, I tell you, the retreating and advancing armies 
 are equally triumphant ! 
 
 O, I tell you, the lost battles contribute as much as 
 the battles won, to the sure result of this cam- 
 paign ! 
 
 Victory ! Victory ! Victory ! 
 
 Our country calls I Our country, and our King !) 
 
 10. 
 
 While about me sleeps the land in peace, while men 
 and women prepare for bed ; 
 
 While the land-breeze flurries, wafting a scent of 
 autumn woods and fallen leaves ; 
 
 While the crickets sing in the fields, and fireflies 
 glimmer among low spruce and pine ; 
 
 While the bright star rises, casting a track across 
 the bay ; 
 
 While the majestic heavens wheel onward, over- 
 looking space and time ; 
 
 While the still air drops down its quietness like love. 
 
 — Lincoln Colcord. 
 
70 ALICE CORBIN 
 
 FALLEN 
 
 He was wounded and he fell in the midst of hoarse 
 
 shouting. 
 The tide passed, and the waves came and whispered 
 
 about his ankles. 
 Far off he heard a cock crow — children laughing, 
 Rising at dawn to greet the storm of petals 
 Shaken from apple-boughs ; he heard them cry, 
 And turned again to find the breast of her, 
 And sank confused with a little sigh . . . 
 Thereafter water running, and a voice 
 That seemed to stir and flutter through the trenches 
 And set dead lips to talking . . . 
 
 Wreckage was mingled with the storm of petals . . . 
 
 He felt her near him, and the weight dropped off — 
 Suddenly . . . 
 
 — Alice Corbin. 
 
W. L. COURTNEY 71 
 
 BY THE NORTH SEA 
 
 Death and Sorrow and Sleep : 
 Here where the slow waves creep, 
 
 This is the chant I hear, 
 The chant of the measureless deep. 
 
 What was Sorrow to me 
 Then, when the young life free 
 
 Thirsted for joys of earth, 
 Far from the desolate sea ? 
 
 What was Sleep but a rest, 
 Giving to youth the best 
 
 Dreams from the ivory gate, 
 Visions of God manifest ? 
 
 What was death but a tale 
 Told to faces grown pale, 
 
 Worn or wasted with years — 
 A meaningless thing to the hale ? 
 
 Death and Sorrow and Sleep : 
 Now their sad message I keep, 
 
 Tossed on the wet wind's breath, 
 The chant of the measureless deep. 
 
 — W. L. Courtney. 
 
72 CHARLOTTE HOLMES CRAWFORD 
 
 VIVE LA FRANCE! 
 
 Fkanceline rose in the dawning gray, 
 And her heart would dance though she knelt to pray, 
 For her man Michel had holiday, 
 Fighting for France. 
 
 She offered her prayer by the cradle-side, 
 And with baby palms folded in hers she cried : 
 " If I have but one prayer, dear, crucified 
 Christ — save France ! 
 
 " But if I have two, then, by Mary's grace, 
 Carry me safe to the meeting place, 
 Let me look once again on my dear love's face, 
 Save him for France !" 
 
 She crooned to her boy : "Oh, how glad he'll be, 
 Little three-months old, to set eyes on thee ! 
 For, ' Rather than gold, would I give/ wrote he, 
 'A son to France/ 
 
 " Come, now, be good, little stray sauterelle, 
 For we're going by-by to thy papa Michel, 
 But I'll not say where for fear thou wilt tell, 
 Little pigeon of France ! 
 
CHARLOTTE HOLMES CRAWFORD 73 
 
 " Six days' leave and a year between ! 
 But what would you have ? In six days clean, 
 Heaven was made," said Franceline, 
 "Heaven and France." 
 
 She came to the town of the nameless name, 
 To the marching troops in the street she came, 
 And she held high her boy like a taper flame 
 Burning for France. 
 
 Fresh from the trenches and gray with grime, 
 Silent they march like a pantomime ; 
 " But what need of music ? My heart beats time — 
 Vive la France!" 
 
 His regiment comes. Oh, then where is he ? 
 " There is dust in my eyes, for I cannot see, — 
 Is that my Michel to the right of thee, 
 Soldier of France?" 
 
 Then out of the ranks a comrade fell, — 
 " Yesterday — 'twas a splinter of shell — 
 And he whispered thy name, did thy poor Michel, 
 Dying for France." 
 
 The tread of the troops on the pavement throbbed 
 Like a woman's heart of its last joy robbed, 
 As she lifted her boy to the flag, and sobbed : 
 "Vive la France!" 
 
 — Charlotte Holmes Crawford. 
 
74 LORD CREWE 
 
 A HARROW GRAVE IN FLANDERS 
 
 Heke in the marshland, past the battered bridge, 
 
 One of a hundred grains untimely sown, 
 Here, with his comrades of the hard-won ridge 
 He rests, unknown. 
 
 His horoscope had seemed so plainly drawn, 
 
 School triumphs, earned apace in work and play ; 
 Friendships at will ; then love's delightful dawn 
 And mellowing day. 
 
 Home fostering hope ; some service to the State ; 
 
 Benignant age ; then the long tryst to keep 
 Where in the yew-tree shadow congregate 
 His fathers sleep. 
 
 Was here the one thing needful to distil 
 
 From life's alembic, through this holier fate, 
 The man's essential soul, the hero-will ? 
 We ask ; and wait. 
 
 — Crewe. 
 
GERALD H. CROW 75 
 
 WHEN THEY HAVE MADE AN END 
 
 When they have made an end 
 Of their importunate crying over you 
 
 "God speed/' and "God defend," 
 And time is swift and there is nought to do 
 But match with wilder hope our wild despair ; 
 
 When there is quiet, bend 
 Your lips to mine, and in the darkness there 
 
 Wish me good courage, friend. 
 
 — Gerald H. Crow. 
 
76 WALTER BE LA MARE 
 
 "HOW SLEEP THE BRAVE" 
 
 Nay, nay, sweet England, do not grieve ! 
 
 Not one of these poor men who died 
 But did within his soul believe 
 
 That death for thee was glorified. 
 
 Ever they watched it hovering near 
 That mystery 'y on d thought to plumb, 
 
 Perchance sometimes in loathed fear 
 
 They heard cold Danger whisper, Come ! — 
 
 Heard and obeyed. O, if thou weep 
 Such courage and honor, beauty, care, 
 
 Be it for joy that those who sleep 
 Only thy joy could share. 
 
 — Walter de la Mare. 
 
JOHN DRINKWATER 77 
 
 THE DEFENDERS 
 
 His wage of rest at nightfall still 
 
 He takes, who sixty years has known 
 
 Of ploughing over Cotsall hill 
 And keeping trim the Cotsall stone. 
 
 He meditates the dusk, and sees 
 Folds of his wonted shepherdings 
 
 And lands of stubble and tall trees 
 Becoming insubstantial things. 
 
 And does he see on Cotsall hill — 
 Thrown even to the central shire — 
 
 The funnelled shapes forbidding still 
 The stranger from his cottage fire ? 
 
 — John Drinkwater. 
 
78 LOUISE DRISCOLL 
 
 THE METAL CHECKS 
 
 (The scene is a bare room, with two shaded windows 
 at the back, and a fireplace between them with a fire burn- 
 ing low. The room is furnished scantily with a few plain 
 chairs, and a rough wooden table on which are piled a great 
 many small wooden trays. The Counter, who is Death, 
 sits at the table. He wears a loose gray robe, and his face 
 is partly concealed by a gray veil. He does not look at 
 The Bearer, but works mechanically and speaks in a monot- 
 onous tone. The Bearer is the World, that bears the bur- 
 den of War. He wears a soiled robe of brown and green 
 and he carries on his back a gunny-bag with the little 
 metal disks that have been used for the identification of 
 the slain common soldiers.) 
 
 The Beaker 
 Here is a sack, a gunny sack, 
 
 A heavy sack I bring. 
 Here is toll of many a soul — 
 But not the soul of a king. 
 
 This is the toll of common men, 
 Who lived in the common way ; 
 
 Lived upon bread and wine and love, 
 In the light of the common day. 
 
 This is the toll of working men, 
 Blood and brawn and brain. 
 
 
LOUISE DRISCOLL 79 
 
 Who shall render us again 
 The worth of all the slain ? 
 
 (As the Counter speaks, the Bearer pours out the disks 
 on the table. The Bearer obeys the Counter.) 
 
 The Counter 
 
 Pour them out on the table here. 
 Clickety-clickety-clack ! 
 For every button a man went out, 
 And who shall call him back ? 
 Clickety-clickety-clack ! 
 
 One — two — three — four — 
 
 Every disk a soul ! 
 Three score — four score — 
 So many boys went out to war. 
 Pick up that one that fell on the floor — 
 
 Didn't you see it roll ? 
 That was a man a month ago. 
 This was a man. Row upon row — 
 Pile them in tens and count them so. 
 
 The Bearer 
 
 I have an empty sack. 
 
 It is not large. Would you have said 
 That I could carry on my back 
 
 So great an army — and all dead ? 
 
80 LOUISE DRISCOLL 
 
 (As the Counter speaks the Bearer lays the sack over 
 his arm and helps count.) 
 
 The Counter 
 
 Put a hundred in each tray — 
 We can tally them best that way. 
 Careful — do you understand 
 You have ten men in your hand ? 
 There's another fallen — there — 
 Under that chair. 
 (The Bearer finds it and restores it.) 
 
 That was a man a month ago ; 
 He could see and feel and know. 
 Then, into his throat there sped 
 A bit of lead. 
 
 Blood was salt in his mouth ; he fell 
 And lay amid the battle wreck. 
 Nothing was left but this metal check — 
 And a wife and child, perhaps. 
 
 (The Bearer finds the bag on his arm troublesome. He 
 holds it up, inspecting it.) 
 
 The Bearer 
 
 What can one do with a thing like this ? 
 
 Neither of life nor death it is ! 
 
 For the dead serve not, though it served the dead. 
 
 The wounds it carried were wide and red, 
 
 Yet they stained it not. Can a man put food, 
 
LOUISE DRISCOLL 81 
 
 Potatoes or wheat, or even wood 
 
 That is kind and burns with a flame to warm 
 
 Living men who are comforted — 
 
 In a thing that has served so many dead ? 
 
 There is no thrift in a graveyard dress, 
 
 It's been shroud for too many men. 
 
 I'll burn it and let the dead bless. 
 
 (He crosses himself and throws it into the fire. He 
 watches it burn. The Counter continues to pile up 
 the metal checks, and drop them by hundreds into the 
 trays, which he piles one upon another. The Bearer 
 turns from the fire and speaks more slowly than he has 
 before. He indicates the metal checks.) 
 
 Would not the blood of these make a great sea 
 
 For men to sail their ships on ? It may be 
 
 No fish would swim in it, and the foul smell 
 
 Would make the sailors sick. Perhaps in Hell 
 
 There's some such lake for men who rush to war 
 
 Prating of glory, and upon the shore 
 
 Will stand the wives and children and old men 
 
 Bereft, to drive them back again 
 
 When they seek haven. Some such thing 
 
 I thought the while I bore it on my back 
 
 And heard the metal pieces clattering. 
 
 The Counter 
 
 Four score — five score — 
 These and many more. 
 
 G 
 
82 LOUISE DRISCOLL 
 
 Forward — march ! — into the tray ! 
 
 No bugles blow to-day, 
 
 No captains lead the way ; 
 
 But mothers and wives, 
 
 Fathers, sisters, little sons, 
 
 Count the cost 
 
 Of the lost ; 
 
 And we count the unlived lives, 
 
 The forever unborn ones 
 
 Who might have been your sons. 
 
 The Beaker 
 
 Could not the hands of these rebuild 
 
 That which has been destroyed ? 
 
 Oh, the poor hands ! that once were strong and 
 
 filled 
 With implements of labor whereby they 
 Served home and country through the peaceful day. 
 When those who made the war stand face to face 
 With these slain soldiers in that unknown place 
 Whither the dead go, what will be the word 
 By dead lips spoken and by dead ears heard ? 
 Will souls say King or Kaiser? Will souls prate 
 Of earthly glory in that new estate? 
 
 The Counter 
 
 One hundred thousand — 
 
 One hundred and fifty thousand — 
 
 Two hundred — 
 
 
LOUISE DRISCOLL 83 
 
 The Bearer 
 
 Can this check plough ? 
 
 Can it sow ? can it reap ? 
 Can we arouse it ? 
 
 Is it asleep ? 
 
 Can it hear when a child cries ? — 
 
 Comfort a wife ? 
 This little metal disk 
 
 Stands for a life. 
 
 Can this check build, 
 
 Laying stone upon stone ? 
 Once it was warm flesh 
 
 Folded on bone. 
 
 Sinew and muscle firm, 
 
 Look at it — can 
 This little metal check 
 
 Stand for a man ? 
 
 The Counter 
 
 One — two — three — four — 
 
 — Louise Driscoll. 
 
84 GEOFFREY FABER 
 
 "FOR THOSE AT SEA" 
 
 (H.M.S. "Aboukir," "Cressy," "Rogue," September 22, 
 1914.) 
 
 Now all our English woodland sighs " October." 
 
 The mild sun going down behind the trees 
 Doth bless a countryside as sweet and sober 
 
 As ever put on brown and red to please ; 
 The brooks run blood, but 'tis such blood as 
 Heav'n, 
 
 Pierced with light, lets fall on field and village ; 
 England's dear breasts are still unbruised, unriv'n 
 
 The autumn peace on pastureland and tillage. 
 Dear mother of us all, hast thou not heard ? 
 
 Thou knowest how thy sons, our brothers, died 
 Of late, and hast thou not a sorrowful word ? 
 
 O no ! Thou dost contain thyself in pride. 
 Pity suits not for those, who guarding thee 
 Guard more than their own lives, for those at sea. 
 
 — Geoffrey Faber. 
 
JAMES BERNARD FAG AN 85 
 
 / 
 
 THE MAN IN THE TRENCH 
 
 Can you not hear me, young man in the street ? 
 
 Is it nothing to you who pass by, 
 
 Who down the dim-lit ways in thousands roam ? 
 
 From here I watch you, through the driving sleet, 
 
 Under the evening sky, 
 
 Hurrying home. 
 
 Home ! — how the word sounds like a bell — 
 
 I wonder can you know, as I know well, 
 
 That in this trench 
 
 Of death and stench 
 
 I stand between your home and hell. 
 
 I am the roof that shields you from the weather, 
 I am the gate that keeps the brigand back, 
 When pillage, fire, and murder come together, 
 I am the wall that saves your home from sack. 
 Man ! when you look upon the girl you prize, 
 Can you imagine horror in those eyes ? 
 You have not seen, you cannot understand, 
 This trench is England, all this ruined land 
 Is where you wander, street, or field, or strand, 
 Save for God's grace, and for the guns that rest 
 Upon this dripping mudbank of the west. 
 
86 JAMES BERNARD FAGAN 
 
 Our blood has stained your threshold — will you 
 
 stain 
 Your soul, give nothing and take all our gain ? 
 Why did I come ? I ask not, nor repent ; 
 Something blazed up inside me, and I went. 
 The khaki fringe is frayed, and now a rent 
 Needs men — needs men, and I am almost spent. 
 Night, and the "ready" ... so sleep well, my 
 
 friend . . . 
 The guns again are going ... I must stick it to 
 
 the end. 
 
 — James Bernard Fagan. 
 
AGNES S. FALCONER 87 
 
 / 
 
 TERRITORIALS 
 
 Where are the lads who went out to the war ? 
 This year, and last year and long, long ago — 
 With eyes full of laughter and song on their lips — 
 (Our sad hearts flew after as birds follow ships !) 
 Where are they now, do you know f 
 
 Some sleep in Flanders and some sleep in France, 
 This year, and last year, and long years to come — 
 And under the rampart that guards far Stamboul 
 Some are camped in a rest deep and cool, 
 
 And they heed not the bugle and drum ! 
 
 They'll come, though not all ! They will come from 
 
 the war ! — 
 This year or next year, or early or late — 
 And come well or wounded, come many or few, 
 They will bring back their honor, their faith high 
 and true 
 
 Or will bear it to Paradise Gate. 
 
 — Agnes S. Falconer. 
 
88 WILLIAM DUDLEY FOULKE 
 
 HONOR TO FRANCE! 
 
 In peace we held thy worth in scant esteem ; 
 
 Thy sons were dissolute, thy daughters frail ; 
 How light and fair and fickle didst thou seem 
 
 In time of need, alas, how sure to fail ! 
 But when war came, a war that was not thine — 
 
 And the flame seared thee, then thy heart we 
 knew. 
 In that dark tumult how thy soul did shine 
 
 Loyal and steadfast, pure and brave and true. 
 Nay, thou art honored even by the foe, 
 
 In martyrdom transformed and glorified ! 
 And we who scorned (how little did we know !) 
 
 Stripped of the tattered mantle of our pride, 
 Let us in self-abasement bend the knee 
 And pray for God's grace to become like thee. 
 
 — William Dudley Foulke. 
 
FLORENCE KIPER FRANK 89 
 
 THE JEWISH CONSCRIPT 
 
 (There are nearly a quarter of a million Jews in the 
 Czar's army alone. — Newspaper clipping.) 
 
 They have dressed me up in a soldier's dress, 
 
 With a rifle in my hand, 
 And have sent me bravely forth to shoot 
 
 My own in a foreign land. 
 
 Oh, many shall die for the fields of their homes, 
 
 And many in conquest wild, 
 But I shall die for the fatherland 
 
 That murdered my little child. 
 
 How many hundreds of years ago — 
 
 The nations wax and cease ! — 
 Did the God of our fathers doom us to bear 
 
 The flaming message of peace ! 
 
 We are the mock and the sport of time ! 
 
 Yet why should I complain ! — 
 For a Jew that they hung on the bloody cross, 
 
 He also died in vain. 
 
 — Florence Kiper Frank. 
 
90 ADJUTANT GILBERT FRANKAU 
 
 HEADQUARTERS 
 
 A league and a league from the trenches — from 
 
 the traversed maze of the lines, 
 Where daylong the sniper watches and daylong the 
 
 bullet whines, 
 And the cratered earth is in travail with mines and 
 
 with countermines — 
 
 Here, where haply some woman dreamed (are those 
 
 her roses that bloom 
 In the garden beyond the windows of my littered 
 
 working room ?) 
 We have decked the map for our masters as a bride 
 
 is decked for the groom. 
 
 Fair, on each lettered numbered square — cross- 
 road and mound and wire, 
 
 Loophole, redoubt and emplacement — lie the tar- 
 gets their mouths desire ; 
 
 Gay with purples and browns and blues, have we 
 traced them their arcs of fire. 
 
ADJUTANT GILBERT FRANKAU 91 
 
 And ever the type-keys chatter ; and ever our keen 
 
 wires bring 
 Word from the watchers a-crouch below, word from 
 
 the watchers a-wing : 
 And ever we hear the distant growl of our hid guns 
 
 thundering. 
 
 Hear it hardly, and turn again to our maps, where 
 the trench-lines crawl, 
 
 Red on the gray and each with a sign for the rang- 
 ing shrapnel's fall — 
 
 Snakes that our masters shall scotch at dawn, as is 
 written here on the wall. 
 
 For the weeks of our waiting draw to a close. . . . 
 There is scarcely a leaf astir 
 
 In the garden beyond my windows, where the 
 twilight shadows blurr 
 
 The blaze of some woman's roses. . . . "Bom- 
 bardment orders, sir." 
 
 — Gilbert Frankau. 
 
92 JOHN FREEMAN 
 
 THE RETURN 
 
 I heard the rumbling guns. I saw the smoke, 
 The unintelligible shock of hosts that still, 
 
 Far off, unseeing, strove and strove again ; 
 And beauty flying naked down the hilL 
 
 From morn to eve : and the stern night cried Peace ! 
 
 And shut the strife in darkness : all was still, 
 Then slowly crept a triumph on the dark — 
 
 And I heard Beauty singing up the hill. 
 
 — John Freeman. 
 
H. REX FRESTON 93 
 
 THE GIFT 
 
 His eyes are bright and eager, with the brightness 
 of the sun, 
 
 (England, he gives them you) 
 His hands are strong for climbing and his feet are 
 swift to run, 
 
 (England, he gives them you) 
 He has knowledge of the meadows, in the dreamy 
 
 autumn days, 
 The brown hill, and the gold hill, and the green 
 forgotten ways, 
 
 (But he leaves them now for you). 
 There's a certain ancient city where he once was 
 free and young, 
 
 (But he leaves it now for you), 
 Where Oxford tales are spoken, and Oxford ways are 
 sung, 
 
 (But he leaves them now for you) 
 And his heart is often weary, for that dear old river 
 
 shore, 
 And he thinks a little sadly, of the days that come no 
 more, 
 
 (But he gives them up for you). 
 
94 H. REX FRESTON 
 
 If his dust is one day lying, in an unfamiliar land, 
 
 (England, he went for you) 
 Oh, England, sometimes think of him, of thousands, 
 
 only one, 
 In the dawning, or the noonday, or the setting of 
 the sun, 
 
 (As once he thought of you). 
 For to him and many like him, there seemed no 
 other way 
 
 (England, he asked not why) 
 The giving up of all things, for ever and for aye, 
 
 (England, he asked not why) 
 And so he goes unshrinking, from those dearest paths 
 
 of home, 
 For he knows, great-hearted England, let whatever 
 fate may come 
 
 You will never let him die ! 
 
 — H. Rex Freston. 
 (Killed in action in France, Jan. 24, 1916.) 
 
MISS V. H. FRIEDLAENDER 95 
 
 PASSOVER 
 
 The doors of life are two ; 
 And, on some midnight still, 
 The Lord shall pass your way, and do 
 According to your will. 
 
 For, lo, if your desire 
 Be set upon the hearth, 
 There He will kindle you a fire, 
 Pleasant and of the earth ; 
 
 And you shall take delight 
 For ever in that flame, 
 But not again shall come a night 
 When He will call your name. 
 
 Or, if you count it sin 
 That darkness wrap His shrine, 
 His breath shall light instead therein 
 The spark that is divine ; 
 
 No shelter from the cold, 
 No ease it shall afford — 
 But by that gleam you shall behold 
 The glory of the Lord. 
 
96 
 
 MISS V. H. FRIEDLAENDER 
 
 Now choose you ! . . . nor forget, 
 Choosing this last alone, 
 The blood upon your lintel set 
 For sign, must be your own. 
 
 — V. H. Friedlaender. 
 
G. A. J. C. 97 
 
 IRELAND 
 
 The Dreamers : — 
 
 Outpost of Europe, watcher of the seas, 
 
 Bulwark to part the dark Atlantic tide, 
 Still in the sunset lost Hesperides 
 
 Raise peak on peak, and purple galleys glide, 
 Kings for their oarsmen, queens for garnishing, 
 
 Gleam of their gold that sets the west afire, 
 Till the night falls, that knows not any thing, 
 
 And the new day brings back the old desire. 
 
 The Mediterraneans : — 
 
 We are your seamen, seamen from the south : 
 
 We sought and found you ere the Tyrian sailed, 
 Steered with glad shouting through the harbor- 
 mouth, 
 
 Parted the woods, and left you half unveiled ; 
 Ours, ours, that ventured through the forest-bars, 
 
 Saw the brown spate and sweetness of the glen, 
 And the great breasts domed up against the stars, 
 
 Held you and loved you ; we were first of men. 
 
 The Northmen : — 
 These were thy clansmen, dark with sun and toil, 
 These knew the Atlas, these the desert knew, 
 
98 G. A. J. c. 
 
 Builders of homesteads, thirsty for the soil, 
 
 Green lands and droughtless, carpeted with dew. 
 
 We that came after, racing prow to prow, 
 Men of the grey lands, narrowing to the pole, 
 
 Strangers and fair-haired — none are strangers now ; 
 We gave our heart's blood; you gave us back a 
 soul. 
 
 The Fighting Line : — 
 
 Heart's blood of our blood, is the throb so weak, 
 
 Ireland, our Ireland, lost beyond the seas ? 
 Thousands of living, nay dead men, rise and speak, 
 
 From Flanders on to the ancestral Cyclades. 
 These are from Ireland, these to Ireland calling, 
 
 Look to the sunrise, shaft on shaft unfurled, 
 Look to the light once more on Valmy falling, 
 
 Where France in arms first clarioned the world. 
 
 — G. A. J. C. 
 
LILLIAN GARD 99 
 
 HER "ALLOWANCE!" 
 
 'Er looked at me bunnet (I knows 'e aint noo !) 
 'Er turned up 'er nose at the patch on me shoe ! 
 And 'er sez, pointed like, "Liza, what do 'e do 
 With yer 'llowance?" 
 
 'Er looked at the children (they'm clean and they'm 
 
 neat, 
 But their clothes be as plain as the victuals they 
 
 eat) : 
 And 'er sez, "Why not dress 'em up fine for a treat 
 With yer 'llowance?" 
 
 I sees 'er long feather and trimmy-up gown : 
 I sez, as I looks 'er quite square up and down, 
 "Do 'e think us keeps 'oliday 'ere in the town 
 With my 'llowance?" 
 
 "Not likely !" I sez. And I bids 'er "Good-day !" 
 And I kneels on the shabby old canvas to pray 
 For Bill, who's out fightin' such brave miles away. 
 (And I put back a foo o' they coins for 'e may 
 Be needin' a part — may my Bill — who can say ? — 
 Of my 'llowance !) 
 
 — Lillian Gard. 
 
100 WILFRID WILSON GIBSON 
 
 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, 
 
WILFRID WILSON GIBSON 101 
 
 And slipt his clothes off in the candle-light, 
 Too tired to fold them neatly on 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'ld 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 
 
102 WILFRID WILSON GIBSON 
 
 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 could wish — 
 When plump upon the plate from out the sky 
 
WILFRID WILSON GIBSON 103 
 
 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. 'Twas luck 
 That he still lived . . . And queer how little then 
 He seemed to care that Dick . . . Perhaps 'twas 
 
 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 'twas 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, 'twas luck 
 From first to last ; and you'd just got to trust 
 
104 WILFRID WILSON GIBSON 
 
 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 . . . 
 
WILFRID WILSON GIBSON 105 
 
 YvTience 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 . . . 
 
 j 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, 
 
106 WILFRID WILSON GIBSON 
 
 Yes, they were all there safe. He hoped they'ld win 
 Back to their lines in safety. They deserved, 
 Even if they were Germans . . . 'Twas 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'ld 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'ld 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. 
 
FRANKLIN H. GID DINGS 107 
 
 ULTIMATE HELL 
 
 Satan ? I am. 
 
 The Other One ? " The Great lam"? 
 Who knows ? Millenniums ago 
 Some rumor ran that He existed yet ! 
 I half believed it true, as loath to think 
 That He'd outwitted me, or suffered harm 
 To rob me of a thrill. Eternity 
 Is deadly now, I own. 
 
 His name, you say, was God. 
 
 As I recall, it was. Priests mumbled it, 
 
 And cutthroats bawled it for an oath, 
 
 Then, all at once, the priests began to think, 
 
 And ceased to pray. 
 
 'Twas quite the oddest thing that I have known, 
 
 And my dear Foe became thenceforth a myth, 
 
 Or faded, like the morning cloud, with man's 
 
 Immortal hope (poor Tyndall's, eke, whose word 
 
 I'll not forget) into the azure past. 
 
 What of my kingdom now ? 
 
 I have no kingdom now. Long time ago 
 
 I tired of kings, as God in His day tired. 
 
108 FRANKLIN H. GIDDINGS 
 
 They were too boist'rous in their wickedness, 
 
 Too bloody and uncouth. They weren't well bred. 
 
 I heard the last of them 
 
 Reigned somewhere on the Baltic Sea, 
 
 A sodden Hohenzollern prince, 
 
 Descended from that self-drunk one 
 
 Who made a War — the only war 
 
 That lately I had cared about. 
 
 It promised well, but soon went wrong. 
 Ten million men, yea, twice ten million men, 
 Swarmed forth to fight for what they called ideals : 
 From Belgium's mills and mines, from England's 
 
 marts, 
 From fairest France and sun-warm Italy, 
 From Serbia and the Russian steppe, to fight 
 For Right ! Oh God ! (old habits rise in me) 
 For Liberty ! They left their little ones, 
 Their wives, their gold ! They flung away their 
 
 lives 
 As storms throw pearls of rain. They wearied me ! 
 They were too much like Christ, the crazy one, 
 Who died forgiving all, and took a thief 
 With him to Paradise. 
 
 And so there is no Hell ? I'll not say that. 
 The name is out of date, but things sometimes 
 Survive their names, as names so oft live on 
 
FRANKLIN H. GIDDINGS 109 
 
 When things and men are dead. There is a land 
 
 That once was dedicate to Liberty : 
 
 A land that cast off kings and set slaves free. 
 
 But when it gathered wealth, and fame, and power, 
 
 And could have struck the blow that might have 
 
 saved 
 Throughout the world the things for which men 
 
 died, 
 The things for which long rows of graves were made, 
 It would not strike. 
 
 It let its own go gurgling down to death, 
 And did not smite. 
 
 Self-made, self-damned, self-governing, 
 
 It hammers now, and smelts ; 
 
 And ever, as it pounds, it sings, 
 
 This Tubal Cain — of Peace ! 
 
 And golden dollars jingle in the song, 
 
 Beneath a sulphuring sky it dwells — at peace — 
 
 In riveless unity of self -content. 
 
 I'm growing old ? I do not relish quite 
 
 The modern way, a Democratic Hell ? 
 
 I'm growing old ? I wonder if I sometimes wish 
 
 That God would come again ! 
 
 — Franklin H. Giddings. 
 New York, December 5, 1915. 
 
110 BERNARD GILBERT 
 
 "I HAVE NO RING" 
 
 I watch and listen with a dreadful fear, 
 I wait and long and tremble in a breath ; 
 Though he is gone to fight, yet is he near ; 
 I have him always though he meet with Death : 
 In the lone night time when my eyes are dim 
 I cry with terror, yet my heart will sing ; 
 I long, I long with sickness, yet with dread : 
 My fear is double — more, far more, for him 
 Who not yet lives than him who may be dead : 
 I carry that which masters everything : 
 And yet — to have his face and not his name, 
 To be so loved, so longed for, yet — my shame ! 
 Gladness and dread alike my love to sting. . . . 
 I bear his burden — but — I have no ring. 
 
 — Bernard Gilbert. 
 
VIOLET GILLESPIE 111 
 
 THE DEAD 
 
 TO ONE KILLED IN ACTION 
 
 Deak love, they say thou art at rest. 
 I heed them not, though thou art long, 
 Dreaming that thou, with heart still strong 
 
 For fighting, followest some far quest. 
 
 They say, dear heart, I must forget. 
 
 Nay, though the agony be deep, 
 
 That memory can never sleep. 
 Thy passioned kisses linger yet. 
 
 They say, dear love, the daisies blithe 
 Shall o'er thy head in summer spring. 
 Daisies ! ... I see thy body swing 
 
 Lithe and strong-limbed, above the scythe. 
 
 Dear love, they say that in the light 
 Of Heaven's joy our souls shall meet. 
 Dear God ! I want thee now, the sweet 
 
 Sight of thee — not in Heaven — to-night ! 
 
 — Violet Gillespie. 
 
112 RICHARD BUTLER GLAENZER 
 
 SURE, IT'S FUN! 
 
 What fun to be a soldier ! 
 
 — Everykid. 
 
 Suee, it's fun to be a soldier I Oh, it's fun, fun, fun, 
 Upon an iron shoulder-blade to tote a feather gun ; 
 To hike with other brave galoots in easy-going 
 
 army-boots ; 
 To pack along a one-ounce sack, the commissary on 
 
 your track ; 
 To tramp, tramp, tramp, to a right-and-ready camp ! 
 Fun ? — Sure, it's fun, just the finest ever, son ! 
 
 Yes, it's fun to be a soldier ! Oh, it's fun, fun, fun, 
 To loaf along a level road beneath a cloudless sun 
 Or over fields of golden grain, kept cool by puffs of 
 
 wind and rain ; 
 Then richly, more-than-fully, fed, to stretch upon a 
 
 downy bed 
 And sleep, sleep, sleep, while the stay-at-homes 
 
 weep ! 
 Fun ? — Sure, it's fun, just the finest ever, son ! 
 
 Oh, it's fun to be a soldier ! Oh, it's fun, fun, fun, 
 To catch the silly enemy and get 'em on the run ; 
 
RICHARD BUTLER GLAENZER 113 
 
 To here and there blow off a head with just a bit of 
 
 chuckling lead ; 
 To bayonet a foolish bloke at hide-and-seek in 
 
 trench and smoke ; 
 To shoot, shoot, shoot, till they've got no legs to 
 
 scoot ! 
 Fun ? — Sure, it's fun, just the finest ever, son ! 
 
 God, it's fun to be a soldier ! Oh, it's fun, fun, fun, 
 To lie out still and easy when your day's sport's 
 
 done; 
 With not a thing to worry for, nor anything to 
 
 hurry for ; 
 Not hungry, thirsty, tired, but a hero much-admired, 
 Just dead, dead, dead, like Jack and Bill and Fred ! 
 Fun ? — Sure, it's fun, just the finest ever, son ! 
 
 — Richard Butler Glaenzer. 
 
114 GREGG GODDARD 
 
 THE AIRMAN 
 
 Wild wind, and drear, beneath the pale stars blow- 
 ing, 
 
 Whom do you hunt to-night ? 
 Out of the west into the storm-cloud glowing 
 
 A biplane wings her flight. 
 
 In the grey day-dawn was there no returning, 
 
 No homewards for the dead : — 
 Only a broken wing, a biplane burning, 
 
 A shattered airship shed ! 
 
 O Nation proud, on whose red altar gladly 
 
 One more young Life is laid, 
 Scatter the news — flutter the posters madly — 
 
 "Triumph of British raid !" 
 
 What of the Cross they brought to her — his 
 Mother? 
 Wanly her dumb lips smiled, 
 Then whispered : " Give back him — I had no 
 other — 
 My Son — my only child." 
 
 — Gregg Goddard. 
 
 
ALFRED PERCEVAL GRAVES 115 
 
 BROTHERS IN ARMS 
 
 When behind her violated border, 
 
 With unflinching bayonet and gun, 
 Belgium, in heroic battle order, 
 ; Met the savage onset of the Hun ; 
 When o'er league on league of peaceful tillage, 
 
 Under screaming showers of shot and shell, 
 Into open town, defenceless village, 
 
 He let loose his shameless hounds of Hell ; 
 When Liege, henceforth a name immortal ! 
 
 Perished fighting at his cannons' mouth, 
 When he seized Namur, and through her portal, 
 
 Drunk with fury, still went surging south ; 
 When with murderous rapine still unsated, 
 
 Sworn to bend them to his bloody yoke, 
 On the French and British Arms belated 
 
 Wave on wave his braggart legions broke ; 
 When, outmarched before him, into distance, 
 
 Frank and Briton steadfastly withdrew, 
 Though he could not pierce our proud resistance, 
 
 Break our firm-linked, friendly phalanx through ; 
 
 Then our country, roused to righteous reason 
 By the battle-thunder at her gate, 
 
116 ALFRED PERCEVAL GRAVES 
 
 Flung abroad no foolish cry of treason 
 At the Rulers of her arms and State — 
 
 Pardoned those whose eyes were proven blinder 
 Than was Wisdom to the approach of war — 
 
 Put her unpreparedness behind her, 
 Only bade us look, henceforth, before. 
 
 Therefore, every cry of party faction 
 
 Into patriot silence fell away ; 
 Britain summoned all her sons to action — 
 
 Suffering Britain — could we but obey ? 
 
 Then the adamantine cable stretching, 
 
 Python-like across the ocean floor, 
 Aid on aid from her far children fetching, 
 
 Bade her heart with hope beat high once more ; 
 Till the friends and foes whose fine derision 
 
 Long had flouted her Imperial dream, 
 Stood at gaze to mark the stately vision 
 
 Rise incarnate o'er the ocean stream ; 
 Marvelling, while above the pine-fringed waters, 
 
 While above the palm-set Austral earth 
 At their Mother's call, her mighty daughters, 
 
 Sprang, as Pallas sprang, full-armed to birth ; 
 While, O proudest Page in all the story 
 
 Of Imperial India's book of life ! 
 One by one each Princely Feudatory 
 
 In our service arms him for the strife. 
 
ALFRED PERCEVAL GRAVES 117 
 
 Our retreat is stayed, and Frank and Briton, 
 
 Reinforced, leap forth to the attack — 
 Now the smiter hip and thigh is smitten ; 
 
 In defeat we roll him roughly back. 
 Now again in anger dour he rallies, 
 
 And again assaults us flank and front ; 
 While his dead and ours o'er hills and valleys 
 
 Mix amid the dreadful battle brunt. 
 Up the slopes his batteries are crowning, 
 
 Foot by foot we dig our trenches in ; 
 Rise and charge and seize his cannon frowning, 
 
 Though we fall in swaths one gun to win. 
 Trusting surely that how oft soever 
 
 Back and forth War's crimson waves may flow, 
 On our faithful, chivalrous endeavor 
 
 Victory's full-orbed sun at last shall glow. 
 
 — Alfred Perceval Graves. 
 
118 JULIAN GRENFELL 
 
 INTO BATTLE 
 
 The naked earth is warm with Spring, 
 And with green grass and bursting trees 
 
 Leans to the sun's gaze glorying, 
 And quivers in the sunny breeze ; 
 
 And Life is Color and Warmth and Light, 
 
 And a striving evermore for these ; 
 And he is dead who will not fight ; 
 
 And who dies fighting has increase. 
 
 The fighting man shall from the sun 
 
 Take warmth, and life from the glowing earth ; 
 Speed with the light-foot winds to run, 
 
 And with the trees to newer birth ; 
 And find, when fighting shall be done, 
 
 Great rest, and fullness after dearth. 
 
 All the bright company of Heaven 
 Hold him in their high comradeship, 
 
 The Dog-Star and the Sisters Seven, 
 Orion's Belt and sworded hip. 
 
 The woodland trees that stand together, 
 They stand to him each one a friend ; 
 
JULIAN GRENFELL 119 
 
 They gently speak in the windy weather ; 
 They guide to valley and ridges' end. 
 
 The kestrel hovering by day, 
 
 And the little owls that call by night, 
 
 Bid him be swift and keen as they, 
 As keen of ear, as swift of sight. 
 
 The blackbird sings to him, Brother, brother, 
 If this be the last song you shall sing, 
 
 Sing well, for you may not sing another ; 
 Brother, sing." 
 
 In dreary doubtful waiting hours, 
 
 Before the brazen frenzy starts, 
 The horses show him nobler powers ; 
 
 O patient eyes, courageous hearts ! 
 
 And when the burning moment breaks, 
 And all things else are out of mind, 
 
 And only Joy-of-Battle takes 
 
 Him by the throat, and makes him blind, 
 
 Through joy and blindness he shall know, 
 Not caring much to know, that still 
 
 Nor lead nor steel shall reach him, so 
 That it be not the Destined Will. 
 
120 JULIAN GRENFELL 
 
 The thundering line of battle stands, 
 And in the air Death moans and sings ; 
 
 But Day shall clasp him with strong hands, 
 
 And Night shall fold him in soft wings. 
 
 — Julian Grenfell. 
 Flanders, April, 1915. 
 
 Captain the Hon. Julian Henry Francis Grenfell, D.S.O., 
 of the 1st (Royal) Dragoons, was wounded in the trenches 
 in front of Ypres on May 13, and died in hospital at 
 Boulogne on May 26, 1915. He was the eldest son of 
 Lord Desborough, by whose consent the poem, is here 
 reprinted. Lord Desborough writes: "Not many men 
 would have knocked out two professional boxers and 
 written those verses in one week." 
 
NORA GRIFFITHS 121 
 
 THE WYKHAMIST 
 
 In the wake of the yellow sunset one pale star 
 Hangs over the darkening city's purple haze. 
 An errand-boy in the street beneath me plays 
 On a penny whistle. Very faint and far 
 Comes the scroop of tortured gear on a battered car. 
 A hyacinth nods pallid blooms on the window sill, 
 Swayed by the tiny wind. St. Catherine's Hill 
 Is a place of mystery, a land of dreams. 
 The tramp of soldiers, barrack-marching, seems 
 A thing remote, untouched by fate or time. 
 ... A year ago you heard Cathedral's chime, 
 You hurried up to books — a year ago ; 
 — Shouted for "Houses" in New Field below. 
 . . . You . . . "died of wounds" . . . they told 
 me 
 
 . . . yet your feet 
 Pass with the others down the twilit street. 
 
 — Nora Griffiths. 
 
122 HERMANN HAGEDORN 
 
 THE PYRES 
 
 Pyres in the night, in the night ! 
 
 And the roaring yellow and red. 
 Trooper, trooper, why so white ? 
 
 We are out to gather our dead. 
 We have brought dry boughs from the bloody wood 
 
 And the torn hill-side ; 
 We have felled great trunks, wet with blood 
 
 Of brothers that died ; 
 We have piled them high for a flaming bed, 
 Hemlock and ash and pine for a bed, 
 A throne in the night, a throne for a bed — 
 And we go to gather our dead. 
 
 There where the oaks loom, dark and high, 
 
 Over the sombre hill, 
 
 Body on body, cold and still, 
 Under the stars they lie. 
 There where the silver river runs, 
 
 Careless and calm as fate, 
 Mowed, mowed by the terrible guns, 
 
 The stricken brothers wait. 
 There by the smoldering house, and there 
 Where the red smoke hangs on the heavy air, 
 
HERMANN HAGEDORN 123 
 
 Under the ruins, under the hedge, 
 Cheek by cheek at the forest-edge ; 
 Back to breast, three men deep, 
 
 Hearing not bugle or drum, 
 In the desperate trench they died to keep, 
 Under the starry dome they sleep, 
 
 Murmuring, "Brothers, come!" 
 
 This way I I heard a call 
 
 Like a stag's when he dies. 
 Under the willows I saw him fall. 
 
 Under the willows he lies. 
 Give me your hand. Raise him up. 
 
 Lift his head. Strike a light. 
 This morning we shared a crust and a cup. 
 
 He wants no supper to-night. 
 Take his feet. Here the shells 
 
 Broke all day long, 
 Moaning and shrieking hell's 
 
 Bacchanalian song ! 
 Last night he helped me bear 
 
 Men to hell's feting. 
 To-morrow, maybe, somewhere, 
 
 We, too, shall lie waiting. 
 
 Pyres in the night, in the night ! 
 Weary and sick and dumb, 
 
124 HERMANN HAGEDORN 
 
 Under the flickering, faint starlight 
 The drooping gleaners come. 
 
 Out of the darkness, dim 
 Shadowy shadow-bearers, 
 
 Dragging into the bale-fire's rim 
 Pallid death-farers. 
 
 Pyres in the night, in the night ! 
 
 In the plain, on the hill. 
 No volleys for their last rite. 
 
 We need our powder — to kill. 
 High on their golden bed, 
 Pile up the dead ! 
 
 Pyres in the night, in the night ! 
 
 Torches, piercing the gloom ! 
 Look ! How the sparks take flight ! 
 
 Stars, stars, make room ! 
 
 Smoke, that was bone and blood ! 
 
 Hark ! The deep roar. 
 It is the souls telling God 
 
 The glory of wak ! 
 
 — Hermann Hagedorn. 
 
CICELY HAMILTON 125 
 
 NON-COMBATANT 
 
 Before one drop of angry blood was shed 
 I was sore hurt and beaten to my knee ; 
 
 Before one fighting man reeled back and died 
 The War-Lords struck at me. 
 
 They struck me down — an idle, useless mouth, 
 As cumbrous — nay, more cumbrous — than the 
 dead, 
 
 With life and heart afire to give and give 
 I take a dole instead. 
 
 With life and heart afire to give and give 
 
 I take and eat the bread of charity. 
 In all the length of all this eager land, 
 
 No man has need of me. 
 
 That is my hurt — my burning, beating wound ; 
 
 That is the spear-thrust driven through my pride ! 
 With aimless hands, and mouth that must be fed, 
 
 I wait and stand aside. 
 
 Let me endure it, then, with stiffened lip : 
 
 I, even I, have suffered in the strife ! 
 Let me endure it then — I give my pride 
 
 Where others give a life. _ CMy HamUton . 
 
126 THOMAS HARDY 
 
 "MEN WHO MARCH AWAY" 
 
 SONG OF THE SOLDIERS 
 
 What of the faith and fire within us 
 
 Men who march away 
 
 Ere the barn-cocks say 
 
 Night is growing gray, 
 To hazards whence no tears can win us ; 
 What of the faith and fire within us 
 
 Men who march away ? 
 
 Is it a purblind prank, O think you, 
 Friend with the musing eye 
 Who watch us stepping by, 
 With doubt and dolorous sigh ? 
 
 Can much pondering so hoodwink you ! 
 
 Is it a purblind prank, O think you, 
 Friend with the musing eye ? 
 
 Nay. We see well what we are doing, 
 
 Though some may not see — 
 
 Dalliers as they be ! — 
 
 England's need are we ; 
 Her distress would set us rueing : 
 Nay. We see well what we are doing, 
 
 Though some may not see ! 
 
THOMAS HARDY 127 
 
 In our heart of hearts believing 
 
 Victory crowns the just, 
 
 And that braggarts must 
 
 Surely bite the dust, 
 March we to the field ungrieving, 
 In our heart of hearts believing 
 
 Victory crowns the just. 
 
 Hence the faith and fire within us 
 
 Men who march away 
 
 Ere the barn-cocks say 
 
 Night is growing gray, 
 To hazards whence no tears can win us ; 
 Hence the faith and fire within us 
 
 Men who march away. 
 
 — Thomas Hardy. 
 
128 H. C. HARWOOD 
 
 FROM THE YOUTH OF ALL NATIONS 
 
 Think not, my elders, to rejoice 
 
 When from the nations' wreck we rise, 
 
 With a new thunder in our voice 
 And a new lightning in our eyes. 
 
 You called with patriotic sneers, 
 And drums and sentimental songs. 
 
 We came from out the vernal years 
 Thus bloodily to right your wrongs. 
 
 The sins of many centuries, 
 
 Sealed by your indolence and fright, 
 
 Have earned us these our agonies : 
 The thunderous appalling night 
 
 When from the lurid darkness came 
 The pains of poison and of shell, 
 
 The broken heart, the world's ill-fame, 
 The lonely arrogance of hell. 
 
 Faintly, as from a game afar, 
 
 Your wrangles and your patronage 
 
 Come drifting to the work of war 
 Which you have made our heritage. 
 
H. C. HARWOOD 129 
 
 Oh, chide us not. Not ours the crime. 
 
 Oh, praise us not. It is not won, 
 The fight which we shall make sublime 
 
 Beneath an unaccustomed sun. 
 
 The simple world of childhood fades 
 Beyond the Styx that all have passed ; 
 
 This is a novel land of shades, 
 Wherein no ancient glories last. 
 
 A land of desolation, blurred 
 
 By mists of penitence and woe, 
 Where every hope must be deferred 
 
 And every river backward flow. 
 
 Not on this grey and ruined plain 
 
 Shall we obedient recall 
 Your cities to rebuild again 
 
 For their inevitable fall. 
 
 We kneel at no ancestral shrine. 
 
 With admirable blasphemy 
 We desecrate the old divine 
 
 And dream a new eternity. 
 
 Destroy the history of men, 
 
 The weary cycle of decay. 
 We shall not pass that way again, 
 
 We tread a new untrodden way. 
 
130 H. C. HARWOOD 
 
 Though scattered wider yet our youth 
 
 On every sea and continent, 
 There shall come bitter with the truth 
 
 A fraction of the sons you sent. 
 
 When slowly with averted head, 
 
 Some darkly, some with halting feet, 
 
 And bowed with mourning for the dead 
 We walk the cheering, fluttering street, 
 
 A music terrible, austere 
 
 Shall rise from our returning ranks 
 To change your merriment to fear, 
 
 And slay upon your lips your thanks ; 
 
 And on the brooding weary brows 
 Of stronger sons, close enemies, 
 
 Are writ the ruin of your house 
 And swift usurping dynasties. 
 
 — H. C. Harwood. 
 
MAURICE HEWLETT 131 
 
 SOLDIER, SOLDIER 
 
 Soldier, soldier, off to the war, 
 
 Take me a letter to my sweetheart O. 
 
 He's gone away to France 
 
 With his carbine and his lance, 
 
 And a lock of brown hair of his sweetheart O. 
 
 Fair maid of London, happy may you be 
 
 To know so much of your sweetheart O. 
 
 There's not a handsome lad, 
 
 To get the chance he's had, 
 
 But would skip, with a kiss for his sweetheart O. 
 
 Soldier, soldier, whatever shall I do 
 
 If the cruel Germans take my sweetheart O ? 
 
 They'll pen him in the jail 
 
 And starve him thin and pale, 
 
 With never a kind word from his sweetheart O- 
 
 Fair maid of London, is that all you see 
 
 Of the lad you've taken for your sweetheart ? 
 
 He'll make his prison ring 
 
 With his God Save the King 
 
 And his God bless the blue eyes of my sweetheart ! 
 
132 MAURICE HEWLETT 
 
 Soldier, soldier, if by shot or shell 
 
 They wound him, my dear lad, my sweetheart 0, 
 
 He'll lie bleeding in the rain 
 
 And call me, all in vain, 
 
 Crying for the fingers of his sweetheart 0. 
 
 Pretty one, pretty one, now take a word from me : 
 
 Don't you grudge the life-blood of your sweetheart 0. 
 
 For you must understand 
 
 He gives it to our land, 
 
 And proud should fly the colors of his sweetheart O. 
 
 Soldier, soldier, my heart is growing cold — 
 
 If a German shot kill my sweetheart O ! 
 
 I could not lift my head 
 
 If my dear love lay dead 
 
 With his wide eyes waiting for his sweetheart 0. 
 
 Poor child, poor child, go to church and pray, 
 
 Pray God to spare you your sweetheart O. 
 
 But if he live or die 
 
 The English flag must fly, 
 
 And England take care of his sweetheart O ! 
 
 — Maurice Hewlett. 
 
NORAH M. HOLLAND 133 
 
 APRIL IN ENGLAND 
 
 April in England. Daffodils are growing 
 By every wayside, golden, tall and fair ; 
 
 April — and all the little winds are blowing 
 The scents of springtime through the sunny air. 
 
 April in England. God, that we were there. 
 
 April in England. And her sons are lying 
 On these red fields and dreaming of her shore ; 
 
 April — we hear the thrushes' songs replying 
 Each unto each, above the cannons' roar. 
 
 April in England. Shall we see it more ? 
 
 April in England. There's the cuckoo calling 
 Down in her meadows, where the cowslip gleams, 
 
 April — and little showers are softly falling, 
 Dimpling the surface of her babbling streams. 
 
 April in England. How the shrapnel screams. 
 
 April in England. Blood and dust and smother, 
 
 Screaming of horses, men in agony, 
 April — full many of thy sons, O Mother, 
 
 Never again those dewy dawns shall see 
 April in England. God keep England free. 
 
 — Norah M. Holland. 
 
134 LIEUT. DYNELEY HUSSEY 
 
 THINGS THAT WERE YOURS 
 
 These things were yours, these little simple things ; 
 You touched them, used them one time, loved 
 them well. 
 Now you are gone, but still about them clings 
 
 The fragrance of your hands adorable. 
 These childish books; these learned works well- 
 thumbed ; 
 These time-stained prints; these comfortable 
 chairs ; 
 This music, and this album where you gummed 
 Your childhood's treasure ; these Italian jars ; 
 This little cup blue-patterned ; this old bed ; 
 
 These sheets that whitely wrapt you slumbering; 
 
 These garden-walks and autumn-tinted trees, 
 That knew your laughter, and past numbering 
 These blades of grass that bent beneath your tread : 
 Because they once were yours, I love all these. 
 
 — Dyneley Hussey. 
 (Lieut., 13th Bn. Lancashire Fusiliers.) 
 
/. H. s. 135 
 
 JOAN OF FRANCE TO AN ENGLISH SISTER 
 I. M. Edith Cavell, nurse 
 
 " Title que estoit au royaume de France." 
 
 Pity had I for my France my land 
 
 In the days so far that be, 
 Pity of heart and pity of hand — 
 
 And who had pity on me ? 
 England's daughter, led out to die 
 
 For a deed of mercy and truth, 
 Guerdon of helper thou hast as I 
 
 From the men that have murdered ruth. 
 Sister of Joan by the pity, the spite, 
 
 Joy yet in the pain be thine : 
 We have armed our folk with a quenchless might, 
 
 Fire of thy bosom and mine. 
 
 — J. H. S. 
 
136 MRS. VIOLET JACOB 
 
 THE TWA WEELUMS 
 
 I'm Sairgeant Weelum Henderson frae Pairth, 
 
 That's wha I am ! 
 There's just ae regimint in a' the airth 
 
 That's worth a damn ; 
 An' gin the bonniest fechter o' the lot 
 
 Ye seek to see, 
 Him that's the best — whaur ilka man's a Scot- 
 
 Speir you at me ! 
 
 Gin there's a hash o' Gairmans pitten oot 
 
 By aichts an' tens, 
 That Wully Henderson's been thereaboot 
 
 A'body kens ; 
 Fegs-aye ! Yon Weelum that's in Gairmanie, 
 
 He hadna' reckoned 
 Wi' Sairgint Weelum Henderson an' wi' 
 
 The Forty-Second ! 
 
 Yon day we lichtit on the shores o' France, 
 
 The lassies standin' 
 Trod ilk on ither's taes to get the chance 
 
 To see us landin'. 
 
MRS. VIOLET JACOB 137 
 
 The besoms ! O they smiled to me — an' yet 
 
 They couldna' help it. 
 (MyseP, I just was thinkin' foo we'd get 
 
 They Gairmans skelpit.) 
 
 I'm wearied wi' them, for it's aye the same 
 
 Whaure'er we gang, 
 Oor Captain thinks we've got his een to blame, 
 
 But man ! he's wrang ! 
 I winna say he's no as smairt a lad 
 
 As ye micht see 
 Atween twa Sawbiths — aye, he's no sae bad, 
 
 But he's no me ! 
 
 Weel, let the limmers bide ; their bonnie lips 
 
 Are fine an' reid, 
 But me an' Weelum's got to get to grips 
 
 Afore we're deid, 
 An' gin he thinks he hasna' met his match 
 
 He'll sune be wiser — 
 Here's to mysel' ! Here's to the auld Black Watch ! 
 
 An' damn the Kaiser ! 
 
 — Violet Jacob. 
 
138 ELINOR JENKINS 
 
 A LEGEND OF YPRES 
 
 Before the throne the spirits of the slain 
 With a loud voice importunately cried, 
 " O Lord of Hosts, whose name be glorified, 
 
 Scarce may the line one onslaught more sustain 
 
 Wanting our help. Let it not be in vain, 
 Not all in vain, O God, that we have died." 
 And smiling on them our good Lord replied, 
 
 "Begone then, foolish ones, and fight again." 
 
 Our eyes were holden, that we saw them not ; 
 
 Disheartened foes beheld — our prisoners said — 
 Behind us massed, a mighty host indeed, 
 Where no host was. On comrades unforgot 
 
 We thought, and knew that all those valiant dead 
 Forwent their rest to save us at our need. 
 
 — Elinor Jenkins. 
 
 (See note on " The First Battle of Ypres," by Mrs. Mar- 
 garet L. Woods, p. 290 of this volume.) 
 
EDMUND JOHN 139 
 
 IN MEMORIAM 
 
 (To Field-Marshal Lord Roberts of Kandahar, died 
 November, 1914) 
 
 Rest, though the clamorous surge of war 
 
 Follow thy peace to the great doors of Death ; 
 
 As in thy fearless life, so now, the cannons' roar, 
 The roll of drums, at thy last breath 
 
 Proclaim thee Conqueror ! 
 
 The prophets and the warriors who have passed 
 That way before thy coming, welcome thee ; 
 
 The Angel's trumpet sounds a nobler blast, 
 And kings and knights of the old chivalry 
 
 Now hail thee at the last. 
 
 Thy days, thy deeds, thy words of proven gold, 
 Thy son, and last of all, thyself did give 
 
 For Country's sake, and now the tale is told 
 Thy splendid memory shall breathe and live 
 
 Till all men's hearts lie cold. 
 
 — Edmund John. 
 
140 NIZAM AT JUNG 
 
 INDIA TO ENGLAND 
 
 England ! in thine hour of need, 
 When Faith's reward and valor's meed 
 
 Is death or glory, 
 When Faith indites, with biting brand, 
 Clasped in each warrior's stiffening hand, 
 
 A nation's story ; 
 
 Though weak our hands, which fain would clasp 
 The warrior's sword with warrior's grasp 
 
 On victory's field ; 
 Yet turn, O mighty Mother ! turn 
 Unto the million hearts that burn 
 
 To be thy shield. 
 
 Thine equal justice, mercy, grace 
 Have made a distant alien race 
 
 A part of thee. 
 'Twas thine to bid their souls rejoice 
 When first they heard the living voice 
 
 Of Liberty. 
 
 Unmindful of their ancient name, 
 And lost to honor — glory — fame, 
 And sunk in strife, 
 
NIZAMAT JUNG 141 
 
 Thou found them, whom thy touch hath made 
 Men, and to whom thy breath conveyed 
 A nobler life. 
 
 They, whom thy love hath guarded long ; 
 They, whom thy care hath rendered strong 
 
 In love and faith, 
 Their heartstrings round thy heart entwine, 
 They are, they ever will be, thine j 
 
 In life — in death. 
 
 — Nizamat Jung. 
 
 (Native Judge of the High Court of Hyderabad.) 
 
142 REGINALD WRIGHT KAUFFMAN 
 
 THE NATIONS' DAVID 
 
 Erect before Hell's hurricane, between the Germans 
 
 and the sea, 
 Belgium, still smiling through your pain; still, in 
 
 the hour of ruin, free ; 
 While yet the cannon's note resounds along each 
 
 poplar-bordered way, 
 O, bleeding Belgium, to your wounds what mankind 
 
 owes what man may say ? 
 
 Long years, while battle came and went afar at 
 
 Fate's malign caprice, 
 Your kindly folk, serene, content, pursued the 
 
 pleasant ways of peace. 
 They promised, all the mighty ones: "In that 
 
 calm land shall not be heard 
 The thunder of our angry guns" — Kaiser and King, 
 
 they pledged their word. 
 
 And then, unwarning, arrogant, the cut-throat liar 
 
 of Berlin 
 Tore into shreds his covenant: his armed hosts 
 
 were swarming in 
 
REGINALD WRIGHT KAUFFMAN 143 
 
 From Prussian beer-halls, Rhinish hills, from Aurich 
 
 east to Gumbinnen, 
 From Rostock down to stolen Silz, sounded the tramp 
 
 of Krupp-made men. 
 
 This was your guardian brother's gift, the choice 
 
 he gave his little ward : 
 Betrayal of France (the course of thrift) or (Honor's 
 
 course) the crimsoned sword. 
 And you, the Nations' David, chose, while all the 
 
 world stood trembling by ; 
 You called your sons, and they arose : " Come forth 
 
 to die ! Come forth to die !" 
 
 Your weaver stopped his whirring loom; as Csesar 
 
 met him, even so now 
 Your farmer hurried to his doom, and in its furrow 
 
 left the plough ; 
 And Flanders, Hainault, Brabant came, Antwerp 
 
 and Limburg — all the land : 
 The nameless and the proud of name, shoulder to 
 
 shoulder, hand in hand. 
 
 Not for adventure, nor in pride: with naught to 
 
 gain and all to lose — 
 Their homes, their wives, their lives beside — true 
 
 sons of you, they, too, could choose. 
 
144 REGINALD WRIGHT KAUFFMAN 
 
 They came, with eyes that looked on death; not 
 driven slaves, but conscious men : 
 
 The Brugan burgher scant of breath, the lean- 
 limbed hunter of Ardennes. 
 
 Their part it was to hold the gate, the narrow gate, 
 
 against a foe 
 Outnumbering scores to one — to wait till Death 
 
 alone should bid them go. 
 And how they held it ! Man and child ; about Liege 
 
 where Leman fed 
 Blood-hungry Prussians blood and piled the 
 
 meadows with heroic dead ; 
 
 While village after village fell, cottage and church 
 
 engulfed in smoke ; 
 While all the land became a Hell and served to turn 
 
 a Teuton joke ; 
 While Belgian women prayed in vain for German 
 
 mercy, trusting, fond ; 
 While German "Culture" burned Louvain, and 
 
 German tenderness Termonde : 
 
 You did it, Little Belgium — you! You stopped 
 
 the dyke with half your sons ; 
 You did what no one else could do against the 
 
 Vandals and the Huns ! 
 
REGINALD WRIGHT KAUFFMAN 145 
 
 The eternal future in your debt from now until 
 
 Man's latest day, 
 How can the wondering world forget — and how, 
 
 remembering, repay? 
 
 France, Britain, Russia : they have fought as fits 
 the vast initiate ; 
 
 You, all unready, but unbought, till they were 
 marshalled, held the gate. 
 
 Above all clamour and applause, you stand, what- 
 ever else befall, 
 
 God's David in Mankind's high cause: Belgium, 
 the bravest of them all ! 
 
 — Reginald Wright Kauffman. 
 
146 HERBERT KAUFMAN 
 
 THE HELL-GATE OF SOISSONS 
 
 My name is Darino, the poet. You have heard? 
 
 Oui, Comedie Francaise. 
 Perchance it has happened, mon ami, you know of 
 
 my unworthy lays. 
 Ah, then, you must guess how my fingers are itching 
 
 to talk to a pen ; 
 For I was at Soissons, and saw it, the death of the 
 
 twelve Englishmen. 
 
 My leg, malheureusement, I left it behind on the 
 
 banks of the Aisne. 
 Regret? I would pay with the other to witness 
 
 their valor again. 
 A trifle, indeed, I assure you, to give for the honor 
 
 to tell 
 How that handful of British, undaunted, went into 
 
 the Gateway of Hell. 
 
 Let me draw you a plan of the battle. Here we 
 
 French and your Engineers stood ; 
 Over there a detachment of German sharpshooters 
 
 lay hid in a wood. 
 
HERBERT KAUFMAN 147 
 
 A mitrailleuse battery planted on top of this well- 
 chosen ridge 
 
 Held the road for the Prussians and covered the 
 direct approach to the bridge. 
 
 It was madness to dare the dense murder that spewed 
 
 from those ghastly machines. 
 (Only those who have danced to its music can know 
 
 what the mitrailleuse means.) 
 But the bridge on the Aisne was a menace; our 
 
 safety demanded its fall : 
 "Engineers, — volunteers !" In a body, the Royals 
 
 stood out at the call. 
 
 Death at best was the fate of that mission — to 
 
 their glory not one was dismayed. 
 A party was chosen — and seven survived till the 
 
 powder was laid. 
 And they died with their fuses unlighted. Another 
 
 detachment ! Again 
 A sortie is made — all too vainly. The bridge still 
 
 commanded the Aisne. 
 
 We were fighting two foes — Time and Prussia — 
 the moments were worth more than troops. 
 
 We must blow up the bridge. A lone soldier darts 
 out from the Royals and swoops 
 
148 HERBERT KAUFMAN 
 
 For the fuse ! Fate seems with us. We cheer 
 him ; he answers — our hopes are reborn ! 
 
 A ball rips his visor — his khaki shows red where 
 another has torn. 
 
 Will he live — will he last — will he make it? 
 
 Helas ! And so near to the goal ! 
 A second, he dies ! Then a third one ! A fourth ! 
 
 Still the Germans take toll ! 
 A fifth, magnifique ! It is magic ! How does he 
 
 escape them ? He may . . . 
 Yes, he does ! See, the match flares ! A rifle rings 
 
 out from the wood and says "Nay !" 
 
 Six, seven, eight, nine take their places, six, seven, 
 
 eight, nine, brave their hail ; 
 Six, seven, eight, nine — how we count them ! 
 
 But the sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth fail ! 
 A tenth ! Sacre nom ! But these English are 
 
 soldiers — they know how to try ; 
 (He fumbles the place where his jaw was) — they 
 
 show, too, how heroes can die. 
 
 Ten we count — ten who ventured unquailing — 
 ten there were — and the ten are no more ! 
 
 Yet another salutes and superbly essays where the 
 ten failed before. 
 
HERBERT KAUFMAN 149 
 
 God of Battles, look down and protect him ! Lord, 
 his heart is as Thine — let him live ! 
 
 But the mitrailleuse sputters and stutters, and 
 riddles him into a sieve. 
 
 Then I thought of my sins, and sat waiting the 
 
 charge that we could not withstand. 
 And I thought of my beautiful Paris, and gave a last 
 
 look at the land, 
 At France, my belle France, in her glory of blue sky 
 
 and green field and wood. 
 Death with honor, but never surrender. And to 
 
 die with such men — it was good. 
 
 They are forming — the bugles are blaring — they 
 will cross in a moment and then . . . 
 
 When out of the line of the Royals (your island, mon 
 ami, breeds men) 
 
 Burst a private, a tawny-haired giant — it was hope- 
 less, but, ciel ! how he ran ! 
 
 Bon Dieu please remember the pattern, and make 
 many more on his plan ! 
 
 No cheer from our ranks, and the Germans, they 
 
 halted in wonderment too ; 
 See, he reaches the bridge ; ah ! he lights it ! 
 I am dreaming, it cannot be true. 
 
150 HERBERT KAUFMAN 
 
 Screams of rage! Fusillade! They have killed 
 him! 
 Too late though, the good work is done. 
 By the valor of twelve English martyrs, the Hell- 
 Gate of Soissons is won ! 
 
 — Herbert Kaufman. 
 
JOYCE KILMER 151 
 
 THE WHITE SHIPS AND THE RED 
 
 With drooping sail and pennant 
 
 That never a wind may reach, 
 They float in sunless waters 
 
 Beside a sunless beach. 
 Their mighty masts and funnels 
 
 Are white as driven snow, 
 And with a pallid radiance 
 
 Their ghostly bulwarks glow. 
 
 Here is a Spanish galleon 
 
 That once with gold was gay, 
 Here is a Roman trireme 
 
 Whose hues outshone the day. 
 But Tyrian dyes have faded 
 
 And prows that once were bright 
 With rainbow stains wear only 
 
 Death's livid, dreadful white. 
 
 White as the ice that clove her 
 
 That unf orgotten day, 
 Among her pallid sisters 
 
 The grim Titanic lay. 
 
152 JOYCE KILMER 
 
 And through the leagues above her 
 She looked, aghast, and said : 
 
 " What is this living ship that comes 
 Where every ship is dead ? " 
 
 The ghostly vessels trembled 
 
 From ruined stern to prow ; 
 What was this thing of terror 
 
 That broke their vigil now ? 
 Down through the startled ocean 
 
 A mighty vessel came, 
 Not white, as all dead ships must be, 
 
 But red, like living flame ! 
 
 The pale green waves about her 
 
 Were swiftly, strangely dyed, 
 By the great scarlet stream that flowed 
 
 From out her wounded side. 
 And all her decks were scarlet 
 
 And all her shattered crew. 
 She sank among the white ghost ships 
 
 And stained them through and through. 
 
 The grim Titanic greeted her 
 "And who art thou?" she said; 
 
 "Why dost thou join our ghostly fleet 
 Arrayed in living red ? 
 
 We are the ships of sorrow 
 Who spend the weary night, 
 
JOYCE KILMER 153 
 
 Until the dawn of Judgment Day, 
 Obscure and still and white." 
 
 "Nay," said the scarlet visitor, 
 
 "Though I sink through the sea 
 A ruined thing that was a ship 
 
 I sink not as did ye. 
 For ye met with your destiny 
 
 By storm or rock or fight, 
 So through the lagging centuries 
 
 Ye wear your robes of white. 
 
 "But never crashing iceberg 
 
 Nor honest shot of foe, 
 Nor hidden reef has sent me 
 
 The way that I must go. 
 My wound that stains the waters, 
 
 My blood that is like flame, 
 Bear witness to a loathly deed, 
 
 A deed without a name. 
 
 "I went not forth to battle, 
 
 I carried friendly men, 
 The children played about my decks, 
 
 The women sang — and then — 
 And then — the sun blushed scarlet 
 
 And Heaven hid its face, 
 The world that God created 
 
 Became a shameful place ! 
 
154 JOYCE KILMER 
 
 "My wrong cries out for vengeance, 
 
 The blow that sent me here 
 Was aimed in Hell. My dying scream 
 
 Has reached Jehovah's ear. 
 Not all the seven oceans 
 
 Shall wash away the stain ; 
 Upon a brow that wears a crown 
 
 I am the brand of Cain." 
 
 When God's great voice assembles 
 
 The fleet on Judgment Day, 
 The ghosts of ruined ships will rise 
 
 In sea and strait and bay. 
 Though they have lain for ages 
 
 Beneath the changeless flood, 
 They shall be white as silver. 
 
 But one — shall be like blood. 
 
 — Joyce Kilmer. 
 
ALFRED KREYMBORG 155 
 
 OVERHEARD IN AN ASYLUM 
 
 And here we have another case, 
 quite different from the last, 
 another case quite different — 
 Listen. 
 
 Baby, drink. 
 The war is over. 
 Mother's breasts 
 are round with milk. 
 
 Baby, rest. 
 The war is over. 
 Only pigs 
 slop over so. 
 
 Baby, sleep. 
 The war is over. 
 Daddy's come 
 with a German coin. 
 
 Baby, dream. 
 The war is over. 
 You'll be a soldier 
 too. 
 
156 ALFRED KREYMBORG 
 
 We gave her the doll — 
 
 Now there we have another case, 
 
 quite different from — 
 
 — Alfred Kreymborg. 
 
WINIFRED M. LETTS 157 
 
 THE SPIRES OF OXFORD 
 
 I saw the spires of Oxford 
 
 As I was passing by, 
 The gray spires of Oxford 
 
 Against a pearl-gray sky. 
 My heart was with the Oxford men 
 
 Who went abroad to die. 
 
 The years go fast in Oxford, 
 The golden years and gay, 
 
 The hoary Colleges look down 
 On careless boys at play. 
 
 But when the bugles sounded war 
 They put their games away. 
 
 They left the peaceful river, 
 The cricket-field, the quad, 
 
 The shaven lawns of Oxford 
 To seek a bloody sod — 
 
 They gave their merry youth away 
 For country and for God. 
 
 God rest you, happy gentlemen, 
 Who laid your good lives down, 
 
158 WINIFRED M. LETTS 
 
 Who took the khaki and the gun 
 
 Instead of cap and gown. 
 God bring you to a fairer place 
 
 Than even Oxford town. 
 
 — Winifred M. Letts. 
 
VACHEL LINSDAY 159 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN WALKS AT MIDNIGHT 
 
 (In Springfield, Illinois) 
 
 It is portentous, and a thing of state 
 That here at midnight, in our little town 
 A mourning figure walks, and will not rest, 
 Near the old court-house pacing up and down. 
 
 Or by his homestead, or in shadowed yards 
 He lingers where his children used to play, 
 Or through the market, on the well-worn stones 
 He stalks until the dawn-stars burn away. 
 
 A bronzed, lank man ! His suit of ancient black, 
 A famous high top-hat and plain worn shawl 
 Make him the quaint great figure that men love, 
 The prairie-lawyer, master of us all. 
 
 He cannot sleep upon his hillside now. 
 
 He is among us : — as in times before ! 
 
 And we who toss and lie awake for long 
 
 Breathe deep, and start, to see him pass the door. 
 
 His head is bowed. He thinks on men and kings. 
 Yea, when the sick world cries, how can he sleep ? 
 Too many peasants fight, they know not why, 
 Too many homesteads in black terror weep. 
 
160 VACHEL LINDSAY 
 
 The sins of all the war-lords burn his heart. 
 He sees the dreadnaughts scouring every main. 
 He carries on his shawl-wrapped shoulders now 
 The bitterness, the folly and the pain. 
 
 He cannot rest until a spirit-dawn 
 Shall come ; — the shining hope of Europe free : 
 The league of sober folk, the Workers' Earth 
 Bringing long peace to Cornland, Alp and Sea. 
 
 It breaks his heart that kings must murder still, 
 That all his hours of travail here for men 
 Seem yet in vain. And who will bring white peace 
 That he may sleep upon his hill again ? 
 
 — Vachel Lindsay. 
 
AMY LOWELL 161 
 
 PATTERNS 
 
 I walk down the garden paths, 
 
 And all the daffodils 
 
 Are blowing, and the bright blue squills. 
 
 I walk down the patterned garden paths 
 
 In my stiff, brocaded gown. 
 
 With my powdered hair and jewelled fan, 
 
 I too am a rare 
 
 Pattern. As I wander down 
 
 The garden paths. 
 
 My dress is richly figured, 
 
 And the train 
 
 Makes a pink and silver stain 
 
 On the gravel, and the thrift 
 
 Of the borders. 
 
 Just a plate of current fashion, 
 
 Tripping by in high-heeled, ribboned shoes. 
 
 Not a softness anywhere about me, 
 
 Only whale-bone and brocade. 
 
 And I sink on a seat in the shade 
 
 Of a lime tree. For my passion 
 
 Wars against the stiff brocade. 
 
 The daffodils and squills 
 
 M 
 
162 AMY LOWELL 
 
 Flutter in the breeze 
 
 As they please. 
 
 And I weep ; 
 
 For the lime tree is in blossom 
 
 And one small flower has dropped upon my bosom. 
 
 And the plashing of waterdrops 
 
 In the marble fountain 
 
 Comes down the garden paths. 
 
 The dripping never stops. 
 
 Underneath my stiffened gown 
 
 Is the softness of a woman bathing in a marble 
 
 basin, 
 A basin in the midst of hedges grown 
 So thick, she cannot see her lover hiding. 
 But she guesses he is near, 
 And the sliding of the water 
 Seems the stroking of a dear 
 Hand upon her. 
 
 What is Summer in a fine brocaded gown ! 
 I should like to see it lying in a heap upon the 
 
 ground. 
 All the pink and silver crumpled up on the 
 
 ground. 
 I would be the pink and silver as I ran along the 
 
 paths, 
 And he would stumble after 
 Bewildered by my laughter. 
 
AMY LOWELL 163 
 
 I should see the sun flashing from his sword hilt and 
 
 the buckles on his shoes. 
 I would choose 
 
 To lead him in a maze along the patterned paths, 
 A bright and laughing maze for my heavy-booted 
 
 lover, 
 Till he caught me in the shade, 
 And the buttons of his waistcoat bruised my body 
 
 as he clasped me, 
 Aching, melting, unafraid. 
 
 With the shadows of the leaves and the sundrops, 
 And the plopping of the waterdrops, 
 All about us in the open afternoon — 
 I am very like to swoon 
 With the weight of this brocade, 
 For the sun sifts through the shade. 
 
 Underneath the fallen blossom 
 
 In my bosom, 
 
 Is a letter I have hid. 
 
 It was brought to me this morning by a rider from 
 the Duke. 
 
 " Madam, we regret to inform you that Lord Hart- 
 well 
 
 Died in action Thursday sen'night." 
 
 As I read it in the white, morning sunlight, 
 
 The letters squirmed like snakes. 
 
 "Any answer, Madam ? " said my footman. 
 
164 AMY LOWELL 
 
 "No," I told him. 
 
 "See that the messenger takes some refreshment. 
 
 No, no answer." 
 
 And I walked into the garden, 
 
 Up and down the patterned paths, 
 
 In my stiff, correct brocade. 
 
 The blue and yellow flowers stood up proudly in 
 
 the sun, 
 Each one. 
 
 I stood upright too, 
 Held rigid to the pattern 
 By the stiffness of my gown. 
 Up and down I walked, 
 Up and down. 
 
 In a month he would have been my husband. 
 
 In a month, here, underneath this lime, 
 
 We would have broke the pattern ; 
 
 He for me, and I for him, 
 
 He as Colonel, I as Lady, 
 
 On this shady seat. 
 
 He had a whim 
 
 That sunlight carried blessing. 
 
 And I answered, " It shall be as you have said." 
 
 Now he is dead. 
 
 In Summer and in Winter I shall walk 
 Up and down 
 
AMY LOWELL 165 
 
 The patterned garden paths 
 
 In my stiff, brocaded gown. 
 
 The squills and daffodils 
 
 Will give place to pillared roses, and to asters, and 
 
 to snow. 
 I shall go 
 Up and down, 
 In my gown. 
 Gorgeously arrayed, 
 Boned and stayed. 
 And the softness of my body will be guarded from 
 
 embrace 
 By each button, hook, and lace. 
 For the man who should loose me is dead, 
 Fighting with the Duke in Flanders, 
 In a pattern called a war. 
 Christ ! What are patterns for ? 
 
 — Amy Lowell. 
 
166 E. V. LUCAS 
 
 THE DEBT 
 
 No more old England will they see — 
 The men who've died for you and me. 
 
 So lone and cold they lie ; but we, 
 We still have life ; we still may greet 
 Our pleasant friends in home and street ; 
 We still have life, are able still 
 To climb the turf of Bignor Hill, 
 To see the placid sheep go by; ' 
 To hear the sheep-dog's eager cry, 
 To feel the sun, to taste the rain, 
 To smell the Autumn scents again 
 Beneath the brown and gold and red 
 Which old October's brush has spread, 
 To hear the robin in the lane, 
 To look upon the English sky. 
 
 So young they were, so strong and well, 
 
 Until the bitter summons fell — 
 
 Too young to die. 
 
 Yet there on foreign soil they lie, 
 
 So pitiful, with glassy eye 
 
 And limbs all tumbled anyhow : 
 
 Quite finished, now. 
 
E. V. LUCAS 167 
 
 On every heart, lest we forget — 
 Secure at home — engrave this debt ! 
 
 Too delicate is flesh to be 
 
 The shield that nations interpose 
 
 'Twixt red Ambition and his foes — 
 
 The bastion of Liberty. 
 
 So beautiful their bodies were, 
 
 Built with so exquisite a care : 
 
 So young and fit and lithe and fair. 
 
 The very flower of us were they, 
 
 The very flower, but yesterday ! 
 
 Yet now so pitiful they lie, 
 
 Where love of country bade them hie 
 
 To fight this fierce Caprice — and die. 
 
 All mangled now, where shells have burst 
 
 And lead and steel have done their worst ; 
 
 The tender tissues ploughed away, 
 
 The year's slow processes effaced : 
 
 The Mother of us all, disgraced. 
 
 And some leave wives behind, young wives; 
 
 Already some have launched new lives : 
 
 A little daughter, little son ; 
 
 For thus this blundering world goes on. 
 
 But never more will any see 
 
 The old secure felicity, 
 
 The kindnesses that made us glad 
 
 Before the world went mad. 
 
168 E. V. LUCAS 
 
 They'll never hear another bird, 
 Another gay or loving word — 
 Those men who lie so cold and lone, 
 Far in a country not their own ; 
 Those men who died for you and me, 
 That England still might sheltered be 
 And our smug lives be much the same 
 (Although to live is almost shame). 
 
 — E. V. Lucas. 
 
HABBERTON LULHAM 169 
 
 HIS ONLY WAY 
 
 I stood to-day high on the Downs 
 And talked long with a shepherd lad ; 
 
 I found him pondering by his sheep, 
 Motionless, staring-eyed, and sad. 
 
 But, leaning on his Pyecombe crook — 
 Long polished by his father's hand — 
 
 He told, with slow-tongued eagerness, 
 This love-tale of his Sussex land : 
 
 "Me and my mate, Dick, loved a girl, 
 But he was always down at plough, 
 
 And in and out the village, like, 
 And — well, he 'listed, anyhow ; 
 
 "While I bides up here 'long me sheep; 
 
 And our girl, though she liked us two 
 Equal it seemed, she took his ring — 
 
 As, sure, she'd right enough to do. 
 
 "Well, Dick he fought and met his death, 
 Somewheres in Flanders, so 'tis said ; 
 
 And I can't go to her, I feels, 
 Because of Dick there lying dead. 
 
170 HABBERTON LULHAM 
 
 "They do tell she gets pine and thin, 
 And mopes and mourns that bitterly, 
 
 But I can't go and say a word, 
 Because he died for her, you see. 
 
 "And day by day I sees it more — 
 Fve pieced it all out clear and plain — 
 
 As I must go like Dick has gone, 
 Afore I looks at her again. 
 
 "Old wall-eyed Bob, there, '11 pine awhile, 
 And listen, maybe, for my call ; 
 
 And master, he'll be proper mad, 
 With lambing coming on, and all. 
 
 " But there 'tis, and there ain't two ways : 
 He went, and 'tis the only thing ; 
 
 Else I shall grow to hate the hill 
 And get ashamed o' shepherding. 
 
 "That there's her window down below, 
 Aside the copse, where I could see 
 
 (It seems a score o' years agone) 
 Our girl stand waving up to me. 
 
 "Come Sunday, then, I'll 'list for sure 
 (The same as you done, Dick, old lad !) 
 
 Then, if I gets back, I can go 
 
 Fair, like, and face her proud and glad." 
 
 — Habberton Lulham. 
 
PERCY MAC KAY E 171 
 
 CHRISTMAS, 1915 
 
 Now is the midnight of the nations : dark 
 Even as death, beside her blood-dark seas, 
 Earth, like a mother in birth agonies, 
 Screams in her travail, and the planets hark 
 Her million-throated terror. Naked, stark, 
 Her torso writhes enormous, and her knees 
 Shudder against the shadowed Pleiades, 
 Wrenching the night's imponderable arc. 
 
 Christ ! What shall be delivered to the morn 
 Out of these pangs, if ever indeed another 
 Morn shall succeed this night, or this vast mother 
 Survive to know the blood-spent offspring, torn 
 From her racked flesh ? — What splendor from the 
 
 smother ? 
 What new-wing'd world, or mangled god still-born ? 
 
 — Percy MacKaye. 
 
172 JAMES MACKERETH 
 
 TO ENGLAND, OUR MOTHER 
 
 A HYMN OF LOYALTY 
 
 We are your children, O Mother, 
 
 And tried by your testing, but true ; 
 Sealed of your sign and none other ; 
 
 Soul of the soul that is you ; 
 Yours from the past, for the morrow ; 
 
 Leal at your travail we bow, 
 Mother made perfect by sorrow, 
 
 With the pain-splendid brow. 
 
 Yours was our freedom that blamed you, 
 
 Our right that was wind to our hate 
 Yours, and the swift wrath that named you. 
 
 Mother, we love, — and we wait. 
 We that you favored or slighted, 
 
 Mother, are all of us peers 
 In our will that your wrong shall be righted, 
 
 In our love at the sight of your tears. 
 
 Ah, deep in our hearts is the sweetness 
 Of your fields where as infants we trod, 
 
 When our ills were as swallows for fleetness, 
 In the green-curtained play-grounds of God. 
 
JAMES MACKERETH 173 
 
 Fond days that are joys mid our weeping 
 Are set mid your meadows and bowers ; 
 
 Our loves that lie dead in your keeping 
 You fondle with grass and with flowers. 
 
 Ah, yours was the beauty that blessed us ; 
 
 The kiss when our troubles were dumb ; 
 The hand that in childhood caressed us — 
 
 Oh, Mother ! you need us. We come ! 
 Love-gifts from our hell or our heaven 
 
 Take, take them and purge with your pain ; 
 All, all our love's best take, and leaven 
 
 Our life till 'tis lovely again, — 
 
 And true to your height, Mother, tender 
 
 And true to the best in us all ! 
 We have pined here alone in your splendor ; 
 
 But we speed to your pain lest you fall. 
 Ask : we give ! Is it life or the other ? 
 
 Is it death ? Take us whole. We are come 
 For the sake of our dream of you, Mother, 
 
 Whose love we have longed for at home ! 
 
 Oh, Lord of our fathers before us, 
 
 We have turned from the light of Thy word, 
 We and this Mother who bore us : 
 
 Dread God, we were proud : we have erred. 
 
174 JAMES MACKERETH 
 
 We plead : on ourselves, not our brother, 
 Lay now the stern weight of Thy rod ; 
 Grind us small with Thy grief ; — but our Mother 
 
 Spare, spare her, O God ! 
 
 — James A. M acker eth. 
 
JOHN MASEFIELD 175 
 
 THE ISLAND OF SKYROS 
 
 Here, where we stood together, we three men, 
 Before the war had swept us to the East 
 Three thousand miles away, I stand again 
 And hear the bells, and breathe, and go to feast. 
 We trod the same path, to the self-same place, 
 Yet here I stand, having beheld their graves, 
 Skyros whose shadows the great seas erase, 
 And Seddul Bahr that ever more blood craves. 
 So, since we communed here, our bones have been 
 Nearer, perhaps, than they again will be, 
 Earth and the world-wide battle lie between, 
 Death lies between, and friend-destroying sea. 
 Yet here, a year ago, we talked and stood 
 As I stand now, with pulses beating blood. 
 
 I saw her like a shadow on the sky 
 
 In the last light, a blur upon the sea, 
 
 Then the gale's darkness put the shadow by, 
 
 But from one grave that island talked to me ; 
 
 And, in the midnight, in the breaking storm, 
 
 I saw its blackness and a blinking light, 
 
 And thought, "So death obscures your gentle form, 
 
 So memory strives to make the darkness bright ; 
 
176 JOHN MASE FIELD 
 
 And, in that heap of rocks, your body lies, 
 Part of the island till the planet ends, 
 My gentle comrade, beautiful and wise, 
 Part of this crag this bitter surge offends, 
 While I, who pass, a little obscure thing, 
 War with this force, and breathe, and am its king." 
 
 — John Masefield. 
 
 (See note on Rupert Brooke, p. 38.) 
 
EDGAR LEE MASTERS 177 
 
 O GLORIOUS FRANCE 
 
 You have become a forge of snow white fire, 
 
 A crucible of molten steel, O France ! 
 
 Your sons are stars who cluster to a dawn 
 
 And fade in light for you, O glorious France ! 
 
 They pass through meteor changes with a song 
 
 Which to all islands and all continents 
 
 Says life is neither comfort, wealth, nor fame, 
 
 Nor quiet hearthstones, friendship, wife nor child, 
 
 Nor love, nor youth's delight, nor manhood's 
 
 power, 
 Nor many days spent in a chosen work, 
 Nor honored merit, nor the patterned theme 
 Of daily labor, nor the crowns nor wreaths 
 Of seventy years. 
 
 These are not all of life, 
 O France, whose sons amid the rolling thunder 
 Of cannon stand in trenches where the dead 
 Clog the ensanguined ice. But life to these 
 Prophetic and enraptured souls is vision, 
 And the keen ecstasy of fated strife, 
 And divination of the loss as gain, 
 And reading mysteries with brightened eyes 
 
 N 
 
178 EDGAR LEE MASTERS 
 
 In fiery shock and dazzling pain before 
 
 The orient splendor of the face of Death, 
 
 As a great light beside a shadowy sea ; 
 
 And in a high will's strenuous exercise, 
 
 Where the warmed spirit finds its fullest strength 
 
 And is no more afraid. And in the stroke 
 
 Of azure lightning when the hidden essence 
 
 And shifting meaning of man's spiritual worth 
 
 And mystical significance in time 
 
 Are instantly distilled to one clear drop 
 
 Which mirrors earth and heaven. 
 
 This is life 
 Flaming to heaven in a minute's span 
 When the breath of battle blows the smoldering 
 
 spark. 
 And across these seas 
 
 We who cry Peace and treasure life and cling 
 To cities, happiness, or daily toil 
 For daily bread, or trail the long routine 
 Of seventy years, taste not the terrible wine 
 Whereof you drink, who drain and toss the cup 
 Empty and ringing by the finished feast ; 
 Or have it shaken from your hand by sight 
 Of God against the olive woods. 
 
 As Joan of Arc amid the apple trees 
 
 With sacred joy first heard the voices, then 
 
EDGAR LEE MASTERS 179 
 
 Obeying plunged at Orleans in a field 
 
 Of spears and lived her dream and died in fire, 
 
 Thou, France, hast heard the voices and hast lived 
 
 The dream and known the meaning of the dream, 
 
 And read its riddle : How the soul of man 
 
 May to one greatest purpose make itself 
 
 A lens of clearness, how it loves the cup 
 
 Of deepest truth, and how its bitterest gall 
 
 Turns sweet to soul's surrender. 
 
 And you say : 
 Take days for repetition, stretch your hands 
 For mocked renewal of familiar things : 
 The beaten path, the chair beside the window, 
 The crowded street, the task, the accustomed sleep, 
 And waking to the task, or many springs 
 Of lifted cloud, blue water, flowering fields — 
 The prison house grows close no less, the feast 
 A place of memory sick for senses dulled 
 Down to the dusty end where pitiful Time 
 Grown weary cries Enough ! 
 
 — Edgar Lee Masters. 
 
180 DR. JOHN MCRAE 
 
 IN FLANDERS FIELDS 
 
 (Reprinted by the special permission of the proprietors 
 of Punch.) 
 
 In Flanders fields tfie poppies blow 
 
 Between the crosses, row on row, 
 That mark our place, and in the sky, 
 The larks, still bravely singing, fly, 
 
 Scarce heard amid the guns below. 
 
 We are the dead ; short days ago 
 
 We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, 
 Loved and were loved, and now we lie 
 In Flanders fields. 
 
 Take up our quarrel with the foe ! 
 To you from failing hands we throw 
 The torch ; be yours to hold it high ! 
 If ye break faith with us who die 
 We shall not sleep, though poppies grow 
 In Flanders fields. 
 
 — John McRae. 
 
MISS M. G. MEUGENS 181 
 
 THE FLEETS 
 
 Are you out with the fleets through the long, dark 
 night, 
 Admiral Drake ? 
 Are you keeping watch, when with never a light 
 They patrol the seas and wait for a fight ? 
 
 In that far South Sea were you standing by, 
 
 Admiral Drake ? 
 Did your masthead catch that wireless cry ? 
 Did you in sorrow watch them die ? 
 
 Once more at the guns do your gunners strain, 
 
 Admiral Drake ? 
 Do their voices ring o'er the decks again, 
 "Have at them, boys I" in the old refrain? 
 
 When the shining death leaps through the wave, 
 
 Admiral Drake, 
 Are your boats all out in a rush to save ? 
 Do you stand to salute the death of the brave ? 
 
 Are there others out on the heaving blue, 
 Admiral Drake ? 
 
182 MISS M. G. MEUGENS 
 
 Are Collingwood, Blake and Nelson, too, 
 In their high-decked ships, along with you ? 
 
 Oh, seamen of old, the shadowy gates 
 Swing wide to let you through, 
 And out o'er the seas your galleons sweep 
 To fight for the flag anew. 
 
 — M . G. Meugens. 
 
ALICE MEYNELL 183 
 
 SUMMER IN ENGLAND, 1914 
 
 On London fell a clearer light ; 
 
 Caressing pencils of the sun 
 Defined the distances, the white 
 
 Houses transfigured one by one, 
 The " long, unlovely street" impearled. 
 O what a sky has walked the world ! 
 
 Most happy year ! And out of town 
 The hay was prosperous, and the wheat ; 
 
 The silken harvest climbed the down ; 
 Moon after moon was heavenly sweet, 
 
 Stroking the bread within the sheaves, 
 
 Looking twixt apples and their leaves. 
 
 And while this rose made round her cup, 
 The armies died convulsed ; and when 
 
 This chaste young silver sun went up 
 Softly, a thousand shattered men, 
 
 One wet corruption, heaped the plain, 
 
 After a league-long throb of pain. 
 
 Flower following tender flower, and birds, 
 And berries ; and benignant skies 
 
184 ALICE MEYNELL 
 
 Made thrive the serried flocks and herds. 
 Yonder are men shot through the eyes, 
 And children crushed. Love, hide thy face 
 From man's unpardonable race. 
 
 A Reply 
 
 Who said " No man hath greater love than this 
 
 To die to serve his friend ? " 
 So these have loved us all unto the end. 
 Chide thou no more, O thou unsacrificed ! 
 The soldier dying dies upon a kiss, 
 
 The very kiss of Christ. 
 
 — Alice Meynell. 
 
J. E. MIDDLE TON 185 
 
 OFF HELIGOLAND 
 
 Ghostly ships in a ghostly sea, 
 
 (Here's to Drake in the Spanish main !) 
 Hark to the turbines, running free, 
 
 Oil-cups full and the orders plain. 
 Plunging into the misty night, 
 
 Surging into the rolling brine, 
 Never a word, and never a light, 
 
 — This for England that love of mine ! 
 
 Look ! a gleam on the starboard bow, 
 
 (Here's to the Fighting Temeraire !) 
 Quartermaster be ready now, 
 
 Two points over, and keep her there. 
 Ghostly ships — let the foemen grieve. 
 
 Yon's the Admiral tight and trim, 
 And one more — with an empty sleeve — 
 
 Standing a little aft of him ! 
 
 Slender, young in a coat of blue, 
 (Here's to the Agamemnon's pride !) 
 
 Out of the mists that long he knew, 
 Out of the Victory, where he died, 
 
186 J. E. MIDDLETON 
 
 Here to the battle-front he came. 
 
 See, he smiles in his gallant way ! 
 Ghostly ships in a ghostly game, 
 
 Roaring guns on a ghostly day ! 
 
 There in his white silk smalls he stands, 
 
 (Here's to Nelson, with three times three !) 
 Coming out of the misty lands 
 
 Far, far over the misty sea. 
 Now the Foe is a crippled wreck, 
 
 Limping out of the deadly fight. 
 Smiling yond on the quarterdeck 
 
 Stands the Spirit, all silver-bright. 
 
 — J. E. Middleton. 
 
RUTH COMFORT MITCHELL 187 
 
 HE WENT FOR A SOLDIER 
 
 He marched away with a blithe young score of him 
 
 With the first volunteers, 
 Clear-eyed and clean and sound to the core of him, 
 
 Blushing under the cheers. 
 They were fine, new flags that swung a-flying there, 
 Oh, the pretty girls he glimpsed a-crying there, 
 
 Pelting him with pinks and with roses — 
 
 Billy, the Soldier Boy ! 
 
 Not very clear in the kind young heart of him 
 
 What the fuss was about, 
 But the flowers and the flags seemed part of him — 
 
 The music drowned his doubt. 
 It's a fine, brave sight they were a-coming there 
 To the gay, bold tune they kept a-drumming there, 
 
 While the boasting fifes shrilled jauntily — 
 
 Billy, the Soldier Boy ! 
 
 Soon he is one with the blinding smoke of it — 
 
 Volley and curse and groan : 
 Then he has done with the knightly joke of it — 
 
 It's rending flesh and bone. 
 
188 RUTH COMFORT MITCHELL 
 
 There are pain-crazed animals a-shrieking there 
 And a warm blood stench that is a-reeking there ; 
 
 He fights like a rat in a corner — 
 
 Billy, the Soldier Boy ! 
 
 There he lies now, like a ghoulish score of him, 
 
 Left on the field for dead : 
 The ground all around is smeared with the gore of 
 him — 
 
 Even the leaves are red. 
 The Thing that was Billy lies a-dying there, 
 Writhing and a-twisting and a-crying there; 
 
 A sickening sun grins down on him — 
 
 Billy, the Soldier Boy ! 
 
 Still not quite clear in the poor, wrung heart of him 
 
 What the fuss was about, 
 See where he lies — or a ghastly part of him — 
 
 While life is oozing out : 
 There are loathsome things he sees a-crawling there ; 
 There are hoarse-voiced crows he hears a-calling 
 there, 
 
 Eager for the foul feast spread for them — 
 
 Billy, the Soldier Boy ! 
 
 How much longer, Lord, shall we bear it all f 
 
 How many more red years? 
 Story it and glory it and share it all, 
 
 In seas of blood and tears f 
 
RUTH COMFORT MITCHELL 189 
 
 They are braggart attitudes we've worn so long; 
 They are tinsel platitudes we've sworn so long — 
 
 We who have turned the Devil's Grindstone, 
 
 Borne with the hell called War! 
 
 — Ruth Comfort Mitchell. 
 
190 HARRIET MONROE 
 
 ON THE PORCH 
 
 As I lie roofed in, screened in, 
 From the pattering rain, 
 The summer rain — 
 As I lie 
 Snug and dry, 
 And hear the birds complain : 
 
 Oh, billow on billow, 
 Oh, roar on roar, 
 Over me wash 
 The seas of war. 
 Over me — down — down — 
 Lunges and plunges 
 The huge gun with its one blind eye, 
 The armored train, 
 And, swooping out of the sky, 
 The aeroplane. 
 Down — down — 
 The army proudly swinging 
 Under gay flags, 
 
 The glorious dead heaped up like rags, 
 A church with bronze bells ringing, 
 A city all towers, 
 
HARRIET MONROE 191 
 
 Gardens of lovers and flowers, 
 
 The round world swinging 
 
 In the light of the sun : 
 
 All broken, undone, 
 
 All down — under 
 
 Black surges of thunder . . . 
 
 Oh, billow on billow 
 Oh, roar on roar, 
 Over me wash 
 The seas of war . . . 
 
 As I lie roofed in, screened in, 
 From the pattering rain, 
 The summer rain — 
 As I lie 
 Snug and dry, 
 And hear the birds complain. 
 
 — Harriet Monroe. 
 
192 N. M. H. 
 
 A. S. K. 
 
 July U, 1915 
 
 You must not mourn for him, he that went out to 
 
 France, 
 He, like the rest of them, clear-minded, open-eyed, 
 It was for him to decide ; 
 He took his chance ; 
 And he is dead in France. 
 
 Oh, do not mourn for him, he heard his country's 
 
 call, 
 And answering, gave all he had to give ; 
 Yet though they die, they live ; 
 Not dead at all 
 Those who obeyed that call. 
 
 No, no, it is not wasted, all that love and thought, 
 It is embodied in all truth and right ; 
 These pass not out to-night 
 Nor turn to nought — 
 Labor and love and thought. 
 
 N. M. H. 
 
E. NESBIT 193 
 
 A SONG OF PEACE AND HONOR 
 
 We, men of England, children of her might, 
 With all our mother's record-roll of glory, 
 
 Great with her greatness, noble with her name, 
 Drank with our mother's milk our mother's 
 story, 
 And in our veins the splendor of her fame 
 Made strong our blood and bright ; 
 And to her absent sons her name has been 
 Familiar music heard in distant lands, 
 Heart of our heart, and sinews of our hands, 
 England, our Mother, our Mistress and our 
 Queen ! 
 
 Out of the thunderous echoes of the past, 
 
 Through the gold dust of centuries, we hear 
 Her voice : " O children of a royal line, 
 
 Sons of my heart who hold your England dear, 
 Mine was the past, make ye the future mine 
 All glorious to the last !" 
 And, as we hear her, cowards grow to men, 
 
 And men to heroes, and the voice of fear 
 
 Is as a whisper in a deaf man's ear 
 And the dead past is quick in us again. 
 
194 E. NESBIT 
 
 Her robe is woven of glory and of renown, 
 Hers are the golden laden argosies 
 
 And lordship of the wild and watery ways, 
 Her flag is blown across the utmost seas ; 
 
 Dead nations built her throne and kingdoms 
 blaze 
 For jewels in her crown. 
 Her empire like a girdle doth enfold 
 
 The world ; her feet on ancient foes are set ; 
 She wears the steel-wrought blood-bright amulet 
 Wrought by her children in the days of old. 
 
 Yet in a treasury of such gems as these, 
 
 Which power and sovereignty and kingship fill 
 
 To the vast limit of the circling sun, 
 England, our Mother, in her heart holds still 
 As her most precious jewel, save only one, 
 
 The priceless pearl of peace — 
 
 Peace, plucked from out of the very heart of war 
 Through the long agony of strenuous years, 
 Made pure by blood and sanctified by tears, 
 
 A pearl to lie where England's treasures are. 
 
 O peaceful English lanes, all white with may, 
 O English meadows where the grass grows tall, 
 O red-roofed village, field and farm and fold 
 Where the long shadows of the elm-trees fall 
 On the wide pastures which the sun calls gold, 
 And twilight dew calls grey ; 
 
E. NESBIT 195 
 
 These are the home, the happy cradle place 
 Of every man who has our English tongue, 
 Sprung from those loins from which our sires have 
 sprung, 
 
 Heirs of the glory of our mighty race. 
 
 Brothers, we hold the pearl of priceless worth, 
 How dare we then to cast our pearl aside ? 
 Is it not more to us than all things are ? 
 Nay, peace is precious as the world is wide, 
 But England's honor is more precious far 
 
 Than all the heavens and earth. 
 
 Were honor outcast from her supreme place 
 
 Our pearl of peace no more a pearl would shine, 
 But, trampled under foot of dogs and swine, 
 
 Rot in the mire of a deserved disgrace. 
 
 So, for our Mother's honor, since it must, 
 Let peace be lost, but lost the worthier way, 
 
 Not trampled down, but given, for her sake, 
 Who forged of many an iron yesterday 
 
 The golden song that gold-tongued Fame shall 
 wake 
 When we are dust, in dust ; 
 For life and love and death and praise and blame, 
 And all the world, even to our very land, 
 Weighed in the balance are as a grain of sand 
 Against the honor of the English name ! 
 
 — E. Nesbit. 
 
196 J. A. NICKLIN 
 
 THE FISHER-LAD 
 
 "Farewell and good-bye to you, maiden of Teifi, 
 Farewell and good-bye to you, dear Teifi maid ! 
 
 The jolly-boat's waiting, I'm off in a jiffy, 
 To scouting and cruising, to chase and to raid. 
 
 "Ah, cariad, say, when you see in the offing, 
 Dark on the blue waters of Cardigan Bay, 
 
 Our smoke-stack just showing, then will you be 
 doffing 
 Your bonnet to wave us a parting ' huzzay' ? 
 
 "Once homeward I'd run, tho' the black scud was 
 flying, 
 And the breakers were howling like fiends on 
 our lee, 
 With every stitch set, ever danger defying, 
 
 For, anwyl, I know that you watched on the quay. 
 
 "In vain will you watch for your fisher-lad's 
 skiff, he 
 Is tracking the death that the foeman has laid ; 
 If Death is the end of it, dear maid of Teifi, 
 Farewell and good-bye to you, dear Teifi maid !" 
 
 — J. A. Nicklin. 
 
ALFRED NOYES 197 
 
 THE SEARCHLIGHTS 
 
 Political morality differs from individual morality, be- 
 cause there is no power above the State. 
 
 — General von Bernhardi. 
 
 Shadow by shadow, stripped for fight 
 The lean black cruisers search the sea. 
 
 Night-long their level shafts of light 
 Revolve, and find no enemy. 
 
 Only they know each leaping wave 
 
 May hide the lightning, and their grave. 
 
 And in the land they guard so well 
 Is there no silent watch to keep ? 
 
 An age is dying, and the bell 
 
 Rings midnight on a vaster deep. 
 
 But over all its waves, once more 
 
 The searchlights move, from shore to shore. 
 
 And captains that we thought were dead, 
 And dreamers that we thought were dumb, 
 
 And voices that we thought were fled, 
 Arise, and call us, and we come ; 
 
 And "search in thine own soul," they cry; 
 
 "For there, too, lurks thine enemy." 
 
198 ALFRED NOYES 
 
 Search for the foe in thine own soul, 
 The sloth, the intellectual pride ; 
 
 The trivial jest that veils the goal 
 For which our fathers lived and died ; 
 
 The lawless dreams, the cynic Art, 
 
 That rend thy nobler self apart. 
 
 Not far, not far into the night, 
 These level swords of light can pierce ; 
 
 Yet for her faith does England fight, 
 Her faith in this our universe, 
 
 Believing Truth and Justice draw 
 
 From founts of everlasting law ; 
 
 The law that rules the stars, our stay, 
 
 Our compass through the world's wide sea, 
 
 The one sure light, the one sure way, 
 The one firm base of Liberty ; 
 
 The one firm road that men have trod 
 
 Through Chaos to the throne of God. 
 
 Therefore a Power above the State, 
 The unconquerable Power returns. 
 
 The fire, the fire that made her great 
 Once more upon her altar burns, 
 
 Once more, redeemed and healed and whole, 
 
 She moves to the Eternal Goal. 
 
 — Alfred Noyes. 
 
0. M. 199 
 
 MASTER AND PUPIL 
 (To J. F. R.) 
 
 Two years ago I taught him Greek, 
 
 And used to give him hints on bowling : 
 His classics were a trifle weak ; 
 
 His "action" needed some controlling. 
 Convinced of my superior nous 
 
 I thought him crude, and I was rather 
 Inclined, as master of his House, 
 
 To treat him like a heavy father. 
 
 I wrote the usual reports 
 
 Upon his "lack of concentration"; 
 Though certainly at winter Sports 
 
 He did not earn this condemnation. 
 I took him out San Moritz way 
 
 One Christmas, and our roles inverted, 
 For in the land of ski and sleigh 
 
 His mastery was soon asserted. 
 
 I thought him just a normal lad, 
 Well-mannered, wholesome, unaffected ; 
 
 The makings of a Galahad 
 
 In him I had not yet detected ; 
 
200 0. M. 
 
 And when I strove to mend his style, 
 
 Blue-penciling his exercises, 
 I little guessed that all the while 
 
 His soul was ripe for high emprises. 
 
 Two years ago ! and here I am, 
 
 Rejected as unfit ; still trying 
 (As Verrall taught me on the Cam) 
 
 To make Greek Plays electrifying. 
 And he who, till he was eighteen, 
 
 Found life one long excuse for laughing, 
 For eighteen solid months has been 
 
 Continuously "strafed" or "strafing." 
 
 He writes me letters from the front 
 
 Which prove, although he doesn't know it, 
 That though his words are plain and blunt, 
 
 He has the vision of a poet ; 
 And lately, on his eight days' rest, 
 
 After long months of hard campaigning, 
 He came, and lo ! an angel guest 
 
 I was aware of entertaining. 
 
 About himself he seldom spoke, 
 But often of his widowed mother, 
 
 And how she nobly bore the stroke 
 That robbed them of his sailor brother. 
 
O. M. 201 
 
 And still, from loyalty or whim, 
 
 He would defer to my opinion, 
 Unconscious how I envied him 
 
 His hard-earned gift of self-dominion. 
 
 For he had faced the awful King 
 
 Of Shadows in the darksome Valley, 
 And scorned the terrors of his sting 
 
 In many a perilous storm and sally. 
 Firm in the faith that never tires 
 
 Or thinks that man is God-forsaken, 
 From war's fierce seven-times-heated fires 
 
 He had emerged unseared, unshaken. 
 
 There are, alas ! no sons of mine 
 
 To serve their country in her trial, 
 Embattled in the cause divine 
 
 Of sacrifice and self-denial ; 
 But if there were, I could not pray 
 
 That God might shield them from disaster 
 More strongly than I plead to-day 
 
 For this my pupil and my master. 
 
 — 0. M. 
 
202 "OBSERVER, ROYAL FLYING CORPS 
 
 TWO PICTURES 
 
 Dawn. . . . 
 
 And the dewy plain 
 
 Awakes to life and sound — 
 
 Where on the flying-ground 
 
 The ghostly hangars blaze with lights again. 
 
 The giant birds of prey 
 Creep forth to a new day, 
 And one by one, 
 As morning gilds the dome, 
 Leave the grey aerodrome — 
 
 — The day's begun. 
 
 Dusk. . . . 
 
 And the vanish'd sun 
 
 Still streaks the evening skies : 
 
 Below, the prone Earth lies 
 
 Darken'd, wherever warring Night has won. 
 
 The 'planes, returning, show 
 Deep black in the afterglow, 
 And one by one 
 
 Drop down from the higher airs, 
 — Down, down the invisible stairs — 
 
 — The day is done. 
 
 — " Observer, Royal Flying Corps. " 
 
WILL H. OGILVIE 203 
 
 CANADIANS 
 
 With arrows on their quarters and with numbers on 
 
 their hoofs, 
 With the trampling sound of twenty that re-echoes 
 
 in the roofs, 
 Low of crest and dull of coat, wan and wild of eye, 
 Through our English village the Canadians go by. 
 
 Shying at a passing cart, swerving from a car, 
 Tossing up an anxious head to flaunt a snowy star, 
 Racking at a Yankee gait, reaching at the rein, 
 Twenty raw Canadians are tasting life again ! 
 
 Hollow-necked and hollow-flanked, lean of rib and hip, 
 Strained and sick and weary with the wallow of the 
 
 ship, 
 Glad to smell the turf again, hear the robin's call, 
 Tread again the country road they lost at Montreal ! 
 
 Fate may bring them dule and woe; better steeds 
 
 than they 
 Sleep beside the English guns a hundred leagues 
 
 away; 
 But till war hath need of them lightly lie their reins, 
 Softly fall the feet of them along the English lanes. 
 
 — Will H. Ogilvie. 
 
204 MAJOR SYDNEY OSWALD 
 
 THE DEAD SOLDIER 
 
 Thy dear brown eyes which were as depths where 
 truth 
 Lay bowered with frolic joy, but yesterday 
 Shone with the fire of thy so guileless youth, 
 Now ruthless death has dimmed and closed for 
 aye. 
 
 Those sweet red lips, that never knew the stain 
 Of angry words or harsh, or thoughts unclean, 
 
 Have sung their last gay song. Never again 
 Shall I the harvest of their laughter glean. 
 
 The goodly harvest of thy laughing mouth 
 Is garnered in ; and lo ! the golden grain 
 
 Of all thy generous thoughts, which knew no drouth 
 Of meanness, and thy tender words remain 
 
 Stored in my heart ; and though I may not see 
 
 Thy peerless form nor hear thy voice again, 
 The memory lives of what thou wast to me, 
 
 We knew great love. . . . We have not lived in 
 vain. 
 
 — Sydney Oswald. 
 (Major, King's Royal Rifle Corps.) 
 
BARRY PAIN 205 
 
 THE KAISER AND GOD 
 
 ("I rejoice with you in Wilhelm's first victory. How 
 magnificently God supported him!" — Telegram from the 
 Kaiser to the Crown Princess.) 
 
 Led by Wilhelm, as you tell, 
 God has done extremely well ; 
 You with patronizing nod 
 Show that you approve of God. 
 Kaiser, face a question new — 
 This — does God approve of you ? 
 
 Broken pledges, treaties torn, 
 Your first page of war adorn ; 
 We on fouler things must look 
 Who read further in that book, 
 Where you did in time of war 
 All that you in peace forswore, 
 Where you, barbarously wise, 
 Bade your soldiers terrorize, 
 
 Where you made — the deed was fine — 
 
 Women screen your firing line. 
 
 Villages burned down to dust, 
 
 Torture, murder, bestial lust, 
 
 Filth too foul for printer's ink, 
 
 Crimes from which the apes would shrink — 
 
206 BARRY PAIN 
 
 Strange the offerings that you press 
 On the God of Righteousness ! 
 
 Kaiser, when you'd decorate 
 Sons or friends who serve your State, 
 Not that Iron Cross bestow, 
 But a Cross of Wood, and so — 
 So remind the world that you 
 Have made Calvary anew. 
 
 Kaiser, when you'd kneel in prayer 
 Look upon your hands, and there 
 Let that deep and awful stain 
 From the blood of children slain 
 Burn your very soul with shame, 
 Till you dare not breathe that Name 
 That now you glibly advertise — 
 God as one of your allies. 
 
 Impious braggart, you forget ; 
 God is not your conscript yet ; 
 You shall learn in dumb amaze 
 That His ways are not your ways, 
 That the mire through which you trod 
 Is not the high white road of God, 
 
 To Whom, whichever way the combat rolls, 
 We, fighting to the end, commend our souls. 
 
 — Barry Pain. 
 
JOSEPHINE PRESTON PEABODY 207 
 
 MEN HAVE WINGS AT LAST 
 
 (Air-Craft and the War) 
 
 "Wolf, Wolf -stay-at-home, 
 
 Prowler, — scout, 
 
 Clanless and castaways, 
 
 And ailing with the drought, 
 
 Out from your hidings, — hither to the call ; 
 
 Lift up your eyes to the high wind-fall ! 
 
 Lift up your eyes from the poisoned spring ; 
 
 Overhead, — overhead ! The dragon Thing, 
 
 — What should it bring ? 
 
 — Poising on the wing?" 
 
 "Wolf, Wolf, Old one, I saw it, even I. 
 Yesterday, yesterday, the Thing came by 
 Prowling at the outpost of the last lean wood, 
 By the gray waste ashes where the minster stood ; 
 And out through the cloister where the belfry fronts 
 The market-place, and the town was once ; 
 High, — high above the bright wide square 
 And the folk all flocking together, unaware, 
 The Thing-with-the-wings came there. 
 
 Brother Vulture saw it 
 
 And called me, as it passed : 
 
208 JOSEPHINE PRESTON PEABODY 
 
 'Look and see, look and see, — 
 Men have wings at last.' 
 
 "By the eyeless belfry I saw it, overhead, 
 
 Poised like a hawk, — like a storm unshed. 
 
 Near the huddled doves there, from the shattered 
 
 cote, 
 I watched too. . . . And it smote ! 
 
 " Not a threat of thunder, — not an armed man, 
 Where the fury struck, and the fleet fire ran. — 
 But girl-child, man-child, mothers and their young, 
 Newborn of woman, with milk upon its tongue ; 
 Nursling where it clung. 
 
 " Not a talon reached they, yet, the lords of prey ! 
 But left the red dregs there, rent and cast away ; 
 Fled from the spoils there, scattered things accurst : 
 
 — It was not for hunger ; 
 It was not for thirst. 
 
 "From the eyeless belfry, 
 Brother Vulture laughed : 
 ' This is all we have to see 
 For his master-crajt f 
 
 — Old ones, and lean ones, 
 Never now to fast, 
 
 Men have wings at last ! ' 
 
JOSEPHINE PRESTON PEABODY 209 
 
 "Brought they any tidings for us from the Sun?" 
 
 "No, my chief, not one." 
 "Left they not a road-sign, how the way was won?" 
 
 "No, my chief, none. 
 But girl-child, man-child, creature yet unborn, 
 Doe and fawn together so, weltering and torn, 
 Newborn of woman where the flag-stones bled ; 
 (Better can the vultures do, for the shamed dead.) 
 Road-dust sobbing where the lightning burst — 
 
 It was not for hunger ; 
 
 It was not for thirst." 
 
 "Brought they not some token that the stars look 
 on?" 
 
 — "No, my chief, none." 
 
 "Never yet a message from the highways over- 
 head?" 
 
 — "Brother, I have said." 
 
 "Old years, gray years, years of growing things, 
 We have toiled and kept the watch with our wonder- 
 
 ings; 
 But to see what things shouldjbe, when that Men 
 
 had wings. 
 
 " Sea-mark, sea-wall, — ships above the tide ; 
 Mine and mole-way under-earth, to have its hidden 
 
 pride ; — 
 Not enough, not enough ; more and more beside ! 
 
 p 
 
210 JOSEPHINE PRESTON PEABODY 
 
 "Bridle, for our proud-of-mane, — then the triple 
 
 yoke; 
 Ox-goad and lash again, and bonded fellow-folk ! 
 Not enough ; not enough ; — for his master-stroke. 
 Thunder trapped and muttering and led away for 
 
 thrall ; 
 Lightnings leashed together then, at his beck and 
 
 call; 
 Not enough ; not enough ; — for his Wherewithal ! 
 
 " He must look with evil eye 
 On the spaces of the sky : 
 
 He must scheme, and try ! — 
 While all we, with dread and awe, 
 Sheathing and unsheathing claw, 
 
 Watch apart, and prophesy 
 That we never saw. — 
 
 "Wings, to seek his more-and-more 
 
 Where we knew us blind ; 
 Wings to make him conqueror, 
 
 With his master-mind ; 
 Wings, that he out-watch, — out-soar, 
 
 Eagle and his kind ! 
 
 "Lo, the dream fulfilled at last! — And the dread 
 
 outgrown, 
 Broken, as a bird's heart ; — fallen as a stone 
 .... What was he, to make afraid ? 
 
JOSEPHINE PRESTON PEABODY 211 
 
 — Hating all that he had made ? 
 
 — Hating all his own. 
 
 "Scatter to your strongholds, till the race is run. 
 
 Doe and fawn together, so, soon it will be done. 
 
 Never now, never now, Ship without a mast, 
 
 In the harbors of the Sun, do you make fast ! 
 But the floods shall cleanse again 
 Every blackened trail of Men, — 
 Men with wings, at last ! " 
 
 — Josephine Preston Peabody. 
 
212 STEPHEN PHILLIPS 
 
 REVENGE FOR RHEIMS 
 
 Thou Permanence amid all things that pass ! 
 Unchanging Thought amid the drift of change ; 
 Thou Rally of the Soul in days of dross ; 
 How art Thou fallen ! 
 
 Thou Prayer, that ever-rising, yet remained, 
 That for seven hundred years didst sing and soar, 
 Spirit with wings outspread tip-toe on Earth, 
 How art Thou fallen ! 
 
 Thou Vision frozen, and Thou Sigh transfixed ; 
 Thou Camp of dreams, Thou Fort of faith un- 
 
 stormed, 
 Time-worn, yet wearying tVard Eternity, 
 How art Thou fallen ! 
 
 Thou wast to France her Inspiration old, 
 Thou hadst for ivy earliest memories ; 
 From Thee her Knights, her Angels long looked down ; 
 How art Thou fallen ! 
 
 What vengeance for Thy ruin shall She hurl ? 
 O, be that vengeance, that the ruin stand, 
 Only those Choirs for ever unrestored ! 
 Ever unfallen ! 
 
 — Stephen Phillips. 
 
MARJORIE L. C. PICKTHALL 213 
 
 CANADA TO ENGLAND 
 
 Great names of thy great captains gone before 
 Beat with our blood, who have that blood of thee 
 Raleigh and Grenville, Wolfe, and all the free 
 Fine souls who dared to front a world in war. 
 Such only may outreach the envious years 
 Where feebler crowns and fainter stars remove, 
 Nurtured in one remembrance and one love 
 Too high for passion and too stern for tears. 
 
 O little isle our fathers held for home, 
 Not, not alone thy standards and thy hosts 
 Lead where thy sons shall follow, Mother Land : 
 Quick as the north wind, ardent as the foam, 
 Behold, behold the invulnerable ghosts 
 Of all past greatnesses about thee stand. 
 
 — Marjorie L. C. Pickthall. 
 
214 JESSIE POPE 
 
 SOCKS 
 
 Shining pins that dart and click 
 In the fireside's sheltered peace 
 
 Check the thoughts that cluster thick — 
 20 'plain and then decrease. 
 
 He was brave — well, so was I — 
 
 Keen and merry, but his lip 
 Quivered when he said good-bye — 
 
 Purl the seam-stitch, purl and slip. 
 
 Never used to living rough, 
 
 Lots of things he'd got to learn ; 
 
 Wonder if he's warm enough — 
 Knit 2, catch 2 y knit 1, turn. 
 
 Hark ! The paper-boys again ! 
 
 Wish that shout could be suppressed ; 
 Keeps one always on the strain — 
 
 Knit off 9, and slip the rest. 
 
 Wonder if he's fighting now, 
 
 What he's done an' where he's been ; 
 He'll come out on top, somehow — 
 
 Slip 1, knit 2, purl 14. 
 
 — Jessie Pope. 
 
CHARLES G. D. ROBERTS 215 
 
 TO SHAKESPEARE, 1916 
 
 With what white wrath must turn thy bones, 
 What stern amazement flame thy dust, 
 
 To feel so near this England's heart 
 The outrage of the assassin's thrust. 
 
 But surely, too, thou art consoled, — 
 
 Who knewest thy stalwart breed so well, — 
 
 To see us rise from sloth and go, 
 
 Plain and unbragging, through this hell. 
 
 And surely, too, thou art assured ! 
 
 Hark how that grim and gathering beat 
 Draws upwards from the ends of earth — 
 
 The tramp, tramp of thy kindred's feet ! 
 
 — Charles G. D. Roberts. 
 
216 A. MARY F. ROBINSON 
 
 BELGIUM THE BAR-LASS 
 
 The night was still. The King sat with the Queen. 
 She sang. Her maidens spun. A peaceful scene. 
 
 Sudden, wild echoes shake the castle wall. 
 Their foes come crashing through the outer hall. 
 
 They rush like thunder down the gallery floor . . . 
 . . . Someone has stolen the bolt that bars the 
 door! 
 
 No pin to hold the loops, no stick, no stave, 
 Nothing ! An open door, an open grave ! 
 
 Then Catherine Bar-lass thrust her naked arm 
 (A girl's arm, white as milk, alive and warm) 
 
 Right through the loops from which the bolt was 
 
 gone : 
 " 'Twill hold (she said) until they break the bone — 
 
 My King, you have one instant to prepare!" 
 She said no more, because the thrust was there. 
 
 Oft have I heard that tale of Scotland's King 
 The Poet, and Kate the Bar-lass. (Men will sing 
 
A. MARY F. ROBINSON 217 
 
 For aye the deed one moment brings to birth — 
 Such moments are the ransom of our Earth.) 
 
 Brave Belgium, Bar-lass of our western world, 
 Who, when the treacherous Prussian tyrant hurled 
 
 His hordes against our peace, thrust a slight hand, 
 So firm, to bolt our portals and withstand, 
 
 Whatever prove the glory of our affray, 
 Thine arm, thy heart, thine act have won the day ! 
 
 — A. Mary F. Robinson. 
 (Madame Duelaux.) 
 
218 EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON 
 
 CASSANDRA 
 
 I heard one who said : " Verily, 
 
 What word have I for children here ? 
 
 Your Dollar is your only Word, 
 The wrath of It your only fear. 
 
 "You build it altars tall enough 
 To make you see, but you are blind ; 
 
 You cannot leave it long enough 
 To look before you or behind. 
 
 "When Reason beckons you to pause, 
 You laugh and say that you know best ; 
 
 But what it is you know, you keep 
 As dark as ingots in a chest. 
 
 "You laugh and answer, 'We are young; 
 
 O leave us now, and let us grow.' — 
 Not asking how much more of this 
 
 Will Time endure or Fate bestow. 
 
 "Because a few complacent years 
 Have made your peril of your pride, 
 
 Think you that you are to go on 
 Forever pampered and untried ? 
 
EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON 219 
 
 "What lost eclipse of history, 
 What bivouac of the marching stars, 
 
 Has given the sign for you to see 
 Millenniums and last great wars ? 
 
 "What unrecorded overthrow 
 Of all the world has ever known, 
 
 Or even been, has made itself 
 So plain to you, and you alone ? 
 
 "Your Dollar, Dove and Eagle make 
 
 A Trinity that even you 
 Rate higher than you rate yourselves ; 
 
 It pays, it flatters, and it's new. 
 
 "And though your very flesh and blood 
 Be what your Eagle eats and drinks, 
 
 You'll praise him for the best of birds, 
 Not knowing what the Eagle thinks. 
 
 "The power is yours, but not the sight ; 
 
 You see not upon what you tread ; 
 You have the ages for your guide, 
 
 But not the wisdom to be led. 
 
 "Think you to tread forever down 
 
 The merciless old verities ? 
 And are you never to have eyes 
 
 To see the world for what it is ? 
 
220 EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON 
 
 "Are you to pay for what you have 
 With all you are ? " — No other word 
 
 We caught, but with a laughing crowd 
 Moved on. None heeded, and few heard. 
 — Edwin Arlington Robinson. 
 
SIR RONALD ROSS 221 
 
 SHAKESPEARE, 1916 
 
 Now when the sinking Sun reeketh with blood, 
 And the gore-gushing vapors rent by him 
 Rend him and bury him : now the World is dim 
 As when great thunders gather for the flood, 
 And in the darkness men die where they stood, 
 And dying slay, or scattered limb from limb 
 Cease in a flash where mad-eyed cherubim 
 Of Death destroy them in the night and mud : 
 When landmarks vanish — murder is become 
 A glory — cowardice, conscience — and to lie, 
 A law — to govern, but to serve a time : — 
 We dying, lifting bloodied eyes and dumb, 
 Behold the silver star serene on high, 
 That is thy spirit there, O Master Mind sublime. 
 
 — Ronald Ross. 
 
222 CARL SANDBURG 
 
 STATISTICS 
 
 Napoleon shifted 
 
 Restless in the old sarcophagus 
 
 And murmured to a watchguard : 
 
 "Who goes there?" 
 
 " Twenty-one million men, 
 
 Soldiers, armies, guns, 
 
 Twenty-one million 
 
 Afoot, horseback, 
 
 In the air, 
 
 Under the sea." 
 
 And Napoleon turned to his sleep : 
 
 " It is not my world answering ; 
 
 It is some dreamer who knows not 
 
 The world I marched in 
 
 From Calais to Moscow." 
 
 And he slept on 
 
 In the old sarcophagus 
 
 While the aeroplanes 
 
 Droned their motors 
 
 Between Napoleon's mausoleum 
 
 And the cool night stars. 
 
 — Carl Sandburg. 
 
JOHN SANDES 223 
 
 AUSTRALIANS TO THE FRONT! 
 
 (Captain Cook hears the Drums) 
 
 Fkom the Scheldt to the Niemen, 
 
 Hark, the music of the drums ! 
 Not unthrilled the souls of freemen 
 
 When that instant message comes. 
 Rolling east the wild fantasia 
 
 Stirs the Orient blood to flame ; 
 And the drums call Austral-asia 
 
 And she answers to her name. 
 
 Far away from hosts in battle, 
 
 Yet in time with marching feet. 
 Here and now the war-drums rattle 
 
 In the sunbright city street. 
 Horse and foot in martial manner, 
 
 Swift commands, and glances high, 
 Naked steel and silken banner ; 
 
 Thus the ranks go proudly by. 
 
 But within the gardens spacious, 
 Not a stone's throw from the crowd 
 
 One who fronts the landscape gracious 
 Listens to the war-drums loud. 
 
224 JOHN SANDES 
 
 Beats the eager drummer harder, 
 And methinks the bronze can hear, 
 
 In those eyes a flash of ardor ! 
 On that cheek a noble tear ! 
 
 Dauntless Captain, did'st thou ever, 
 
 With thy sailor-eyes of gray 
 Searching out from thy endeavor 
 
 That sequestered flower-starred bay, 
 Dream that some day those who love thee 
 
 Here would stake their all of worth, 
 For the flag that waved above thee 
 
 And the land that gave thee birth ? 
 
 And the dauntless Captain listens : 
 
 Ah, if only he could speak ! 
 But a vagrant raindrop glistens 
 
 On that scorched and blistered cheek, 
 And the faith that does not falter 
 
 Still may hear his whisper low : 
 "Son, this new land doth not alter 
 
 Britain's breed of long ago." 
 
 — John Sandes. 
 
EGBERT SANDFORD 225 
 
 HER PRAYER — FOR HIM 
 
 I do not ask that he may never yield 
 When fighting on the foam or on the field, 
 Since this I know : — 
 Where'er his country calls my man will go. 
 
 I only pray 
 
 That while he is away 
 
 You guard and guide him day by day ! 
 
 And give me strength to tend his little ones 
 
 Until he comes. 
 
 On land or sea, — 
 Wherever he may be, 
 God, kiss my man for me ! 
 
 — Egbert Sandford. 
 
 Q 
 
226 CLINTON SCOLLARD 
 
 THE VALE OF SHADOWS 
 
 There is a vale in the Flemish land, 
 
 A vale once fair to see, 
 Where under the sweep of the sky's wide arch, 
 Though winter freeze or summer parch, 
 The stately poplars march and march, 
 
 Remembering Lombardy. 
 
 Here are men of the Saxon eyes, 
 
 Men of the Saxon heart, 
 Men of the fens and men of the Peak, 
 Men of the Kentish meadows sleek, 
 Men of the Cornwall cove and creek, 
 
 Men of the Dove and Dart. 
 
 Here are men of the kilted clans 
 
 From the heathery slopes that lie 
 Where the mists hang gray and the mists hang white, 
 And the deep lochs brood 'neath the craggy height, 
 And the curlews scream in the moonless night 
 
 Over the hiJJs of the Skye. 
 
 Here are men of the Celtic breed, 
 Lads of the smile and tear, 
 
CLINTON SCOLLARD 227 
 
 From where the loops of the Shannon flow, 
 And the crosses gleam in the even-glow, 
 And the halls of Tara now are low, 
 And Donegal cliffs are sheer. 
 
 And never a word does one man speak, 
 
 Each in his narrow bed, 
 For this is the Vale of Long Release, 
 This is the Vale of the Lasting Peace, 
 Where wars, and the rumors of wars, shall cease, 
 
 The valley of the dead. 
 
 No more are they than the scattered scud, 
 
 No more than broken reeds, 
 No more than shards or shattered glass, 
 Than dust blown down the winds that pass, 
 Than trampled wefts of pampas-grass 
 
 When the wild herd stampedes. 
 
 In the dusk of death they laid them down 
 
 With naught of murmuring, 
 And laughter rings through the House of Mirth 
 To hear the vaunt of the high of birth, 
 For what are all the kings of earth 
 
 Before the one great King ! 
 
 And what shall these proud war-lords say 
 At foot of His mighty throne ? 
 
228 CLINTON SCOLLARD 
 
 For there shall dawn a reckoning day, 
 Or soon or late, come as it may, 
 When those who gave the sign to slay 
 Shall meet His face alone. 
 
 What, think ye, will their penance be 
 
 Who have wrought this monstrous crime ? 
 
 What shall whiten their blood-red hands 
 
 Of the stains of riven and ravished lands ? 
 
 How shall they answer God's stern commands 
 At the last assize of Time ? 
 
 For though we worship no vengeance-god 
 
 Of madness and of ire, 
 No Presence grim, with a heart of stone, 
 Shall they not somehow yet atone ? 
 Shall they not reap as they have sown 
 
 Of fury and of fire ? 
 
 There is a vale in the Flemish land 
 Where the lengthening shadows spread 
 
 When day, with crimson sandals shod, 
 
 Goes home athwart the mounds of sod 
 
 That cry in silence up to God 
 From the valley of the dead ! 
 
 — Clinton Scollard. 
 
F. G. SCOTT 229 
 
 REQUIESCANT 
 
 On lonely watches, night by night, 
 Great visions burst upon my sight, 
 For down the stretches of the sky 
 The hosts of dead go marching by. 
 
 Strange ghostly banners o'er them float, 
 Strange bugles sound an awful note, 
 And all their faces and their eyes 
 Are lit with starlight from the skies. 
 
 The anguish and the pain have passed 
 And peace hath come to them at last ; 
 But in the stern looks linger still 
 The iron purpose and the will. 
 
 Dear Christ, who reign'st above the flood 
 
 Of human tears and human blood, 
 
 A weary road these men have trod : 
 
 O house them in the home of God ! 
 
 — F. G. Scott. 
 Near Ypres, May, 1915. 
 
 (Major, 3rd Brigade, Canadian Division, British Expedi- 
 tionary Force.) 
 
230 SIR OWEN SEAMAN 
 
 THE WAYSIDE CALVARY 
 
 (Lines written on the anniversary of the outbreak of the 
 
 war.) 
 
 Now with the full year Memory holds her tryst 
 Heavy with such a tale of bitter loss 
 As never Earth has suffered since the Christ 
 Hung for us on the Cross. 
 
 If God, O Kaiser, makes the vision plain : 
 Gives you on some lone Calvary to see 
 The Man of Sorrows Who endured the pain 
 And died to set us free — 
 
 How will you face beneath its Crown of thorn 
 That Figure stark against the smoking skies, 
 The Arms outstretched, the Sacred Head forlorn 
 And those reproachful Eyes ? 
 
 How dare confront the false quest with the true 
 Or think what gulfs between the ideals lie 
 Of Him Who died that men might live — and you 
 Who live that men may die. 
 
SIR OWEN SEAMAN 231 
 
 Ah, turn your eyes away : He reads your heart ; 
 Pass on and, having done your work abhorred, 
 Join hands with Judas in his place apart, 
 You who betrayed your Lord. 
 
 — Owen Seaman. 
 
232 ALAN SEEGER 
 
 I HAVE A RENDEZVOUS WITH DEATH 
 
 I have a rendezvous with Death 
 
 At some disputed barricade, 
 
 When Spring comes round with rustling shade 
 
 And apple blossoms fill the air. 
 
 I have a rendezvous with Death 
 
 When Spring brings back blue days and fair. 
 
 It may be he shall take my hand 
 
 And lead me into his dark land 
 
 And close my eyes and quench my breath ; 
 
 It may be I shall pass him still. 
 
 I have a rendezvous with Death 
 
 On some scarred slope of battered hill, 
 
 When Spring comes round again this year 
 
 And the first meadow flowers appear. 
 
 God knows 'twere better to be deep 
 Pillowed in silk and scented down, 
 Where love throbs out in blissful sleep, 
 Pulse nigh to pulse, and breath to breath, 
 Where hushed awakenings are dear. 
 
ALAN SEEGER 233 
 
 But I've a rendezvous with Death 
 At midnight in some flaming town, 
 When Spring trips north again this year, 
 And I to my pledged word am true, 
 I shall not fail that rendezvous. 
 
 — Alan Seeger. 
 (Killed in battle at Belloy-en-Santerre, July, 1916.) 
 
234 "SERANUS" 
 
 THE MOTHER 
 
 Out of the bitter, the sweet ; 
 
 Out of the pain, the joy ; 
 Out of the mists, the morning star ; 
 
 Out of my travail, my boy. 
 
 Out of old flesh, new flesh ; 
 
 Out of old bone, new bone ; 
 Out of my side, my treasure and pride ; 
 
 My breast his earliest throne. 
 
 Stiff in the trenches, and stark ; 
 
 Dead 'ere the battle was won ; 
 For that which is Right, for Love and Light, 
 
 Freely I gave my son. 
 
 After the bitter, the sweet ; 
 
 After the pain, the joy — 
 I will not falter, nor flinch, nor faint ; 
 
 Proudly I give my boy. 
 
 — " Seranus." 
 
THE REV. EDWARD SHILLITO 235 
 
 A THANKSGIVING 
 
 Before the winter's haunted nights are o'er, 
 I thankfully rejoice, that stars look down 
 
 Above the darkened streets, and I adore 
 The Heavens in London Town. 
 
 The Heavens, beneath which Alfred stood, when he 
 Built ramparts by the tide against his foes, 
 
 The skies men loved, when in eternity 
 The dreamlike Abbey rose ; 
 
 The Heavens, whose glory has not known increase 
 Since Raleigh swaggered home by lantern-light, 
 
 And Shakespeare looking upwards knew the peace, 
 The cool deep peace of night. 
 
 Under those Heavens brave Wesley rose betimes 
 To preach ere daybreak to the tender soul ; 
 
 And in the heart of Keats the starry rhymes 
 Rolled, and for ever roll. 
 
 I too have walked with them the heavenly ways, 
 Tracing the sweet embroideries of the sky, 
 
 And I shall not forget, when arcs shall blaze, 
 And all the lights are high. 
 
 — Edward Shillito. 
 
236 FRANK SIDGWICK 
 
 "FORM FOURS" 
 a volunteek's nightmare 
 
 If you're Volunteer Artist or Athlete, or if you de- 
 fend the Home, 
 
 You sacrifice "Ease" for "Attention," and march 
 like a metronome ; 
 
 But of all elementary movements you learn in your 
 Volunteer Corps 
 
 The one that is really perplexing is known as the 
 Forming of Fours. 
 
 Imagine us numbered off from the right: the Ser- 
 geant faces the squad, 
 
 And says that the odd files do not move — I never 
 seem to be odd ! 
 
 And then his instructions run like this (very simple 
 in black and white) — 
 
 " A pace to the rear with the left foot, and one to the 
 right with the right." 
 
 Of course if you don't think deeply, you do it without 
 
 a hitch ; 
 You have only to know your right and left, and 
 
 remember which is which ; 
 
FRANK SIDGWICK 237 
 
 But as soon as you try to be careful, you get in the 
 
 deuce of a plight, 
 With " a pace to the right with the left foot, and one 
 
 to the rear with the right ! " 
 
 Besides, when you're thoroughly muddled the Ser- 
 geant doubles your doubt 
 
 By saying that rules reverse themselves, as soon as 
 you're " turned about " ; 
 
 So round you go on your right heel, and practice 
 until you are deft 
 
 At " a pace to the front with the right foot, and one 
 to the left with the left." 
 
 In my dreams the Sergeant, the Kaiser, and Kipling 
 
 mix my feet, 
 Saying "East is left, and Right is Might, and never 
 
 the twain shall meet I" 
 In my nightmare squad all files are odd, and their 
 
 Fours are horribly queer, 
 With " a pace to the left with the front foot, and one 
 
 to the right with the rear ! " 
 
 — F.S. 
 
238 MAY SINCLAIR 
 
 FIELD AMBULANCE IN RETREAT 
 
 Via Dolorosa, Via Sacra 
 
 A straight flagged road, laid on the rough earth, 
 A causeway of stone from beautiful city to city, 
 Between the tall trees, the slender, delicate trees, 
 Through the flat green land, by plots of flowers, by 
 black canals thick with heat. 
 
 II 
 
 The road-makers made it well 
 
 Of fine stone, strong for the feet of the oxen and of 
 the great Flemish horses, 
 
 And for the high wagons piled with corn from the 
 harvest. 
 
 And the laborers are few ; 
 
 They and their quiet oxen stand aside and wait 
 
 By the long road loud with the passing of the guns, 
 the rush of armored cars and the tramp of an 
 army on the march forward to battle ; 
 
 And, where the piled corn-wagons went, our drip- 
 ping Ambulance carries home 
 
 Its red and white harvest from the fields. 
 
MAY SINCLAIR 239 
 
 III 
 
 The straight flagged road breaks into dust, into a 
 
 thin white cloud, 
 About the feet of a regiment driven back league by 
 
 league, 
 Rifles at trail, and standards wrapped in black 
 
 funeral cloths. Unhasting, proud in retreat, 
 They smile as the Red Cross Ambulance rushes by. 
 (You know nothing of beauty and of desolation who 
 
 have not seen 
 That smile of an army in retreat.) 
 They go : and our shining, beckoning danger goes 
 
 with them, 
 And our joy in the harvests that we gathered in at 
 
 nightfall in the fields ; 
 And like an unloved hand laid on a beating heart 
 Our safety weighs us down. 
 
 Safety hard and strange ; stranger and yet more hard 
 As, league after dying league, the beautiful, desolate 
 
 Land 
 Falls back from the intolerable speed of an Ambu- 
 lance in retreat 
 On the sacred, dolorous Way. 
 
 — May Sinclair. 
 
240 THE REV. ISAAC GREGORY SMITH 
 
 CLOSE YOUR RANKS 
 
 Yes ! Draw them close and closer still, 
 The silken threads, that bind in one 
 
 The prince, the peasant, rich and poor, 
 
 Hark ! Hark ! The Armageddon is begun. 
 
 O Britons all, let Duty be 
 
 The watchword and the panoply. 
 
 The last to draw the sword, but not 
 The first to sheathe it ; slow we rise 
 
 To arms. 'Tis Duty's stern behest, 
 A peal of thunder from the skies, 
 
 Which bids us to defend the Right 
 
 Against the tyranny of Might. 
 
 Did we forget in the days gone by, 
 "Not each for each but all for all," 
 
 The sacred bond of Brotherhood, 
 By which great empires rise or fall ? 
 
 Nay ! But that evil dream is past, 
 
 That strange aloofness healed at last. 
 
 Dear Isle, dear tiny speck in space, 
 Responsive to thy drums of war, 
 
THE REV. ISAAC GREGORY SMITH 241 
 
 And thrilled by loyalty of love, 
 
 They come, thy sons from shores afar ; 
 Thy Flag, fair floating on the breeze 
 Beckons them o'er the trackless seas. 
 
 So far and near, so one and all, 
 
 Though each one differs from the others, 
 We stand together as of old, 
 
 For round the Flag we all are brothers. 
 And so we close our ranks to be 
 The phalanx, which is victory. 
 
 — Isaac Gregory Smith. 
 
242 MARION C. SMITH 
 
 HEART OF ALL THE WORLD 
 
 (Belgium) 
 
 Heartstruck she stands — Our Lady of all Sorrows — 
 Circled with ruin, sunk in deep amaze ; 
 
 Facing the shadow of her dark to-morrows, 
 Mourning the glory of her yesterdays. 
 
 Yet is she queen by every royal token, 
 
 There, where the storm of desolation swirled : 
 
 Crowned only with the thorn — despoiled and 
 broken — 
 Her kingdom is the heart of all the world. 
 
 She made her breast a shield, her sword a splendor, 
 She rose like flame upon the darkened ways ; 
 
 So, through the anguish of her proud surrender 
 Breaks the clear vision of undying praise. 
 
 — Marion C. Smith. 
 
CHARLES HAMILTON SO RLE Y 243 
 
 "ALL THE HILLS AND VALES ALONG" 
 
 All the hills and vales along 
 Earth is bursting into song, 
 And the singers are the chaps 
 Who are going to die perhaps. 
 
 O sing, marching men, 
 
 Till the valleys ring again. 
 
 Give your gladness to earth's keeping, 
 
 So be glad, when you are sleeping. 
 
 Cast away regret and rue, 
 Think what you are marching to. 
 Little live, great pass. 
 Jesus Christ and Barabbas 
 Were found the same day. 
 This died, that went his way. 
 
 So sing with joyful breath. 
 
 For why, you are going to death. 
 
 Teeming earth will surely store 
 
 All the gladness that you pour. 
 
 Earth that never doubts nor fears, 
 Earth that knows of death, not tears, 
 
244 CHARLES HAMILTON SORLEY 
 
 Earth that bore with joyful ease 
 Hemlock for Socrates, 
 Earth that blossomed and was glad 
 'Neath the cross that Christ had, 
 Shall rejoice and blossom too 
 When the bullet reaches you. 
 
 Wherefore, men marching 
 
 On the road to death, sing ! 
 
 Pour your gladness on earth's head, 
 
 So be merry, so be dead. 
 
 From the hills and valleys earth 
 
 Shouts back the sound of mirth, 
 
 Tramp of feet and lilt of song 
 
 Ringing all the road along. 
 
 All the music of their going, 
 
 Ringing, swinging, glad song-throwing, 
 
 Earth will echo still, when foot 
 
 Lies numb and voice mute. 
 
 On, marching men, on 
 
 To the gates of death with song. 
 
 Sow your gladness for earth's reaping, 
 
 So you may be glad, though sleeping. 
 
 Strew your gladness on earth's bed, 
 
 So be merry, so be dead. 
 
 — Charles Hamilton Sorley. 
 
 (Captain, Seventh (Service) Battalion of the Suffolk 
 Regiment, killed in action in France on Oct. 13, 1915.) 
 
ROBERT J. C. STEAD 245 
 
 KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM 
 
 Weep, waves of England ! Nobler clay 
 Was ne'er to nobler grave consigned ; 
 
 The wild waves weep with us to-day 
 Who mourn a nation's master mind. 
 
 We hoped an honored age for him, 
 And ashes laid with England's great; 
 
 And rapturous music, and the dim 
 
 Deep hush that veils our Tomb of State. 
 
 But this is better. Let him sleep 
 
 Where sleep the men who made us free, 
 
 For England's heart is in the deep, 
 And England's glory is the sea. 
 
 One only vow above his bier, 
 
 One only oath beside his bed : 
 We swear our flag shall shield him here 
 
 Until the sea gives up its dead ! 
 
 Leap, waves of England ! Boastful be, 
 
 And fling defiance in the blast, 
 For Earth is envious of the Sea 
 
 Which shelters England's dead at last. 
 
 — Robert J. C. Stead. 
 
246 JAMES STEPHENS 
 
 THE SPRING IN IRELAND: 1916 
 
 Do not forget my charge I beg of you ; 
 
 That of what flow'rs you find of fairest hue 
 
 And sweetest odor you do gather those 
 
 Are best of all the best — a fragrant rose, 
 
 A tall calm lily from the waterside, 
 
 A half -blown poppy leaning at the side 
 
 Its graceful head to dream among the corn, 
 
 Forget-me-nots that seem as though the morn 
 
 Had tumbled down and grew into the clay, 
 
 And hawthorn buds that swing along the way 
 
 Easing the hearts of those who pass them by 
 
 Until they find contentment. — Do not cry, 
 
 But gather buds, and with them greenery 
 
 Of slender branches taken from a tree 
 
 Well bannered by the spring that saw them 
 
 fall: 
 Then you, for you are cleverest of all 
 Who have slim fingers and are pitiful, 
 Brimming your lap with bloom that you may 
 
 cull, 
 Will sit apart, and weave for every head 
 A garland of the flow'rs you gathered. 
 
JAMES STEPHENS 247 
 
 II 
 
 Be green upon their graves, O happy Spring, 
 
 For they were young and eager who are dead ; 
 
 Of all things that are young and quivering 
 
 With eager life be they remembered : 
 
 They move not here, they have gone to the clay, 
 
 They cannot die again for liberty ; 
 
 Be they remembered of their land for aye ; 
 
 Green be their graves and green their memory. 
 
 Fragrance and beauty come in with the green, 
 The ragged bushes put on sweet attire, 
 The birds forget how chill these airs have been, 
 The clouds bloom out again and move in fire ; 
 Blue is the dawn of day, calm is the lake, 
 And merry sounds are fitful in the morn ; 
 In covert deep the young blackbirds awake, 
 They shake their wings and sing upon the morn. 
 
 At springtime of the year you came and swung 
 Green flags above the newly-greening earth ; 
 Scarce were the leaves unfolded, they were young, 
 Nor had outgrown the wrinkles of their birth : 
 Comrades they thought you of their pleasant hour, 
 They had but glimpsed the sun when they saw you ; 
 They heard your songs e'er birds had singing power, 
 And drank your blood e'er that they drank the dew. 
 
248 JAMES STEPHENS 
 
 Then you went down, and then, and as in pain, 
 The Spring affrighted fled her leafy ways, 
 The clouds came to the earth in gusty rain, 
 And no sun shone again for many days : 
 And day by day they told that one was dead, 
 And day by day the season mourned for you, 
 Until that count of woe was finished, 
 And Spring remembered all was yet to do. 
 
 She came with mirth of wind and eager leaf, 
 With scampering feet and reaching out of wings, 
 She laughed among the boughs and banished 
 
 grief, 
 And cared again for all her baby things ; 
 Leading along the joy that has to be, 
 Bidding her timid buds think on the May, 
 And told that Summer comes with victory, 
 And told the hope that is all creatures' stay. 
 
 Go, Winter, now unto your own abode, 
 Your time is done, and Spring is conqueror 
 Lift up with all your gear and take your road, 
 For she is here and brings the sun with her : 
 Now are we resurrected, now are we, 
 Who lay so long beneath an icy hand, 
 New-risen into life and liberty, 
 Because the Spring is come into our land. 
 
JAMES STEPHENS 249 
 
 III 
 
 In other lands they may, 
 With public joy or dole along the way, 
 With pomp and pageantry and loud lament 
 Of drums and trumpets, and with merriment 
 Of grateful hearts, lead into rest and sted 
 The nation's dead. 
 
 If we had drums and trumpets, if we had 
 
 Aught of heroic pitch or accent glad 
 
 To honor you as bids tradition old, 
 
 With banners flung or draped in mournful fold, 
 
 And pacing cortege ; these would we not bring 
 
 For your last journeying. 
 
 We have no drums or trumpets ; naught have we 
 But some green branches taken from a tree, 
 And flowers that grow at large in mead and vale ; 
 Nothing of choice have we, or of avail 
 To do you honor as our honor deems, 
 And as your worth beseems. 
 
 Sleep, drums and trumpets, yet a little time ; 
 All ends and all begins, and there is chime 
 At last where discord was, and joy at last 
 Where woe wept out her eyes : be not downcast, 
 Here is prosperity and goodly cheer, 
 For life does follow death, and death-is here. 
 
 — James Stephens. 
 
250 ARCHIBALD T. STRONG 
 
 AUSTRALIA TO ENGLAND 
 
 By all the deeds to Thy dear glory done, 
 By all the life blood spilt to serve Thy need, 
 By all the fettered lives Thy touch hath freed, 
 
 By all Thy dream in us anew begun ; 
 
 By all the guerdon English sire to son 
 
 Hath given of highest vision, kingliest deed, 
 By all Thine agony, of God decreed 
 
 For trial and strength, our fate with Thine is one. 
 
 Still dwells Thy spirit in our hearts and lips, 
 Honor and life we hold from none but Thee, 
 And if we live Thy pensioners no more 
 
 But seek a nation's might of men and ships, 
 
 'Tis but that when the world is black with war 
 
 Thy sons may stand beside Thee strong and free. 
 
 — Archibald T. Strong. 
 August, 1914. 
 
VISCOUNT STUART 251 
 
 SAILOR, WHAT OF THE DEBT WE OWE 
 
 YOU? 
 
 Sailor, what of the debt we owe you ? 
 
 Day or night is the peril more ? 
 Who so dull that he fails to know you, 
 
 Sleepless guard of our island shore? 
 
 Safe the corn to the farmyard taken ; 
 
 Grain ships safe upon all the seas ; 
 Homes in peace and a faith unshaken — 
 
 Sailor, what do we owe for these ? 
 
 Safe the clerk at his desk ; the trader 
 Counts unruined his honest gain ; 
 
 Safe though yonder the curs't invader 
 Pours red death over hill and plain. 
 
 Sailor, what of the debt we owe you ? 
 
 Now is the hour at last to pay, 
 Now in the stricken field to show you 
 
 What is the spirit you guard to-day. 
 
 — Andrew John Stuart. 
 
 (Eldest son of the Earl of Castlestewart, Lieut. 6th 
 Royal Scots Fusiliers, killed in action in France between 
 Sept. 25 and 27, 1915.) 
 
252 ELIZABETH TOWNSEND SWIFT 
 
 FROM AMERICA 
 
 Oh, England, at the smoking trenches dying 
 
 For all the world, 
 Our hearts beat and we watch your bright flag flying 
 
 While ours is furled ; 
 
 We who are neutral (yet each lip with fervor 
 
 The word abjures) : 
 Oh, England, never name us the time-server ! 
 
 Our hearts are yours : 
 
 We that so glory in your high decision, 
 
 So trust your goal ; 
 All Europe in our blood, but yours our vision, 
 
 Our speech, our soul ! 
 
 — Elizabeth Townsend Swift. 
 
RABINDRANATH TAGORE 253 
 
 THE TRUMPET 
 
 Thy trumpet lies in the dust. 
 
 The wind is weary, the light is dead. Ah, the evil 
 
 day! 
 Come fighters, carrying your flags and singers with 
 
 your songs ! 
 Come pilgrims, hurrying on your journey ! 
 The trumpet lies in the dust waiting for us. 
 
 I was on my way to the temple with my evening 
 
 offerings, 
 Seeking for the heaven of rest after the day's dusty 
 
 toil; 
 Hoping my hurts would be healed and stains in my 
 
 garments washed white, 
 When I found thy trumpet lying in the dust. 
 
 Has it not been the time for me to light my lamp ? 
 
 Has my evening not come to bring me sleep ? 
 
 O, thou blood-red rose, where have my poppies 
 
 faded? 
 I was certain my wanderings were over and my debts 
 
 all paid 
 When suddenly I came upon thy trumpet lying in the 
 
 dust. 
 
254 RABINDRANATH TAGORE 
 
 Strike my drowsy heart with thy spell of youth ! 
 
 Let my joy in life blaze up in fire. 
 
 Let the shafts of awakening fly piercing the heart of 
 
 night and a thrill of dread shake the palsied 
 
 blindness, 
 I have come to raise thy trumpet from the dust. 
 
 Sleep is no more for me — my walk shall be through 
 
 showers of arrows. 
 Some shall run out of their houses and come to my 
 
 side — some shall weep. 
 Some in their beds shall toss and groan in dire dreams : 
 For to-night thy trumpet shall be sounded. 
 
 From thee I had asked peace only to find shame. 
 Now I stand before thee — help me to don my 
 
 armor ! 
 Let hard blows of trouble strike fire into my life. 
 Let my heart beat in pain — beating the drum of thy 
 
 victory. 
 My hands shall be utterly emptied to take up thy 
 
 trumpet. 
 
 — Rabindranath Tagore. 
 
FRANK TAYLOR 255 
 
 ENGLAND'S DEAD 
 
 (" Make them to be numbered with thy Saints : in glory- 
 ever lasting.") 
 
 Homeward the long ships leap ; swift-shod with joy, 
 Striding the deep sea-dykes fast home they fare, — 
 
 Where is my wedded love ? Where is my boy ? 
 Where go the dead that died for England, where ? 
 
 Homeward the long ships leap ; but not with these 
 Thy boy, thy wedded love, O gentle-eyed 
 
 Woman of England, nor far over seas 
 
 Mixing with dull earth sleep the dead that died 
 
 For England. They, in God's completed aims, 
 Bear each his part ; unseen of bounded sight, 
 
 Down the vast firmament there floats and flames, 
 Crested with stars and panoplied in light, 
 
 Of strenuous clean souls a long array, 
 
 With lambent lance and white, bright, blinding 
 sword, 
 All riding upon horses, — what are they ? 
 
 They are the dead which died in Christ their Lord 
 
 For England, from old time ; with God made one, 
 As on the mount the triple vision shone, 
 
256 FRANK TAYLOR 
 
 So shine they now, and like the noontide sun 
 Before them all the fair Saint George rides on. 
 
 There goes the boy of Crecy whispering low 
 
 To him of Agincourt, a kingly pair, 
 With many mighty men which bent the bow, — 
 
 There go the dead that died for England, there ; 
 
 There go those quenchless Talbots, there the flower 
 Of Devon, Grenville, Gilbert, mariners rare, 
 
 She too who thought foul scorn of Philip's power, — 
 There go the dead that died for England, there ; 
 
 And Sidney who the rippling cup resigned, 
 
 And happy Wolfe ; wan Pitt released from care, 
 
 Nelson the well-beloved and all his kind, — 
 There go the dead that died for England, there ; 
 
 And he who brake the Corsican's strong spell, 
 And Nicholson, impatient of despair, 
 
 And Gordon, faithful, desolate sentinel, — 
 
 There go the dead that died for England, there ; 
 
 And there unhelmeted, ungirt of brand, 
 Victoria moves with mild, maternal air, 
 
 Still vigilant, still prayerful for the land, — 
 There go the dead that died for England, there. 
 
 Nor ride they idly nor with indolent rein, 
 Irresolute, as men that seek no foe, 
 
FRANK TAYLOR 257 
 
 But by the pathless sea, by peak and plain, 
 
 Bright-eyed, stern-lipped, all day, all night, they go 
 
 Forth as a fire that snatches and devours 
 
 Wind-withered woods, so go they swift and fell, 
 
 Warring with principalities and powers, 
 
 Hunting through space the swart, old bands of 
 Hell; 
 
 And all the sounding causeways of the spheres 
 Ring like white iron with the rhythmic tread 
 
 Of these and their innumerable peers ; 
 
 But most round England muster England's dead, 
 
 Round England cradled in her roaring seas, 
 
 With Arctic snows white-girdled, bathed in suns 
 
 Asian and Australasian, there go these ; 
 And where one solitary trader runs 
 
 His English keel, and where one lonely sword 
 Glimmers for England, one unsleeping brain 
 
 Watches and works for England, thitherward 
 Gather the bright souls of her servants slain 
 
 For her, and lock their shimmering ranks, and sweep 
 Round England's child as sweeps the northern 
 gale 
 
 Round some stark pine-tree on the moorland steep, 
 And from the flash and rattle of their mail 
 
258 FRANK TAYLOR 
 
 Hell's pale marauders shudderingly recoil 
 Frustrate. O glad condition and sublime 
 
 Of our undying dead, to fight and foil 
 The ancient foe, continually to climb 
 
 Through God's high order of His Saints, to meet 
 Some soul whose star-like name lit all their course, 
 
 And commune with him, to discern and greet 
 
 Old kindred, love, and friendship, hound and horse ; 
 
 To see God face to face, and still to see 
 
 And labor for the loves that grope on earth, 
 
 To wait serenely till all souls shall be 
 One in God's aristocracy of worth, — 
 
 O glad condition and sublime ! whereto 
 
 That southern tomb thy hands may never tend 
 
 Was but the gateway thy loved boy passed through, 
 Thy wedded love passed through, that he might 
 wend 
 
 Homeward to thee ; thou can'st not see the blaze 
 Of his great blade nor hear his trumpets blafe, 
 
 Yet thick as brown leaves round about thy ways, 
 
 There go the dead that died for England, there. 
 
 — Frank Taylor. 
 
 (This poem was written about 1902, and was published 
 in the Spectator of June 12, 1915, having been found among 
 the author's papers by his executor, by whose consent it is 
 here reprinted.) 
 
SARA TEASDALE 259 
 
 SPRING IN WAR TIME 
 
 I feel the Spring far off, far off, 
 The faint far scent of bud and leaf — 
 
 Oh how can Spring take heart to come 
 To a world in grief, 
 Deep grief ? 
 
 The sun turns north, the days grow long, 
 Later the evening star grows bright — 
 
 How can the daylight linger on 
 For men to fight, 
 Still fight? 
 
 The grass is waking in the ground, 
 Soon it will rise and blow in waves — 
 
 How can it have the heart to sway 
 Over the graves, 
 New graves ? 
 
 Under the boughs where lovers walked 
 
 The apple-blooms will shed their breath — 
 But what of all the lovers now 
 Parted by death, 
 Gray Death? 
 
 — Sara Teasdale. 
 
260 EDITH M. THOMAS 
 
 SAID ATTILA THE HUN TO — 
 
 It was not here — it was not there, 
 It was not now — it was not then . . . 
 Beyond the bounds of Otherwhere, 
 Two tyrant lords of vanished men — 
 They meet in shadowy mail and casque, 
 They greet, and of each other ask. 
 
 {Two shades whose work on earth was dire, 
 Mid darted lights and whelming gloom, 
 Their eyes the lamps of lethal fire, 
 Fierce thirst for power their endless doom — 
 To seek, to be thrown back, to seek ! . . . 
 To learn the triumph of the weak !) 
 
 "Lo, I am Attila, who laid 
 
 Proud Aquileia in the dust ; 
 
 The Slav, the Teuton, slaked my blade — 
 
 Of blood I had the sacred lust ! 
 
 Yea, Attila am I ; but thou, 
 
 Who has our brand upon thy brow !" 
 
 "I, too, made treasure-cities smoke, 
 And blood with ashes mixed therein ; 
 
EDITH M. THOMAS 261 
 
 And from the sky, on sleeping folk, 
 Mine engines did full vengeance win I" 
 To whom said Attila the Hun, 
 "In all of this thou hast well done !" 
 
 "But I," the other shade replies, 
 "Where'er I dealt the killing blow, 
 Or gave mine iron cross as prize, 
 Therewith I bade God's blessing go ... " 
 . . . Then, Attila fell back, outdone — 
 God's scourge, and not His favored son ! 
 
 — Edith M. Thomas. 
 
262 GILBERT THOMAS 
 
 THE UNCONQUERED HOPE 
 
 (A ship recently arrived in England from America, laden 
 with toys, the gift of the American people, for the children 
 both of the Allies and the Enemy.) 
 
 From sea to sea, from shore to shore, 
 The clouds of death and doom 
 
 Veil the sun's soft and kindly beam ; — 
 Yet, can ye see one light agleam 
 Where a stately ship comes threading 
 Its pathway thro' the gloom ? 
 
 Say ye 'tis but a ship of steel ? 
 Are ye so dead, so blind ! 
 
 Can ye not see the rainbow spray 
 That dances on the good ship's way, 
 Nor hear the strange, deep whispers 
 That wander on the wind ? 
 
 What are the gifts the proud ship brings 
 To the weary world and old ? 
 Trifles to fill a childish hand? 
 Why, hardly the angels understand 
 The richness of the treasure 
 That lies within its hold ! 
 
GILBERT THOMAS 263 
 
 Oh, breaking thro' the mist of dreams 
 That wreathe the distant bar, 
 The vessel comes with a strange light dress'd, 
 And, tho' it sails from out the West, 
 Upon its flag there glistens 
 A golden Eastern star ! 
 
 For when the world is blackest, 
 And man is blind with blood 
 
 And buried deep in his guilt and pride, 
 This is the ship that takes the tide 
 And sends its lamp of healing 
 Across the soul's dark flood. 
 
 It comes once more as it oft has come/ 
 With its faery wings outspread — 
 Can ye not see them, eyes that grope, 
 Nor read its name, The Unconquered Hope, 
 Nor yet discern the halo 
 Around its Figurehead ? 
 
 What are the gifts the proud ship brings ? 
 Oh childish smiles and tears ; 
 
 Oh childish faith that breaks thro' all 
 The sin that holds the world in thrall ! . . . 
 A rift is in the darkness — 
 A ship, a ship appears. 
 
 — Gilbert Thomas. 
 
264 GRACE E. TOLLEMACHE 
 
 SONNET 
 
 October 1st, 1914 
 
 England ! that thou wast faint of heart we said, 
 Or inly thought ; and that the wreath of bays 
 Drooped on thy brow, withered with length of 
 
 days, 
 A dust-layered trophy of the age-long Dead : 
 We wronged thee much ! — Myriads this month 
 
 have bled 
 And died for thee, and though the end delays, 
 There's not one that a daunted spirit betrays 
 Nor that for thee life's last drop would not shed ! 
 
 We deemed thy robes grown faded, — but fresh- 
 dyed 
 We now behold them, — and their crimson dye 
 Is of thy sons' spilt blood, deep-hued and glowing : 
 England ! thou art comely in thy pride 
 And clad in glorious raiment, and thy going 
 Is as of one who goes to victory ! 
 
 — Grace E. Tollemache. 
 
CHARLES HANSON TOWNE 265 
 
 TO MY COUNTRY 
 
 One told me he had heard it whispered : "Lo ! 
 The hour has come when Europe, desperate 
 With sudden war and terrible swift hate, 
 
 Rocks like a reed beneath the mighty blow. 
 
 Therefore shall we, in this her time of woe, 
 Profit and prosper, since her ships of state 
 Go down in darkness. Kind, thrice kind is Fate, 
 
 Leaving our land secure, our grain to grow !" 
 
 America ! They blaspheme and they lie 
 Who say these are the voices of your sons I 
 
 In this foul night, when nations sink and die, 
 No thought is here save for the fallen ones 
 Who, underneath the ruin of old thrones, 
 
 Suffer and bleed, and tell the world good-by ! 
 
 — Charles Hanson Towne. 
 
266 D. HOWARD TRIPP 
 
 AFTERMATH 
 
 With steady, silent tread 
 Bearing aloft their dead — 
 One at the foot, one at the head 
 The stretcher-bearers go ; 
 Out of the dark they come 
 Stumbling and staggering, some 
 Bearing, maybe, a chum, 
 Pair after pair they go. 
 
 Vague, silhouetted ghosts, 
 
 Remnants of martyr'd hosts ; 
 
 Think on the blatant toasts 
 
 Raised to "King Glory"! 
 
 Tread lightly, that's the way, 
 
 Wake not the dead, lest they 
 
 Have other words to say 
 
 Of the same story ! 
 
 — D. Howard Tripp. 
 
 (Lance-Corporal, London Irish Rifles, British Expedi- 
 tionary Force.) 
 
KATHARINE TYNAN 267 
 
 A GIRL'S SONG 
 
 The Meuse and Marne have little waves ; 
 
 The slender poplars o'er them lean. 
 One day they will forget the graves 
 
 That give the grass its living green. 
 
 Some brown French girl the rose will wear 
 That springs above his comely head ; 
 
 Will twine it in her russet hair, 
 Nor wonder why it is so red. 
 
 His blood is in the rose's veins, 
 His hair is in the yellow corn. 
 
 My grief is in the weeping rains 
 And in the keening wind forlorn. 
 
 Flow softly, softly, Marne and Meuse ; 
 
 Tread lightly all ye browsing sheep ; 
 Fall tenderly, O silver dews, 
 
 For here my dear Love lies asleep. 
 
 The earth is on his sealed eyes, 
 
 The beauty marred that was my pride ; 
 Would I were lying where he lies, 
 
 And sleeping sweetly by his side ! 
 
268 KATHARINE TYNAN 
 
 The Spring will come by Meuse and Marne, 
 The birds be blithesome in the tree. 
 
 I heap the stones to make his cairn 
 Where many sleep as sound as he. 
 
 — Katharine Tynan. 
 
LOUIS UNTERMEYER 269 
 
 THE LAUGHERS 
 
 Spring ! 
 
 And her hidden bugles up the street. 
 
 Spring — and the sweet 
 
 Laughter of winds at the crossing ; 
 
 Laughter of birds and a fountain tossing 
 
 Its hair in abandoned ecstasies. 
 
 Laughter of trees. 
 
 Laughter of shop-girls that giggle and blush ; 
 
 Laugh of the tug-boat's impertinent fife. 
 
 Laughter followed by a trembling hush — 
 
 Laughter of love, scarce whispered aloud. 
 
 Then, stilled by no sacredness or strife, 
 
 Laughter that leaps from the crowd ; 
 
 Seizing the world in a rush. 
 
 Laughter of life. . . . 
 
 Earth takes deep breaths like a man who had feared 
 
 he might smother, 
 Filling his lungs before bursting into a shout. . . . 
 Windows are opened — curtains flying out ; 
 Over the wash-lines women call to each other. 
 And, under the calling, there surges, too clearly to 
 
 doubt, 
 
270 LOUIS UNTERMEYER 
 
 Spring, with the noises 
 
 Of shrill, little voices ; 
 
 Joining in "Tag" and the furious chase 
 
 Of "I-spy," "Red Rover" and "Prisoner's Base"; 
 
 Of the roller-skates whir at the sidewalk's slope, 
 
 Of boys playing marbles and girls skipping rope. 
 
 And there, down the avenue, behold, 
 
 The first true herald of the Spring — 
 
 The hand-organ gasping and wheezily murmuring 
 
 Its tunes ten-years old. . . . 
 
 And the music, trivial and tawdry, has freshness 
 
 and magical swing. 
 And over and under it, 
 During and after — 
 The laughter 
 Of Spring ! . . . 
 
 And lifted still 
 
 With the common thrill, 
 
 With the throbbing air, the tingling vapor, 
 
 That rose like strong and mingled wines ; 
 
 I turned to my paper, 
 
 And read these lines : 
 
 " Now that the Spring is here, 
 
 The war enters its bloodiest phase . . . 
 
 The men are impatient. . . . 
 
 Bad roads, storms and the rigors of the winter 
 
 Have held back the contending armies. . . . 
 
LOUIS UNTERMEYEB 271 
 
 But the recruits have arrived, 
 
 And are waiting only the first days of warm weather. . . . 
 
 There will be terrible fighting along the whole 
 
 line — 
 Now that Spring has come." 
 
 I put the paper down . . . 
 
 Something struck out the sun — something unseen ; 
 
 Something arose like a dark wave to drown 
 
 The golden streets with a sickly green. 
 
 Something polluted the blossoming day 
 
 With the touch of decay. 
 
 The music thinned and died ; 
 
 People seemed hollow-eyed. 
 
 Even the faces of children, where gaiety lingers, 
 
 Sagged and drooped like banners about to be furled — 
 
 And Silence laid its bony fingers 
 
 On the lips of the world . . . 
 
 A grisly quiet with the power to choke ; 
 
 A quiet that only one thing broke ; 
 
 One thing alone rose up thereafter . . . 
 
 Laughter ! 
 
 Laughter of streams running red. 
 
 Laughter of evil things in the night ; 
 
 Vultures carousing over the dead ; 
 
 Laughter of ghouls. 
 
 Chuckling of idiots, cursed with sight. 
 
 Laughter of dark and horrible pools. 
 
272 LOUIS UNTERMEYER 
 
 Scream of the bullets* rattling mirth, 
 
 Sweeping the earth. 
 
 Laugh of the cannon's poisonous breath. . . . 
 
 And over the shouts and the wreckage and crumbling 
 
 The raucous and rumbling 
 
 Laughter of death. 
 
 Death that arises to sing, — 
 
 Hailing the Spring ! 
 
 — Louis Untermeyer. 
 
MARIE VAN VORST 273 
 
 THE AMERICAN VOLUNTEERS 
 
 Neutral ! America, you cannot give 
 To your sons' souls neutrality. Your powers 
 
 Are sovereign, Mother, but past histories live 
 In hearts as young as ours. 
 
 We who are free disdain oppression, lust 
 And infamous raid. We have been pioneers 
 
 For freedom and our code of honor must 
 Dry and not startle tears. 
 
 WeVe read of Lafayette, who came to give 
 His youth, with his companions and their powers, 
 
 To help the Colonies — and heroes live 
 In hearts as young as ours ! 
 
 Neutral I We who go forth with sword and lance, 
 A little band to swell the battle's flow, 
 
 Go willingly, to pay again to France 
 Some of the debt we owe. 
 
 — Marie Van Vorst. 
 
274 ALBERTA VICKRIDGE 
 
 THE CONSCRIPT 
 
 Then former stars were faint and signs were fled. 
 Dawn flamed and sleepers roused : you saw men's 
 
 souls 
 Crowned of that fire with terrible aureoles. 
 You saw — and hid your head, and hid your head. 
 What of you, O unwilling, shall be said ? 
 England, Beloved, 
 Say that Pain crowned even mine with all men's 
 souls. 
 
 Joyous as guest unto the rose-heaped board, 
 Dreamful as lover to his dreams' desire, 
 Steadfast as martyr to the pitiless fire, 
 My sons, yet not to any task abhorred, 
 But to love's service, went with one accord. 
 No less, Beloved, 
 My heart perforce shall kindle at thy fire. 
 
 Toiled in my vineyard since the early sun, 
 Toiled through the drouth, the ardent heat of 
 
 noon, 
 These, my true laborers. Say, who earns my 
 
 boon, 
 
ALBERTA VICKRIDGE 275 
 
 My honorable wage, my deep Well-done, 
 He that shall come at rise or set of sun ? 
 Even he, Beloved, 
 Who serves thee there, whether at eve or noon. 
 
 The marriage-feast was spread within my house, 
 Red flowed the wine, loud rose the eager din. 
 Prepared for honored guests, the fare therein 
 
 Now bids another company carouse. 
 
 O heedless, find you welcome in my house ? 
 Even I, Beloved, 
 Compelled from hedge and highway to come in. 
 
 Renownless Christs of a new Calvary, 
 
 My children died, love's dearest debt to pay. 
 Thief, who have filched your peace in vain, to-day 
 Beside that ransoming love unforced and free, 
 Perish you not on a most shameful tree ? 
 Not so, Beloved, 
 For I shall meet thy Dead in heaven to-day. 
 
 — Alberta Vickridge. 
 
276 A. STODART WALKER 
 
 IN A SLUM 
 
 I never heard him speak a kindly word, 
 My tears were answered with a savage oath, 
 
 He drank what we could very ill afford, 
 He was a bully and a drunkard both. 
 
 He broke my body as he broke my soul, 
 I shivered when I heard his stumbling feet ; 
 
 At times the very household "sticks" he stole, 
 To pawn and pay for women in the street. 
 
 I stitched and labored for his children's bread, 
 Fourpence a shirt the sweated wage I earned, 
 
 Save when the doctor forced me to my bed, 
 Where thrice a mother's travail I had learned. 
 
 The day he left me for the barrack square, 
 He swore we women were no earthly use 
 
 For anything but filling men with care, 
 
 His parting words were words of foul abuse. 
 
 And now they tell me of a hero's death, 
 
 How one to twelve he held the Huns at bay, 
 
 And won the Cross, yet with his passing breath 
 He bade the chaplain "take his face away." 
 
A. STODART WALKER 277 
 
 Inside the pubs the neighbors speak his praise, 
 The man who brought the world about our slum, 
 
 Or by the open door they stand and gaze, 
 And wonder why his slattern wife is dumb. 
 
 The preacher dwells the ways of God upon, 
 Surpassing man's design and woman's wit ; 
 
 Oh God, I can't be sorry he is gone, 
 But going I am glad he did his bit. 
 
 — A. Stodart Walker. 
 
278 SIR HERBERT WARREN 
 
 ENGLAND TO DENMARK 
 
 August, 1915 
 
 Great little land, old comrades of the sea, 
 Salt of its salt, whelps of its Viking brood, 
 Sharers with us in its free fearless mood, 
 
 Narrow your home, world-wide your chivalry ! 
 
 Now call we kin for the past and the years to be, 
 Now is the name of righteous Cnut renewed, 
 Forgiven and forgot all days of feud, 
 
 In your sure aid and swift sweet sympathy. 
 
 Your forbears ruled us with the wise King's yoke, 
 
 Your Princess binds us with her Queenly grace, 
 
 To-day your strong sons all our hearts constrain, 
 
 Who could not brook a foul and dastard stroke, 
 
 But swept between, and rather death would face, 
 
 Than that sea-murder Danish waves should 
 
 stain. 
 
 — Herbert Warren. 
 
ALBERT D. WATSON 279 
 
 MOTHER OF NATIONS 
 WHY? 
 
 Does the Mother of Nations draw the sword 
 To rescue her children oppressed ? 
 
 They have all that the richest lands afford ; 
 
 They sit content at an ample board 
 As safe as a bird in its nest. 
 
 Has she laid her spear on the shield of Mars 
 
 New lands in the wars to gain ? 
 Her dominions extend wherever the stars 
 Are blushing with shame for our foolish wars ; 
 
 Her ships are on every main. 
 
 And not that the world may acclaim her grand 
 
 Is the roar of her guns on the seas ; 
 Her name is lustred on every strand, 
 Her glory is known to the farthest land 
 Where her standard floats on the breeze. 
 
 Ah this is the pillar of cloud and fire 
 
 That leads her hosts along ; 
 This, this is the goal of their deep desire, 
 The road where their feet shall never tire, — 
 
 To be just, keep faith and be strong. 
 
280 ALBERT D. WATSON 
 
 So the Mother of Nations has risen in might 
 
 At the word of the onward call ; 
 She has shaken her banners forth to the light, 
 And marched to the front of the people's fight 
 
 Like the van of a tidal wall. 
 
 And the future shall say of her sons who died 
 
 Wherever their feet have trod 
 With millions of comrades in arms allied ; 
 "They cast the treasures of earth aside 
 
 And marched to the goals of God." 
 
 — Albert D. Watson. 
 Toronto. 
 
WILLIAM WATSON 281 
 
 OUR MEN 
 
 Our men, they are our stronghold, 
 
 Our bastioned wall unsealed, 
 Who, against Hate and Wrong, hold 
 
 This Realm that never quailed ; 
 Who bear the noblest burden 
 
 Life lays on shoulders broad, 
 Asking not fame or guerdon, 
 
 Asking not gold or laud. 
 
 They go where England speeds them ; 
 
 They laugh and jest at Fate. 
 They go where England needs them 
 
 And dream not they are great, 
 And oft, 'mid smoke and smother 
 
 By blinding warstorm fanned 
 Sons of our mighty Mother, 
 
 They fall that she may stand. 
 
 Our sailors, save when sleeping 
 
 The light sleep of the sea, 
 Their ancient watch are keeping, 
 
 Mother, for thine and thee I 
 
282 WILLIAM WATSON 
 
 They guard thy maiden daughters 
 From worse than death or pain ; 
 
 The men who ward the waters, 
 The men who man the main. 
 
 When navies meet and wrestle, 
 
 And their vast arms strike home — 
 Vessel with monstrous vessel 
 
 Matched on the flame-lit foam — 
 What fleet returns in glory ? 
 
 What fleet makes haste to fly ? 
 O Sea, that knowest our story, 
 
 Thou, thou canst best reply ! 
 
 Then hail to all who gave us 
 
 Their might of arm and soul, 
 Hot and athirst to save us, 
 
 To heal, and keep us whole ; 
 Whether they serve where yonder 
 
 Far-burrowing trenches run, 
 Or where the ocean thunder 
 
 Peals with the thundering gun. 
 
 — William Watson. 
 
 
THE REV. LAUCHLAN MACLEAN WATT 283 
 
 THE REAPERS 
 
 Red are the hands of the Reapers, 
 
 And the harvest is so white ! 
 Red are the feet that are treading 
 
 The threshing floors by night : 
 And, on the young brows, dripping 
 
 As with the dews of morn, 
 Deep rose-red are the woundings, 
 
 Like scars of a crown of thorn. 
 
 Tired, so many, with reaping, — 
 
 Tired with treading the grain, 
 Still they lie, in their sleeping, 
 
 Low in the Valley of Pain, — 
 Never again to be quaffing 
 
 The joy of life, like wine ; 
 Never again to be laughing 
 
 In Youth's glad hour divine. 
 
 Birds shall sing in the branches, 
 Children dance by the shore ; 
 
 But they who shared the red reaping 
 Shall come back never more. 
 
284 THE REV. LAUCHLAN MACLEAN WATT 
 
 Let whoso can forget them, 
 
 Walking life's noisy ways ; 
 We who have looked on the Reapers 
 Go quietly, all our days. 
 
 — Lauchlan Maclean Watt. 
 France, 1916. (Chaplain of the Force.) 
 
EDITH WHARTON 285 
 
 BELGIUM 
 
 La Belgique ne regrette rien. 
 
 Not with her ruined silver spires, 
 Not with her cities shamed and rent, 
 Perish the imperishable fires 
 That shape the homestead from the tent. 
 
 Wherever men are staunch and free, 
 There shall she keep her fearless state, 
 And, homeless, to great nations be 
 The home of all that makes them great. 
 
 — Edith Wharton. 
 
286 MARGARET WIDDEMER 
 
 THE WAKENED GOD 
 
 The War-god wakened drowsily ; 
 
 There were gold chains about his hands. 
 
 He said : "And who shall reap my lands 
 And bear the tithes to Death for me ? 
 
 "The nations stilled my thunderings ; 
 They wearied of my steel despair, 
 The flames from out my burning hair : 
 
 Is there an ending of such things ? " 
 
 Low laughed the Earth, and answered : " When 
 Was any changeless law I gave 
 Changed by my sons intent to save, 
 
 By puny pitying hands of men ? 
 
 "I feel no ruth for some I bear. . . . 
 The swarming, hungering overflow 
 Of crowded millions, doomed to go, 
 
 They must destroy who chained you there. 
 
 "For some bright stone or shining praise 
 They stint a million bodies' breath, 
 And sell the women, shamed, to death, 
 
 And send the men brief length of days. 
 
MARGARET WIDDEMER 287 
 
 "They kill the bodies swift for me, 
 And kill the souls you gave to peace. . . . 
 You were more merciful than these, 
 
 Old master of my cruelty. 
 
 "Lo, souls are scarred and virtues dim : 
 Take back thy scourge of ministry, 
 Rise from thy silence suddenly, 
 
 Lest these still take Death's toll to him !" 
 
 The War-God snapped his golden chain : 
 His mercies thundered down the world, 
 And lashing battle-lines uncurled 
 
 And scourged the crouching lands again. 
 
 — Margaret Widdemer. 
 
288 IOLO ANEURIN WILLIAMS 
 
 FROM A FLEMISH GRAVEYARD 
 
 (January, 1915) 
 
 A year hence may the grass that waves 
 O'er English men in Flemish graves, 
 Coating this clay with green of peace 
 And softness of a year's increase, 
 Be kind and lithe as English grass 
 To bend and nod as the winds pass ; 
 It was for grass on English hills 
 These bore too soon the last of ills. 
 
 And may the wind be brisk and clean, 
 And singing cheerfully between 
 The bents a pleasant-burdened song 
 To cheer these English dead along ; 
 For English songs and English winds 
 Are they that bred these English minds. 
 
 And may the circumstantial trees 
 Dip, for these dead ones, in the breeze, 
 And make for them their silver play 
 Of spangled boughs each shiny day. 
 
IOLO ANEURIN WILLIAMS 289 
 
 Thus may these look above, and see 
 And hear the wind in grass and tree, 
 And watch a lark in heaven stand, 
 And think themselves in their own land. 
 
 — Iolo Aneurin Williams. 
 
290 MARGARET L. WOODS 
 
 THE FIRST BATTLE OF YPRES 1 
 
 Grey field of Flanders, grim old battle-plain, 
 What armies held the iron line round Ypres in the rain, 
 From Bixschoote to Baecelaere and down to the 
 Lys river ? 
 
 Merry men of England, 
 
 Men of the green shires, 
 
 From the winding waters, 
 
 The elm-trees and the spires, 
 And the lone village dreaming in the downland yonder. 
 Half a million Huns broke over them in thunder, 
 Roaring seas of Huns swept on and sunk again, 
 
 1 Author's Note. — In the first Battle of Ypres, 
 which was fought in October-November, 1914, a thin 
 line of British, supported on each wing by small bodies 
 of French, stopped the push of an immense German army 
 on Calais. The allusion in the latter part of the poem is 
 not to "the angels of Mons," but to a story received from 
 a very competent witness. On three occasions the Ger- 
 mans broke through our line, then paused and retired, 
 for no apparent reason. On each of these occasions prison- 
 ers, when asked the cause of their retirement, replied : 
 "We saw your enormous Reserves." We had no Reserves. 
 This story was incidentally confirmed by the remark of 
 another officer on the curious conduct of the Germans in 
 violently shelling certain empty fields behind our lines. 
 
MARGARET L. WOODS 291 
 
 Where fought the men of England round Ypres in 
 
 the rain, 
 On the grim plain of Flanders, whose earth is fed 
 
 with slaughter. 
 
 North-country fighting men from the mine and the 
 
 loom, 
 Highlander and lowlander stood up to death and 
 
 doom, 
 From Bixschoote to Baecelaere and down to the 
 
 Lys river. 
 
 London men and Irish, 
 Indian men and French, 
 Charging with the bayonet, 
 Firing in the trench, 
 Fought in that furious fight, shoulder to shoulder. 
 Leapt from their saddles to charge in fierce disorder, 
 The Life Guards, mud and blood for the scarlet 
 
 and the plume, 
 And they hurled back the foemen as the wind the 
 
 sea spume, 
 From Bixschoote to Baecelaere and down to the 
 Lys river. 
 
 But the huge Hun masses yet mounted more and 
 
 more, 
 Like a giant wave gathering to whelm the sweet shore, 
 While swift the exultant foam runs on before and over. 
 
292 MARGARET L. WOODS 
 
 Where that foam was leaping, 
 With bayonets, or with none, 
 The cooks and the service men 
 Ran upon the Hun. 
 The cooks and the service men charged and charged 
 
 together 
 Moussy's cuirassiers, on foot, with spur and sabre; 
 Helmed and shining fought they as warriors fought 
 
 of yore — 
 Till calm fell sinister as the hush at the whirlwind's 
 
 core, 
 From Bixschoote to Baecelaere and down to the 
 Lys river. 
 
 Lo! the Emperor launched on us his guard of old 
 
 renown, 
 Stepping in parade-march, as they step through 
 
 Berlin town, 
 On the chill road to Gheluveldt, in the dark before 
 
 the dawning. 
 
 Heavily tolled on them 
 Mortal mouths of guns, 
 Gallantly, gallantly 
 Came the flower of the Huns. 
 Proud men they marched, like an avalanche on us 
 
 falling, 
 Prouder men they met, in the dark before the 
 dawning. 
 
MARGARET L. WOODS 293 
 
 Seven to one they came against us to shatter us 
 
 and drown, 
 One to seven in the woodland we fought them up and 
 
 down. 
 In the sad November woodland, when all the skies 
 
 were mourning. 
 
 The long battle thundered till a waxing moon might 
 wane, 
 
 Thrice they broke the exhausted line that held them 
 on the plain, 
 
 And thrice like billows they went back, from view- 
 less bounds retiring. 
 
 Why paused they and went backward, 
 With never a foe before 
 Like a long wave dragging 
 Down a level shore 
 Its fierce reluctant surges, that came triumphant 
 
 storming 
 The land, and powers invisible drive to its deep 
 
 returning ? 
 On the grey field of Flanders again and yet again 
 The Huns beheld the Great Reserves on the old 
 
 battle-plain, 
 The blood-red field of Flanders, where all the skies 
 were mourning. 
 
294 MARGARET L. WOODS 
 
 The fury of their marshalled guns might plough 
 
 no dreadful lane 
 Through those Reserves that waited in the ambush 
 
 of the rain, 
 On the riven plain of Flanders, where hills of men 
 
 lay moaning. 
 
 They hurled upon an army 
 The bellowing heart of Hell, 
 We saw but the meadows 
 Torn with their shot and shell. 
 We heard not the march of the succours that were 
 
 coming, 
 Their old forgotten bugle-calls, the fifes and the 
 
 drumming, 
 But they gathered and they gathered from the 
 
 graves where they had lain 
 A hundred years, hundreds of years, on the old 
 
 battle-plain, 
 And the young graves of Flanders, all fresh with 
 dews of mourning. 
 
 Marlborough's men and Wellington's, the burghers 
 
 of Courtrai, 
 The warriors of Plantagenet, King Louis' Gants 
 
 glaces — 
 And the young, young dead from Mons and the 
 
 Marne river. 
 
MARGARET L. WOODS 295 
 
 Old heroic fighting men, 
 Who fought for chivalry, 
 Men who died for England, 
 Mother of Liberty. 
 In the world's dim heart, where the waiting spirits 
 
 slumber, 
 Sounded a roar when the walls were rent asunder 
 That parted Earth from Hell, and summoning them 
 
 away, 
 Tremendous trumpets blew, as at the Judgment 
 
 Day- 
 And the dead came forth, each to his former banner. 
 
 On the grim field of Flanders, the old battle plain, 
 Their armies held the iron line round Ypres in the 
 
 rain, 
 From Bixschoote to Baecelaere and down to the 
 
 Lys river. 
 
 — Margaret L. Woods. 
 
296 
 
 KITCHENER 
 
 If Death had questioned thee, 
 
 " Soldier, where woukTst thou take, 
 
 The immitigable blow ? " 
 
 Thou hadst answered, "Let it be 
 
 Where the battalions shake 
 
 And break the entrenched foe." 
 
 Yet wert thou nobly starred 
 And destined. Thou dost die 
 On the grim English sea ; 
 Thou goest to the old tarred 
 Great Captains, and shalt lie 
 Pillowed with them eternally. 
 
 And they shall stir from their rest 
 
 Each in his lordly shroud, 
 
 And say, " Tore God, we have room, 
 
 So are the deeps made proud, 
 
 Behold the glory on his breast, 
 
 Kitchener of Khartoum ! " 
 
 — X. 
 
LIEUT. FRANCIS BRETT YOUNG 297 
 
 MARCHING ON TANGA 
 
 Marching on Tanga, marching the parched plain 
 Of wavering spear-grass by Pangani river, 
 England came to me — me who had always ta'en 
 But never given before — England, the giver, 
 In a vision of tall poplar trees that shiver 
 On still evenings of summer, after rain, 
 By Slapton Ley, where reed-beds start and quiver 
 When scarce a ripple moves the upland grain. 
 
 Then I thanked God that now I had suffered pain 
 
 And, as the parched plain, thirst, and lain awake 
 
 Shivering all night through till cold daybreak: 
 
 In that I count these sufferings my gain 
 
 And her acknowledgment. Nay, more, would 
 
 fain 
 
 Suffer as many more for her sweet sake. 
 
 — Francis Brett Young. 
 
 With the British Expeditionary Force, Marago-Opuni, 
 German East Africa. June, 1916. 
 
 Printed in the United States of America. 
 
HP HE following pages contain advertisements of a 
 few of the Macmillan books on kindred subjects 
 
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