PS -1.4 LET T/IE FMG WIVE CLINTON ^COLLs^RD Class Jliillii Book. i-- GoppglitiN'°- mi COPYRIGHT DEPOSm Digitized by tine Internet Arciiive in 2010 witin funding from Tine Library of Congress littp://www.arcliive.org/details/letflagwavewitlioOOscol LET THE FLAG WAVE LET THE FLAG WAVE WITH OTHER VERSES WRITTEN IN WAR-TIME By CLINTON SCOLLARD NEW YORK JAMES T. WHITE & CO. 1917 Copyright 1917 hy Clinton ScoUard / 3! i9i7 ©1,A4G2996 CONTENTS The Flag to the Wind - - - 2 V. The Bell Ringer .... 9 At the Grave of Lawrence - - 11 At the Home of Francis Scott Key - - 13 I America to her Young Men - - 15 b-5 Ballad of "Old Glory" - - - 16 \ In Time of Danger - - - 20 Said "Light Horse Harry Lee" - - 21 Little Princes, Little Kings - - 22 Ballad of a Baker - - - - 24 OffFinistere - - - - 27 A Hill in Picardy - - - - 29 The Little Lad .... 30 At Brussels - - - - - 31 The Dancing Man of Normandy - - 33 The Lunar Bow - - - - 36 At the Year's Decline - - - 37 The Reeds of the Somme - - - 38 A Wooden Cross - - - - 39 At Becquincourt - - - - 40 The Spirit of France - - - 41 The Chant of the Hun - - - 42 A Summer Morning - - - 43 What Tidings - - - - 44 The Old Man of the Mountains - - 45 Greece - - - - - 46 On an American Soldier Slain Upon the Mexican Border - - - . 47 Texas Rangers - - . .43 Mother England - - - - 50 Kitchener of Khartum - - - 52 Walsyngham Way - - - 53 A Man of the Peak - - . - 54 A Recruit 55 In London-Town - - . - 56 May in Devon - - - - 57 To Alan Seeger - - _ - 58 Let the flag wave! Aye, let it ivave on high. Its red and white and blue against the sky! From crest and casement, broad and bright and brave. Let the flag wave! Let the flag wave! Aye, let it wave above The hills and valleys of the land we love. And o'er the sea, to no mad tyrant slave. Let the flag wave! Let the flag wave! Aye, let its glory shine! Let the flag wave, a symbol, and a sign! To guard our honor and to shield and save. Let the flag wave! Let the flag wave! Aye, wave in all men's sight, Its stars unsullied as the stars of night; Its stripes unblemished; only this we crave — Let the flag wave! 1] THE FLAG TO THE WIND What is the word of the flag To the world-wide wanderer, Wind, Now that valley and crag Are fair with the flush of May, — Now that the boughs once thinned By the spectral hand of the frost, Laughing in leaf, are tossed In the golden face of the day? Flung over valley and crag. This is the word of the Flag! "Far in the lustrums gone, In freedom I had my birth, Yet I am young as the dawn. Or the fresh Maytime of earth. I have outlived my fears In the stress of the wheeling years. Until, in my strength, I feel. With my Stripes and my gathered Stars, That I stand for a Nation's weal, Supreme o'er the roar of wars. 2j "Since I to the morn unfurled Over this fair new world, Mine has it been to urge The pulse of the patriot surge, Whether it swept the plain In the stormy wake of Wayne, Or leaped on the parapet At the shout of Lafayette. Proudly I waved on high At Lawrence's valiant cry, And fluttered in glory again When Decatur sailed the main; From the banks of the Rio Grande I flung in the face of the foe Till I took my triumph stand On the walls of Mexico! 3] "And when the North and the South, Sworn brothers, drew apart, When Love was withered by drouth, And Hate was the flower of the heart, Through ways of passion and pain, Through waste of life and of lands, Back did I lead again To the kindred clasping of hands. Ne'er did my courage fail In the doubtful days and dark. Though under the fiery gale The loved of the land grew stark. I, who had seen the light In the eyes of Washington, Had faith that the gloom of night Would yield once more to the sun; So, rent and riven and torn. Did I cheer the war-ranks worn. Till the silent soldier came, The man of deathless name, Who brought from the strife release. And the lovely lilies of Peace. 4] "And when the trump of war Pealed in the dawn once more, And far Corregidor, By the warm Philippine shore, Hearkened our guns proclaim The end of a rule of Shame, And when the fairest isle In the surge of the Carib main, Cruelly crushed too long By Spanish greed and guile. Listed the stern refrain Of our mighty battle-song, A hail did I fling to all Of the free that erst were thrall. [5] "Aad now that one of the strain Of the terrible Tamerlane, And Attila, the Hun, Cries his vaunt to the sun. Clamors of God and prates While he sows his pestilent hates, Writes his creed of Crime Large on the Book of Time, Poses, self-suflSced, Linked with Anti-Christ, Lord of Terror, lord Of all by Love abhorred, Of all by Faith and Trust Held as Death and the dust, — Over, against his power Steadfast do I mark The coming of that hour When he shall be whelmed in the dark! "Out of the Wrong the Right! Out of the murk the light ! Such is the message I bear Ever abroad on the air. I stand for the hearth and home, For our precious Mother-Earth, For her leagues of fertile loam, And her mountains great of girth; O'er the living and dead I wave. Blessing the cradle and grave; And for none my folds are tossed With a more exultant pride Than for those who have been lost, — Than for those who have bravely died That the Nation might abide. And the Right be glorified ! 7] "Then blow, O Wind, where ye will. This errand to fulfill ! Say thou of the sleeping ones, — *Ye died for the land of your love !' Say thou to her living sons, — 'Strive ye to keep her true. Spotless before the God above For the eyes of the world to view ; True to her highest trust. Untouched by the taint of Greed, Unsoiled by all the canker and lust That base ambitions breed, — One people faithful and free From the marge of the sea to the sea!' " Flung over valley and crag, Fair, or tattered and thinned. Such is the word of the Flag, The word of the Flag to the Wind! [8] I THE BELL RINGER (July, 1776) The grizzled ringer, stern and tense From dragging hours of grim suspense. Sighed as he leaned against the wall; Below, where still the throng was dense. The thrall of silence held them all. "They will not sign!" the old man said; The July sunshine, hot and red, Beat blindingly on street and square- Yet, though he knew it not, o'erhead What mighty portents filled the air! Prevision of a nation's birth. Of words that should engirdle earth Swift borne upon aerial wings. Smite tyranny's embattled girth, And shake the very thrones of kings. And then a sudden voice out-sang — "Ring! Ring!" The eager ancient sprang And swayed and swung the iron tongue That flung its far-resounding clang As to the quivering rope he clung. Hark! — still its echoes sweep and swell Up every height, through every dell, Beneath our blessed arc of sky! — O ringer of our freedom bell, Ring ever, lest a nation die ! [10 1 AT THE GRAVE OF LAWRENCE (Trinity Churchyard) Morn and noon of day and even, human ebb and flow; Overhead, the stars of midnight, scarce the faintest glow, Shrunken into misty marshfires by the city's glare; Here he sleeps, our sailor hero, — pause, and hail him fair ! Here he sleeps where jostling Wall Street merges in Broadway, And the roar is as a legion leaping to the fray. Out from Trinity's dim portal floats the chanting choir; Matchless midst the girdling granite lifts the graceful spire. Many slumberers around him, men of church and state; Here he sleeps, our sailor hero, great among the great ! Simple lines to mark his slumber; — how the letters speak ! "Lawrence" (hark, ye money-getters!) "of the Chesapeake!" [Ill Stone may call in clearer accents than the loudest lip. Just a name! What does it cry you? "Don't give up the Ship!" Aye, there's something more than millions, — a far nobler aim! Here he sleeps, our sailor hero, nothing but a name! Yet (and who can pierce the future?) this may one day be As a burning inspiration both on land and sea. n AT THE HOME OF FRANCIS SCOTT KEY Bland are the skies o'er calm Potomac's tide, Curving, a shining sirkle, toward the sea. And o'er the memoried spot hard by my side Where stood the home of Key. A dozen banners toss in the free air. Red, white and bkie in shimmering folds above; And what more fitting than wide-waving there The bright flag of his love ! Beyond, Virginia's slopes of dappled sheen Glint in the radiance of the summer sun Where, hallowed by their hosts of dead, are seen The heights of Arlington. But not to them our thought goes out, though limned By deathless glories that to them belong, But unto him whose lips, anointed, hymned Our land's first battle song! 13] Aye, unto him who on that crucial morn Beheld our banner shine as still it shines, And penned with patriot joy and patriot scorn His uieuiurable Hues! His be the honor, his the nation's praise, The nation's love, the nation's fealty! Muse, keep forever green the wreath of bays About the brow of Key ! [ 14 AMERICA TO HER YOUNG MEN America saith to her young men — Behold me! Have I not mothered you, not reared you well? Close in your girdling arms should you not fold me. Safe-guarded as within a citadel? Have I not given my bounty and my beauty To you, aforetime nurslings at my breast? And should not love inspire you, and not duty, Should threatening danger put you to the test? America saith to her young men — Remember That honor is a high and holy thing ! Rather be life but as a quenched ember Than you unworthy of your mothering! 15] BALLAD OF "OLD GLORY" (August, 1777) Hear the story ' Of ''Old Glory—'' How the flag was first unfurled Above the land By a dauntless hand In the heart of a ivooded world! 'Twas the red August light That brooded over the sky; And the dog-star glowered by night With the gleam of its baleful eye; And the leaguers cried, "If ye're stubborn still, Forsooth, ye are like to die!" Here St. Leger lay. And the boastful Baronet there; And the painted savage horde Crouched in their leafy lair; And they tightened under the veil of the dark The meshes of their snare. 16 But the gallant Gansevoort, He would not yield an ell; Bullet for bullet he bandied them, And he flung them shell for shell; And he grimly swore that he's stand his ground Till the last defender fell. From the parapet his gaze, In the blaze of the middle morn. Lit on the leaguer's camp, And marked it silent and shorn; Then sudden out from the wood there leaped A ranger wander-worn. The back-swung gate he gained, And he shouted, "Herkimer!" "Where?" cried the gallant Gansevoort; "He comes," quoth the wanderer, "From the bivouac-place at Orisca's pines By the road through fern and fir. [ 17 "And this is the word he sends, — 'Fire thou a signal gun, And fall in force on the leaguer's front Ere the nooning of the sun.' " Then, "Volunteers!" cried Gansevoort, And there sprang forth many an one. Down on the leaguer's camp With a battle-shout they bore; (Some had gone ere the gray of dawn Toward the clear Orisca's shore To harry the hardy Herkimer On-pressing to the fore;) And those of the startled leaguers left, I'faith, they were smitten sore! Hither and yon they fled, As under a terror spell; While arms and stores by triple scores To the valiant victors fell. "A flag," cried the gallant Gansevoort, "Of our success should tell!" 18] A flag? They had only heard What the emblem was to be, — Of the stripes and stars as the avatars That should symbol Liberty, That should tell the earth of the blessed birth Of a people truly free! And these undaunted souls, Foiled should they be? Not they! In the cumber and clutter of battle spoils A keen eye saw the way To show the foe what should work them woe Upon many an after day ! The folds of a camlet cloak To the banner brought its blue; A British soldier's red coat lent The stripes of a ruddy hue; A sheet gave white, then in the light Of the August noon it flew. And oh, what a cheer went up To the vault of the burning sky! Ah, many a marching year since then Has the fair Flag waved on high! And many another year, God please, Shall the same brave banner fly! [19] IN TIME OF DANGER Blind to danger we have been, Walking on our wonted ways Through the drifting of the days In and out, and out and in. To our patriot duty stranger. Wandering as in a maze, Blind to danger. Deaf to danger, and our need. We have drunken to the lees Of the drugged wine of ease; To our honor given no heed, Paltered, played the money-changer; Cast aside old memories, Deaf to danger. BUnd and deaf to danger? Nay! Fling the call from shore to shore ! Wake! the slothful hour is o'er! Wake! be gone with base delay. To our trust no longer stranger! Freemen, rouse, and be no more Blind to danger. Deaf to danger ! [20 1 SAID LIGHT HORSE HARRY LEE Said "Light Horse Harry Lee," The flower of old Virginian chivalry, Virile and valiant on the fighting line At Brandywine, And many another sanguine field, said he, "That nation is a murderer of its men Which sends them unprepared against the foe!" Shall we be slothful, then. And shall red Crime Attaint us on the record-book of Time? Answer, ye Powers that shape our destiny, — "No!" Aye, answer once again, — "By all we cherish, — No!" [21 LITTLE PRINCES, LITTLE KINGS Little princes, little kings, With your arrogance of birth. And your pale and puny vision, Here, where ways should he elysian, Here, where days were meant for mirth, In your madness and derision. You have made a hell of earth! Pawns to you are all the people Moved about a narrowed board; They have sweat and blood for raiment, And to each and every claimant Of the bounty that you hoard, In the richness of your payment You have offered them a sword ! For their sacrificial service What suflfices? What atones? You have driven them as cattle Down the fiery lanes of battle (Hear you how the death wind moans?) While you parley, while you prattle, Safe upon your gilded thrones! [22] You have purged your souls of pity For a dole of niggard gain; You have heaped on wives and daughters Such a holocaust of slaughters ! Do you glory in the slain? What were wastes on wastes of waters To absolve you of the stain! Up the hazy vasts of distance Glimpse you no avenging wings. You who reft God's world of quiet With your ravage, rage and riot. With your ruthless wantonings? Fear you not the final flat, Little princes, little kings? Little princes, little kings. With your arrogance of birth. And your pale and puny vision, Here, where ways should be elysian. Here, where days were meant for mirth. In your madness and derision. You have made a hell of earth! BALLAD OF A BAKER This is the tale of a Gallic baker Who now is guest of the seraphim; He had no need for an undertaker. As the Vandals played that part for him! In August-tide, in the year of flame, (Or shall I name it the year of Shame?) To Gerbervillers the Vandals came; And the Vandal colonel raged and roared Because, forsooth, there was much at stake. And there was a stream which he could not ford. And there was a bridge which he could not take. For he dared not meet the deadly ire Of the gun that is known as the "rapid-fire," And there were twain on the village ridge Where the street ran up from the river bridge. And sixty chausseurs to train them, too. And hold the town from the Vandal crew. 24 But sixty men may not face a corps, With the end of their fighting store in view, Hence at last the chausseurs sHpped away, And the Vandals surged from the river shore. Foiled, but frenzied with the fray. Foiled, — and they must have vengeance, so The helpless villagers they led Out in blinded files of fives, ("What — " they said — "are their silly lives!") And though none had lifted a hand for a blow. They lined them up, and they shot them dead. 25 Then they found a baker, a harmless fellow, Shrinking back where his ovens were, In which his cakes of white and yellow He baked for the peaceful villager. And just to show that they were not sloven On the road to win them a new renown. They opened the door of the widest oven, And they shunted the shrieking baker in, (What was his crime, pray, what was his sin?) And they kindled a fire, and they baked him brown, — Brown as one of his loaves. . . . No doubt When the dusk dropped down, and the fire was out. In the calm and cool of the even-tide, Where the Gerbervillers fields stretched wide. They sat and gravely talked of Kultur, For that is the boast of the Vandal Vulture ! I recall that the poet Milton Pictured a pit not lit with candles; And since it's fact that this tale is built on. Wouldn't that be a good place for the Vandals? 26 OFF FINISTERE Off Finistere King Arthur rides, Off Finistere in Brittany; He hears the tumult of the tides Beat in across the barren sea. The sound is like the sullen roar Of war within some distant place, For round the isles and up the shore The angry breakers boom and race. The good king wears his vizor down; His form is bent; his head is bowed; And mighty hosts of old renown In serried files about him crowd. They, too, throughout their spectral lines Seem weighted with the thought of woe; In their demeanor one divines Sad memories of long ago. Yet none of all, from king to hind, Is girdled as with coward fears; They set their faces to the wind, And grip their swords, and couch their spears. [27] "Still, still," they murmur, "although long The battle rage, and far is peace, We will fight on against the wrong Till horror and oppression cease ! "For we are mantled with the Right; Are armored with a holy mail. And we will face the Dragon Might Until the bloody Dragon quail!" Now that the spring's tumultuous tides Storm on the land and scourge the sea, Off Finistere King Arthur rides. Off Finistere in Brittany. [28 A HILL IN PICARDY There is a little hill in Picardy That, in the bygone days, was fair to see With silvery leaves of the slim poplar tree. Ah, lovely little hill in Picardy! White were the boles as are a maiden's hands; And there were willow-withes and hazel-wands. And ferns, with frail antennae of their fronds. Ah, lovely little hill in Picardy! And there the purple violets made spring A dream of loveliness; many a tender thing — Vervain and vetch — added its glamouring. Ah, lovely little hill in Picardy! And there was morn and vesper song of birds Whereto the wind joined with its joyous words; And there was kindly shade for the sleek herds. Ah, lovely little hill in Picardy! But now — but now — what is there left to see Save desolation? Riven earth and tree And lines of crosses tell their tale. Ah, me, This lonely little hill in Picardy! [29 1 THE LITTLE LAD (France, 1914) He was a little lad of blithesome mien Whose added summers might have been fourteen; And yet, for all his brief years, he was clad With mail of courage, was the little lad. About him, in a swift surge, closed the foe. Did he know this — and that? He did not know. Then, while they questioned, flamed a ring of fire That scourged them. In their fierce chagrin and ire. Their mood of vengeance, merciless and mad, Who should be sacrificed? The little lad! 30 AT BRUSSELS (October, 1915) Not under the light of the dawn was the deed of horror done, Nor yet in the blaze of the noon, under the gaze of the sun. But in the stealth of the night. Such is the way of the Hun ! What saith the Word? As ye sow, thus shall ye also reap! Once, we read, there was one, a dastard who murdered sleep, And summoned the furies of Hell from the vasts of the outer deep. Out of the nether gloom again shall the brood not come. And gather about his bed, vengeful, demoniac, dumb, Who wrought for a woman a crown, the crown of martyrdom? 31 Foul upon history's page there is written many a blot. Fury and lust and rage, rapine and sack and plot, Cruelty and crime, from the time of Iscariot! But naught more wanton than this under the eyes of the Lord! Naught to be more despised, naught to be more abhorred ! What shall the guerdon be? What be the just reward? 32 THE DANCING MAN OF NORMANDY Oh, the dancing man of Normandy, A funny little old man is he, With his long white beard and his crooked staff, And his stooping back and his creaking laugh! When the golden light of the morning fills The bowl of the sky, o'er the Norman hills With a wonderful, persuasive charm, He treads and trips from farm to farm. In and out and out and in. With a droop and a lift of his wizened chin, And a twist of his queer and elfish toes, Down and up and on he goes; Jigging, whirling, tossing his hands, He capers over the sweeping lands. Oh, the dancing man of Normandy, A funny little old man is he ! 33 Oh, the dancing man of Normandy, A merry little old man is he! And the sick folk rise at the sight of him. Hale of heart and strong of limb; And the mumbling chimney-corner crones Feel new life thrill through their bones; And babies babble and striplings rvm, Leaping as lambs do under the sun; Gambol the herds and the horses prance, And the pigs and the farm fowls join in the dance; And the flowers keep time and the grasses swing, And the osiers sway and the tree boughs sing. Oh, the dancing man of Normandy, A merry little old man is he! 34 Oh, the dancing man of Normandy, A welcome little old man is he! For he never comes, on his nimble toes, Save when war, with all of its sanguine woes. Is about to fade like the mists away. And they tell in the Norman lands to-day How the peasants have watched him ranging far Under the matin and vesper star. Seen him leading his rigadoon Under the glow of the autumn moon, While the winds and the waters without cease Have chanted of victory and peace. Oh, the dancing man of Normandy, A welcome little old man is he! 35 THE LUNAR BOW My mind is borne across the years. That flood with never ceasing flow, To a blue night when near Louvain I saw a wondrous lunar bow. The moon was regnant overhead. And the caressing wind was warm. While up the darkened west there rose The spectral streamers of the storm. Here spanned the bow, a thing of dream; From delicate red to amethyst. Each color of the spectrum limned Against the battlements of mist. A nocturne of such perfect hue, It made the silence seem more deep, And glorified a land that lay As peaceful as a child at sleep. (O ravaged garths, O trampled fields. Around which memory's halo shines! O lovely city of Louvain, With all your desecrated shrines!) A land of peace! — The vision still Abides despite the war and woe; Ah, might some healing Power bring back The peace beneath the lunar bow! [36 1 AT THE YEAR'S DECLINE— 1916 Lo, we have called them Huns, have cried them Vandals, And is there aught, my brother, to unsay Now dawn has quenched the night's irradiant candles. And up the orient climbs another day? Nay, rather we have saner grown, and cooler, Despite fresh horror stalking wide abroad, And blasphemous cacophonies of a ruler — Madman or mountebank — beseeching God! New names be theirs from out the dim dead ages. Names linked with irremediable pain — The swart Assyrian, with his savage rages, The tawny terrible hosts of Tamerlane ! Shall not calamity seize a ruthless nation That sows an innocent land with gaping graves. And then (fit deed for ceaseless execration !) Makes its surviving men and maidens slaves! There is no word too shameful, too abhorrent. No epithet too violent to be hurled At those that loosed this cataclysmal torrent And made a reeking shambles of the world! [37 1 THE REEDS OF THE SOMME In the gusts of the wintry weather I heard the reeds of the Somme whispering together; "Brother, brother," Each said to the other, "Lo, how we have bled For our beloved Mother — For France, our Mother! And shall it be in vain. Our agony and pain. All of the precious blood that we have shed?" And the sky that leaned over. Like a lover, Answered, "Nay!" And each wind upon its vagrant way (Each wind that wandered wide) Made answer, "Nay!" And the Somme water. Red with slaughter. Answered, "Nay!" So every brother reed was satisfied. 38 A WOODEN CROSS Somewhere, in No Man's Land, a wooden cross, Swept by the rain and beaten by the sun! Pathetic? yes, and yet how small a loss; Among the many thousand crosses — one! How small a loss, you say; but nay! but nay! To a fair maid who cannot see for tears The flush of spring upon the hawthorn spray. It means the tragic darkening of the years. 39 AT BECQUINCOURT At Becquincourt, in Picardy, What, think you, there is left to see? 'Mid ravage, ruin, wreck and loss. Only a Christ upon a cross! The Christ a figure gaunt and gray; The cross with one arm shot away. Is He not crucified again At Becquincourt, in Picardy, As aforetime on Calvary? Here all the agony and pain. Here all the torture and the tears, As in the far oflf elder years ! The same pathetic sight to see At Becquincourt, in Picardy! 40] THE SPIRIT OF FRANCE What spirit animates to-day The soul of France? What vital spark? From out the fire that burned her clay At Rouen to an ash of gray, The living spirit of Jeanne D'Arc! [41] THE CHANT OF THE HUN Out of the dark of the ages, Out of the gloom and the night, A threat from the past's grim pages,- Ravin and ruin and blight. Ravage of son and daughter, Mercy and pity, none! Slaughter — slaughter — slaughter — Such is the chant of the Hun ! Piracy and pillage. Fury, famine and fire, Rape of city and village. The lust for agony, ire; Blood to be spilled like water Under the stars and the sun; Slaughter — slaughter — slaughter — Such is the chant of the Hun ! 4^ A SUMMER MORNING The summer meads are fair with daisy-snow, White as the dove's wing, flawless as the foam On the brown beaches where the breakers comb When the long Trades their morning bugles blow; And over all there is a golden glow. For the sun sits ascendant in the dome; And smoke-wreaths rise from many a cottage home Where there is peace, and joy's full overflow. This is our heritage, but what of those Who crouch where Yser's sad, ensanguined tide Winds with its sluggish crescents, toward the sea; Where Termonde bells are silent, and the wide And stricken leagues of Flemish land disclose The ruthless wrong, the piteous agony! [43] WHAT TIDINGS What tidings, winds of May time, do ye bear? — What from the slopes of castle-guarded Rhine? What from the ancient shrine of Constantine, And from the fertile Flemish fields and fair? What word from where the Russian steppes lie bare Beneath a shrouded sun? What speech is thine From England, girdled by the green sea brine, And France, the dauntless and the debonair? What message from the Danube? Plangent tunes Have ye aforetime borne across the seas, — The hates and horrors of the bygone years, — But never frantic discords, frenzied runes Of murder and of madness such as these, — The Furies mocking at God's singing spheres I 44 THE OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAINS In Syrian mountain fastnesses of old There dwelt a man, inscrutable, malign, Who taking to himself a power divine. Sent emissaries from his guarded hold To scourge the earth; and horrors manifold He wrought through his insidious design To make men bow before his sovereign sign; Prayerful, yet pitiless, so the tale is told. Did he prevail? Did no avenging rod Descend on him, and exorcise his spell? Read on the page of history how he fell ! And think how one to-day who calls on God, And sends his sanguinary hordes abroad, May answer yet within the courts of Hell! 45 GREECE (1915) From high Olympus have the Muses fled; There is no hand to tend the sacred fire Upon their altars, none to touch the lyre, The lyre beloved of the immortal dead! None now at the Pierian fountain head Sets draught to lip, and sings with lyric ire. O for a bard to rise who should inspire The land to valor as when Sparta led ! For who so fatuous as to gainsay The hour is big with mighty destinies? Behold the world an amphitheatre Of war! The nations gripped in grim array; Times that should rouse a Pindar, and should stir To tragic fury a Euripides! [46 ON AN AMERICAN SOLDIER SLAIN UPON THE MEXICAN BORDER Somewhere he sleeps his last undreamful sleep, Alike unmindful of the sun and rain, Somewhere, while we walk blithely, and are fain Of the bright evening star, the winds that sweep The vernal azure of the upper deep. But hark ! across the breadth of Texan plain Does he not cry to us, this soldier slain. Stark on some swale of sand, some barren steep? Should we forego the olive and the dove One little moment, were it wrong, O Lord, To clutch Thy vengeance from the skies above And smite with the white wrath that is Thy sword? Yea, with the swift and righteous might thereof — And glut the vulture with the rout abhorred ! 47 TEXAS RANGERS Nine men in the heart of night, A little resolute band; Nine men in the stark moonlight Crossing the Rio Grande ! Nine men, brand of the brave. Courage that will not down! Nine men at an open grave By old Hidalgo town ! Under the midnight what do they see? A corpse that is maimed and marred; Features a- writhe with agony; Hands that are seared and scarred! Do they remember the Alamo And the herd of Mexique spawn. And long once more for the vengeance blow. These lads of Texan brawn? I [48 Crocket, Bowie, and Travis, they Call again from the sod. And all the slain that at Goliad lay Under the eye of God ! Ah, but you could not marvel, you Biding at peace afar, If you knew how the caitiffs sacked and slew 'Neath the gleam of the fair Lone Star! Nine men! — they would not crave. But give them their due renown! Nine men by an open grave At old Hidalgo town! Nine men on their sinuous track, A little resolute band, Bearing a lifeless body back Over the Rio Grande! [49] MOTHER ENGLAND Mother England, though we fought you When you did us grievous wrong, And for justice we besought you. Take this homage of a song! Time has let the old wounds languish; Years have hid them in eclipse (Do you not regret the anguish Of the cruel Prison Ships?) Time has dimmed the past transgressions, Time, with its all-healing hand; (Do you not regret the Hessians, Hirelings ravaging a land?) Hate is as a burnt out ember; Now but dust your stubborn George; Yet we cannot but remember Lexington and Valley Forge! Still no lip can make denial That the ties of blood are true, And in this, your hour of trial, That our hearts hark back to you. [50] We recall we are invested By the rights of freedom drawn By the Barons, wrung and wrested, Centuries since, from grim King John. We recall ours is the glory, Ours, as yours, from days remote, Of the song and of the story Of the tongue that Shakespeare wrote. Ere the sinister alliance Round you close and o'er you break. Rouse, and cry the old defiance ! Sound again the drum of Drake! Mother England, though we fought you When you did us grievous wrong. And for justice we besought you. Take this homage of a song! [51] KITCHENER OF KHARTUM Blown mist shrouding the heather, where rarely a sun-ray smiles, The wild, bleak, windy weather over the Orkney Isles; The mournful curlews crying, then sudden the deep sea doom For the last great man of a fighting clan, for Kitchener of Khartum! Call the roll from the Black Prince down of many a valiant son, Marlborough, Cromwell, who spurned a crown and Wolfe and Wellington; Lucknow's hero, brave of the brave, yet still there will be room For him whose grave is the green sea wave, for Kitchener of Khartum! Tears, ye who sires were Saxons, and ye whose sires were Danes, And ye who feel the Norman blood pulse hot within your veins! For where — where is another knight of the peerless plume Shall lead ye in your hour of need like Kitchener of Khartum ! [5«] WALSYNGHAM WAY Walsyngham Way, they say, leads to the shrine of the Mother, Leads to the Virgin's shrine, that altar hallowed and fair, So they call it Walsyngham Way, that glimmering, shimmering other — The pathway we see at night climbing the vasts of the air. This grievous, pitiful year, this year of blood and of battle. This year of horror and hate, nations in grim array — When men in the shambles of war have fallen, slaughtered like cattle, Oh, the countless souls that have gone up Wal- syngham Way! Walsyngham Way is a pathway in England leading to a beautiful shrine of the Virgin. I'his name, according to Fiona MacLeod is sometimes given to the Milky Way. [58] A MAN OF THE PEAK (From the Trenches) I was a man of quiet; I am a man of the Peak; To live afar from riot Was all — is all I seek! Yet I have made no blunder To fight for the land I love, — Blue skies over, and under The winding dale of Dove! I have only this for leaven — Memory's golden spell; I dream that there was heaven; I know that here is hell! [54] A RECRUIT I know a little garden wet With opal dews in Somerset; 'Tis there I would be back to-day About the bursting of the May, And see my love's eyes lifted; far More blue than hyacinths they are; And touch her lips; the lips of her Are sweeter than pressed lavender. But I may not — may not be there, And so I breathe to God this prayer,- Whate'er He may on me confer, May He be good — be good to her ! [55] IN LONDON-TOWN Dim are the lights in London-Town That erst shone bright and fair, But men go up and men go down About Trafalgar Square; And though Death hovers in the air All sense of fear is fled, With Nelson on his pillar there To lead as once he led ! [56] MAY IN DEVON Above the dales of Devon, About the droop of dark, High, high up in heaven Sings and sings the lark. How can it sing to greet the spring, Its soaring strains prolong. When many a Devon lad to-day Will ne'er again behold the May, — Is deaf to all its song ! [57] TO ALAN SEEGER Did some dark omen touch you, some grim warning Of fate impending, some, low-whispered breath, What time, your noble heart all danger scorning. You wrote — I have a rendezvous with Death? valorous one, impassionate and eager. True as alone the greatest souls are true, 1 read, with eyes tear-moistened, Alan Seeger, How valiantly you kept your rendezvous! [58] U 015 871 624 W