Part 10
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. 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 all our lives go on the same (Although to live is almost shame).
_E.V. Lucas_
_REQUIESCANT_
In 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!
_Frederick George Scott_
_In a Field near Ypres_
_April, 1915_
TO OUR FALLEN
Ye sleepers, who will sing you? We can but give our tears-- Ye dead men, who shall bring you Fame in the coming years? Brave souls ... but who remembers The flame that fired your embers?... Deep, deep the sleep that holds you Who one time had no peers.
Yet maybe Fame's but seeming And praise you'd set aside, Content to go on dreaming, Yea, happy to have died If of all things you prayed for-- All things your valour paid for-- One prayer is not forgotten, One purchase not denied.
But God grants your dear England A strength that shall not cease Till she have won for all the Earth From ruthless men release, And made supreme upon her Mercy and Truth and Honour-- Is this the thing you died for? Oh, Brothers, sleep in peace!
_Robert Ernest Vernède_
THE OLD SOLDIER
Lest the young soldiers be strange in heaven, God bids the old soldier they all adored Come to Him and wait for them, clean, new-shriven, A happy doorkeeper in the House of the Lord.
Lest it abash them, the strange new splendour, Lest it affright them, the new robes clean; Here's an old face, now, long-tried, and tender, A word and a hand-clasp as they troop in.
"My boys," he greets them: and heaven is homely, He their great captain in days gone o'er; Dear is the friend's face, honest and comely, Waiting to welcome them by the strange door.
_Katharine Tynan_
LORD KITCHENER
Unflinching hero, watchful to foresee And face thy country's peril wheresoe'er, Directing war and peace with equal care, Till by long duty 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 was done Ere we could thank thee; and the high sea swell Surgeth unheeding where thy proud ship fell By the lone Orkneys, at the set of sun.
_Robert Bridges_
_June 8, 1916_
KITCHENER
There is wild water from the north; The headlands darken in their foam As with a threat of challenge stubborn earth Booms at that far wild sea-line charging home.
The night shall stand upon the shifting sea As yesternight stood there, And hear the cry of waters through the air, The iron voice of headlands start and rise-- The noise of winds for mastery That screams to hear the thunder in those cries. But now henceforth there shall be heard From Brough of Bursay, Marwick Head, And shadows of the distant coast, Another voice bestirred-- Telling of something greatly lost Somewhere below the tidal glooms, and dead. Beyond the uttermost Of aught the night may hear on any seas From tempest-known wild water's cry, and roar Of iron shadows looming from the shore, It shall be heard--and when the Orcades Sleep in a hushed Atlantic's starry folds As smoothly as, far down below the tides, Sleep on the windless broad sea-wolds Where this night's shipwreck hides.
By many a sea-holm where the shock Of ocean's battle falls, and into spray Gives up its ghosts of strife; by reef and rock Ravaged by their eternal brute affray With monstrous frenzies of their shore's green foe; Where overstream and overfall and undertow Strive, snatch away; A wistful voice, without a sound, Shall dwell beside Pomona, on the sea, And speak the homeward- and the outward-bound, And touch the helm of passing minds And bid them steer as wistfully-- Saying: "He did great work, until the winds And waters hereabout that night betrayed Him to the drifting death! His work went on-- He would not be gainsaid.... Though where his bones are, no man knows, not one!"
_John Helston_
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_
THE DEBT UNPAYABLE
What have I given, Bold sailor on the sea, In earth or heaven, That you should die for me?
What can I give, O soldier, leal and brave, Long as I live, To pay the life you gave?
What tithe or part Can I return to thee, O stricken heart, That thou shouldst break for me?
The wind of Death For you has slain life's flowers, It withereth (God grant) all weeds in ours.
_F.W. Bourdillon_
THE MESSAGES
"I cannot quite remember.... There were five Dropt dead beside me in the trench--and three Whispered their dying messages to me...."
Back from the trenches, more dead than alive, Stone-deaf and dazed, and with a broken knee, He hobbled slowly, muttering vacantly:
"I cannot quite remember.... There were five Dropt dead beside me in the trench, and three Whispered their dying messages to me....
"Their friends are waiting, wondering how they thrive-- Waiting a word in silence patiently.... But what they said, or who their friends may be
"I cannot quite remember.... There were five Dropt dead beside me in the trench--and three Whispered their dying messages to me...."
_Wilfrid Wilson Gibson_
A CROSS IN FLANDERS
In the face of death, they say, he joked--he had no fear; His comrades, when they laid him in a Flanders grave, Wrote on a rough-hewn cross--a Calvary stood near-- "Without a fear he gave
"His life, cheering his men, with laughter on his lips." So wrote they, mourning him. Yet was there only one Who fully understood his laughter, his gay quips, One only, she alone--
She who, not so long since, when love was new--confest, Herself toyed with light laughter while her eyes were dim, And jested, while with reverence despite her jest She worshipped God and him.
She knew--O Love, O Death!--his soul had been at grips With the most solemn things. For _she_, was _she_ not dear? Yes, he was brave, most brave, with laughter on his lips, The braver for his fear!
_G. Rostrevor Hamilton_
RESURRECTION
Not long did we lie on the torn, red field of pain. We fell, we lay, we slumbered, we took rest, With the wild nerves quiet at last, and the vexed brain Cleared of the wingèd nightmares, and the breast Freed of the heavy dreams of hearts afar. We rose at last under the morning star. We rose, and greeted our brothers, and welcomed our foes. We rose; like the wheat when the wind is over, we rose. With shouts we rose, with gasps and incredulous cries, With bursts of singing, and silence, and awestruck eyes, With broken laughter, half tears, we rose from the sod, With welling tears and with glad lips, whispering, "God." Like babes, refreshed from sleep, like children, we rose, Brimming with deep content, from our dreamless repose. And, "What do you call it?" asked one. "I thought I was dead." "You are," cried another. "We're all of us dead and flat." "I'm alive as a cricket. There's something wrong with your head." They stretched their limbs and argued it out where they sat. And over the wide field friend and foe Spoke of small things, remembering not old woe Of war and hunger, hatred and fierce words. They sat and listened to the brooks and birds, And watched the starlight perish in pale flame, Wondering what God would look like when He came.
_Hermann Hagedorn_
TO A HERO
We may not know how fared your soul before Occasion came to try it by this test. Perchance, it used on lofty wings to soar; Again, it may have dwelt in lowly nest.
We do not know if bygone knightly strain Impelled you then, or blood of humble clod Defied the dread adventure to attain The cross of honor or the peace of God.
We see but this, that when the moment came You raised on high, then drained, the solemn cup-- The grail of death; that, touched by valor's flame, The kindled spirit burned the body up.
_Oscar C.A. Child_
RUPERT BROOKE
(IN MEMORIAM)
I never knew you save as all men know Twitter of mating birds, flutter of wings In April coverts, and the streams that flow-- One of the happy voices of our Springs.
A voice for ever stilled, a memory, Since you went eastward with the fighting ships, A hero of the great new Odyssey, And God has laid His finger on your lips.
_Moray Dalton_
THE PLAYERS
We challenged Death. He threw with weighted dice. We laughed and paid the forfeit, glad to pay-- Being recompensed beyond our sacrifice With that nor Death nor Time can take away.
_Francis Bickley_
A SONG
Oh, red is the English rose, And the lilies of France are pale, And the poppies grow in the golden wheat, For the men whose eyes are heavy with sleep, Where the ground is red as the English rose, And the lips as the lilies of France are pale, And the ebbing pulses beat fainter and fainter and fail.
Oh, red is the English rose, And the lilies of France are pale. And the poppies lie in the level corn For the men who sleep and never return. But wherever they lie an English rose So red, and a lily of France so pale, Will grow for a love that never and never can fail.
_Charles Alexander Richmond_
HARVEST MOON
Over the twilight field, Over the glimmering field And bleeding furrows, with their sodden yield Of sheaves that still did writhe, After the scythe; The teeming field, and darkly overstrewn With all the garnered fullness of that noon-- Two looked upon each other. One was a Woman, men had called their mother: And one the Harvest Moon.
And one the Harvest Moon Who stood, who gazed On those unquiet gleanings, where they bled; Till the lone Woman said:
"But we were crazed.... We should laugh now together, I and you; We two. You, for your ever dreaming it was worth A star's while to look on, and light the earth; And I, for ever telling to my mind Glory it was and gladness, to give birth To human kind. I gave the breath,--and thought it not amiss, I gave the breath to men, For men to slay again; Lording it over anguish, all to give My life, that men might live, For this.
"You will be laughing now, remembering We called you once Dead World, and barren thing. Yes, so we called you then, You, far more wise Than to give life to men."
Over the field that there Gave back the skies A scattered upward stare From sightless eyes, The furrowed field that lay Striving awhile, through many a bleeding dune Of throbbing clay,--but dumb and quiet soon, She looked; and went her way, The Harvest Moon.
_Josephine Preston Peabody_
HARVEST MOON: 1916
Moon, slow rising, over the trembling sea-rim, Moon of the lifted tides and their folded burden. Look, look down. And gather the blinded oceans, Moon of compassion.
Come, white Silence, over the one sea pathway: Pour with hallowing hands on the surge and outcry, Silver flame; and over the famished blackness, Petals of moonlight.
Once again, the formless void of a world-wreck Gropes its way through the echoing dark of chaos; Tide on tide, to the calling, lost horizons,-- One in the darkness.
You that veil the light of the all-beholding, Shed white tidings down to the dooms of longing, Down to the timeless dark; and the sunken treasures, One in the darkness.
Touch, and harken,--under that shrouding silver, Rise and fall, the heart of the sea and its legions, All and one; one with the breath of the deathless, Rising and falling.
Touch and waken so, to a far hereafter, Ebb and flow, the deep, and the dead in their longing: Till at last, on the hungering face of the waters, There shall be Light.
_Light of Light, give us to see, for their sake. Light of Light, grant them eternal peace; And let light perpetual shine upon them; Light, everlasting._
_Josephine Preston Peabody_
MY SON
Here is his little cambric frock That I laid by in lavender so sweet, And here his tiny shoe and sock I made with loving care for his dear feet.
I fold the frock across my breast, And in imagination, ah, my sweet, Once more I hush my babe to rest, And once again I warm those little feet.
Where do those strong young feet now stand? In flooded trench, half numb to cold or pain, Or marching through the desert sand To some dread place that they may never gain.
God guide him and his men to-day! Though death may lurk in any tree or hill, His brave young spirit is their stay, Trusting in that they'll follow where he will.
They love him for his tender heart When poverty or sorrow asks his aid, But he must see each do his part-- Of cowardice alone he is afraid.
I ask no honours on the field, That other men have won as brave as he-- I only pray that God may shield My son, and bring him safely back to me!
_Ada Tyrrell_
TO THE OTHERS
This was the gleam then that lured from far Your son and my son to the Holy War: Your son and my son for the accolade With the banner of Christ over them, in steel arrayed.
All quiet roads of life ran on to this; When they were little for their mother's kiss. Little feet hastening, so soft, unworn, To the vows and the vigil and the road of thorn.
Your son and my son, the downy things, Sheltered in mother's breast, by mother's wings, Should they be broken in the Lord's wars--Peace! He Who has given them--are they not His?
Dream of knight's armour and the battle-shout, Fighting and falling at the last redoubt, Dream of long dying on the field of slain; This was the dream that lured, nor lured in vain.
These were the Voices they heard from far; Bugles and trumpets of the Holy War. Your son and my son have heard the call, Your son and my son have stormed the wall.
Your son and my son, clean as new swords; Your man and my man and now the Lord's! Your son and my son for the Great Crusade, With the banner of Christ over them--our knights new-made.
_Katharine Tynan_
THE JOURNEY
I went upon a journey To countries far away, From province unto province To pass my holiday.
And when I came to Serbia, In a quiet little town At an inn with a flower-filled garden With a soldier I sat down.
Now he lies dead at Belgrade. You heard the cannon roar! It boomed from Rome to Stockholm, It pealed to the far west shore.
And when I came to Russia, A man with flowing hair Called me his friend and showed me A flowing river there.
Now he lies dead at Lemberg, Beside another stream, In his dark eyes extinguished The friendship of his dream.
And then I crossed two countries Whose names on my lips are sealed.... Not yet had they flung their challenge Nor led upon the field
Sons who lie dead at Liège, Dead by the Russian lance, Dead in southern mountains, Dead through the farms of France.
I stopped in the land of Louvain, So tranquil, happy, then. I lived with a good old woman, With her sons and her grandchildren.
Now they lie dead at Louvain, Those simple kindly folk. Some heard, some fled. It must be Some slept, for they never woke.
I came to France. I was thirsty. I sat me down to dine. The host and his young wife served me With bread and fruit and wine.
Now he lies dead at Cambrai-- He was sent among the first. In dreams she sees him dying Of wounds, of heat, of thirst.
At last I passed to Dover And saw upon the shore A tall young English captain And soldiers, many more.
Now they lie dead at Dixmude, The brave, the strong, the young! I turn unto my homeland, All my journey sung!
_Grace Fallow Norton_
A MOTHER'S DEDICATION
Dear son of mine, the baby days are over, I can no longer shield you from the earth; Yet in my heart always I must remember How through the dark I fought to give you birth.
Dear son of mine, by all the lives behind you; By all our fathers fought for in the past; In this great war to which your birth has brought you, Acquit you well, hold you our honour fast!
God guard you, son of mine, where'er you wander; God lead the banners under which you fight; You are my all, I give you to the Nation, God shall uphold you that you fight aright.
_Margaret Peterson_
TO A MOTHER
Robbed mother of the stricken Motherland-- Two hearts in one and one among the dead, Before your grave with an uncovered head I, that am man, disquiet and silent stand In reverence. It is your blood they shed; It is your sacred self that they demand, For one you bore in joy and hope, and planned Would make yourself eternal, now has fled.
But though you yielded him unto the knife And altar with a royal sacrifice Of your most precious self and dearer life-- Your master gem and pearl above all price-- Content you; for the dawn this night restores Shall be the dayspring of his soul and yours.
_Eden Phillpotts_
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, Grey Death?
_Sara Teasdale_
OCCASIONAL NOTES
ASQUITH, HERBERT. He received a commission in the Royal Marine Artillery at the end of 1914 and served as a Second Lieutenant with an Anti- Aircraft Battery in April, 1915, returning wounded during the following June. He became a full Lieutenant in July, but was invalided home after about six weeks. In June, 1916, he joined the Royal Field Artillery and went out to France once again with a battery of field guns at the beginning of March, 1917. Since that time he has been steadily on active service.
BEWSHER, PAUL. He was educated at St. Paul's School, and is a Sub-Lieutenant in the Royal Naval Air Service.
BINYON, LAURENCE. His war writings include _The Winnowing Fan_ and _The Anvil_, published in America under the title of _The Cause_.
BRIDGES, ROBERT. He has been Poet-Laureate of England since 1913.
BROOKE, RUPERT. He was born at Rugby on August 3, 1887, and became a Fellow of King's College, Cambridge, in 1913. He was made a Sub-Lieutenant in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve in September, 1914; accompanied the Antwerp expedition in October of the same year; and sailed with the British Mediterranean Expeditionary Force on February 28, 1915. He died in the Aegean, on April 23, and lies buried in the island of Skyros. See the memorial poems in this volume, _The Island of Skyros_, by John Masefield; and _Rupert Brooke_, by Moray Dalton. His war poetry appears in the volume entitled _1914 and other Poems_, and in his _Collected Poems_.
CAMPBELL, WILFRED. This well-known Canadian poet has lately published _Sagas of Vaster Britain, War Lyrics_, and _Canada's Responsibility to the Empire_. His son, Captain Basil Campbell, joined the Second Pioneers.
CHESTERTON, CECIL EDWARD. He has been editor of the _New Witness_ since 1912, and is a private in the Highland Light Infantry. His war writings include _The Prussian hath said in his Heart_, and _The Perils of Peace_.
CHESTERTON, GILBERT KEITH. This brilliant and versatile author has written many essays on phases of the war, including weekly contributions to _The Illustrated London News_.
CONE, HELEN GRAY. She has been Professor of English in Hunter College since 1899. Her war poetry appears in the volume entitled _A Chant of Love for England, and other Poems_.
COULSON, LESLIE. He joined the British Army in September, 1914, declined a commission and served in Egypt, Malta, Gallipoli (where he was wounded), and Prance. He became Sergeant in the City of London Regiment (Royal Fusiliers) and was mortally wounded while leading a charge against the Germans in October, 1916.
DIXON, WILLIAM MACNEILE. He is Professor of English Language and Literature in the University of Glasgow. His war writings include _The British Navy at War_ and _The Fleets behind the Fleet_.
DOYLE, SIR ARTHUR CONAN. He has written much of interest on the war, especially as regards the western campaigns.
FIELD, A.N. He is a private in the Second New Zealand Brigade.