War

Why should the poet of these pregnant times
Be asked to sing of war's unholy crimes?

To laud and eulogise the trade which thrives
On horrid holocausts of human lives?

Man was a fighting beast when earth was young,
And war the only theme when Homer sung.

'Twixt might and might the equal contest lay:
Not so the battles of our modern day.

Too often now the conquering hero struts,
A Gulliver among the Lilliputs.

Success no longer rests on skill or fate,
But on the movements of a syndicate.

Of old, men fought and deemed it right and just,
To-day the warrior fights because he must;

And in his secret soul feels shame because
He desecrates the higher manhood's laws.

Oh, there are worthier themes for poet's pen
In th...

What is the explanation of the strange silence of American poets
concerning American triumphs on sea and land?
Literary Digest.

Why should the poet of these pregnant times
Be asked to sing of war's unholy crimes?

To laud and eulogize the trade which thrives
On horrid holocausts of human lives?

Man was a fighting beast when earth was young,
And war the only theme when Homer sung.

'Twixt might and might the equal contest lay,
Not so the battles of our modern day.

Too often now the conquering hero struts
A Gulliver among the Liliputs.

Success no longer rests on skill or fate,
But on the movements of a syndicate.

Of old men fought and deemed it right and just.
To-day the warrior fights because he must,

And in hi...

In fifty years, when peace outshines
Remembrance of the battle lines,
Adventurous lads will sigh and cast
Proud looks upon the plundered past.
On summer morn or winter's night,
Their hearts will kindle for the fight,
Reading a snatch of soldier-song,
Savage and jaunty, fierce and strong;
And through the angry marching rhymes
Of blind regret and haggard mirth,
They'll envy us the dazzling times
When sacrifice absolved our earth.

Some ancient man with silver locks
Will lift his weary face to say:
"War was a fiend who stopped our clocks
Although we met him grim and gay."
And then he'll speak of Haig's last drive,
Marvelling that any came alive
Out of the shambles that men built
And smashed, to cleanse the world of guilt.
But the boys, wi...

I think it better that in times like these
A poet keep his mouth shut, for in truth
We have no gift to set a statesman right;
He has had enough of meddling who can please
A young girl in the indolence of her youth,
Or an old man upon a winter’s night.

I

There is no picturesqueness and no glory,
    No halo of romance, in war to-day.
    It is a hideous thing; Time would turn grey
With horror, were he not already hoary
At sight of this vile monster, foul and gory.
    Yet while sweet women perish as they pray,
    And new-born babes are slaughtered, who dare say
'Halt!' till Right pens its 'Finis' to the story!
There is no pathway, but the path through blood,
    Out of the horrors of this holocaust.
Hell has let loose its scalding crimson flood,
    And he who stops to argue now is lost.
Not brooms of creeds, not Pacifistic words
Can stem the tide, but swords - uplifted swords!

II

Yet, after Peace has turned the clean white page
    There shall be sorrow on the earth for years;
 ...

As I ponder'd in silence,
Returning upon my poems, considering, lingering long,
A Phantom arose before me, with distrustful aspect,
Terrible in beauty, age, and power,
The genius of poets of old lands,
As to me directing like flame its eyes,
With finger pointing to many immortal songs,
And menacing voice, What singest thou? it said;
Know'st thou not, there is but one theme for ever-enduring bards?
And that is the theme of War, the fortune of battles, 10
The making of perfect soldiers?


Be it so, then I answer'd,
I too, haughty Shade, also sing war--and a longer and greater one than any,
Waged in my book with varying fortune--with flight, advance, and retreat--Victory deferr'd and wavering,
(Yet, methinks, certain, or as good as certain, at the last,)--The fie...

This book is not about heroes.    English Poetry is not yet fit to speak of them.    Nor is it about deeds or lands, nor anything about glory, honour, dominion or power,

                        except War.
            Above all, this book is not concerned with Poetry.
            The subject of it is War, and the pity of War.
            The Poetry is in the pity.
            Yet these elegies are not to this generation,
                        This is in no sense consolatory.

            They may be to the next.
            All the poet can do to-day is to warn.
            That is why the true Poets must be truthful.
            If I thought the letter of this book would last,
        I might have used proper names; but if the spirit of it survives Prussia,--my ambition ...

Now light the candles; one; two; there's a moth;
What silly beggars they are to blunder in
And scorch their wings with glory, liquid flame -
No, no, not that, - it's bad to think of war,
When thoughts you've gagged all day come back to scare you;
And it's been proved that soldiers don't go mad
Unless they lose control of ugly thoughts
That drive them out to jabber among the trees.

Now light your pipe; look, what a steady hand,
Draw a deep breath; stop thinking, count fifteen,
And you're as right as rain...
    Why won't it rain? ...
I wish there'd be a thunder-storm to-night,
With bucketsful of water to sluice the dark,
And make the roses hang their dripping heads.

Books; what a jolly company they are,
Standing so quiet and patient on their shelves...

Hush'd be the camps to-day;
And, soldiers, let us drape our war-worn weapons;
And each with musing soul retire, to celebrate,
Our dear commander's death.

No more for him life's stormy conflicts;
Nor victory, nor defeat--no more time's dark events,
Charging like ceaseless clouds across the sky.

But sing, poet, in our name;
Sing of the love we bore him--because you, dweller in camps, know it truly.

As they invault the coffin there;
Sing--as they close the doors of earth upon him--one verse,
For the heavy hearts of soldiers.

    Soldier going to the war -
        Will you take my heart with you,
    So that I may share a little
        In the famous things you do?

    Soldier going to the war -
        If in battle you must fall,
    Will you, among all the faces,
        See my face the last of all?

    Soldier coming from the war -
        Who shall bind your sunburnt brow
    With the laurel of the hero,
        Soldier, soldier - vow for vow!

    Soldier coming from the war -
        When the street is one wide sea,
    Flags and streaming eyes and glory -
        Soldier, will you look for me?

I.

The beast exultant spreads the nostril wide,
Snuffing a sickly hate-enkindling scent;
Proud of his rage, on sudden carnage bent,
He leaps, and flings the helpless guard aside.
Again, again the hills are gapped and dyed,
Again the hearts of waiting women spent.
Is there no cooler pathway to content?
Can we not heal the insanity of pride?

Silence the crackle and thunder of battling guns,
And drive your men to strategy of peace;
Crush ere its birth the hell-begotten crime;
Still there’s a war that no true warrior shuns,
That knows no mercy, looks for no surcease,
But ghastlier battles, victories more sublime.



II.

Envy has slid in silence to its hole,
And Peace is basking where the workers meet,
And fire has purged ...

I.
Yonder, with eyes that tears, not distance, dim,
With ears the wide world’s thickness cannot daunt,
We see tumultuous miseries that haunt
The night’s dead watches, hear the battle hymn
Of ruin shrieking through the music grim,
Where the red spectre straddles, long and gaunt,
Spitting across the seas his hideous taunt
At those who nurse at home the unwounded limb.

What shall we say, who, drawing indolent breath,
Mark the quick pant of those who, full of hate,
Drive home the steel or loose the shrieking shell,
Heroes or Huns, who smite the grin of death
And laugh or curse beneath the blows of fate,
Swept madly to the thudding heart of hell?



II.
O peace, be still! Let no drear whirlwind sweep
Our souls about the vault, that groans ...

    I, too, saw God through mud--
        The mud that cracked on cheeks when wretches smiled.
        War brought more glory to their eyes than blood,
        And gave their laughs more glee than shakes a child.

    Merry it was to laugh there--
        Where death becomes absurd and life absurder.
        For power was on us as we slashed bones bare
        Not to feel sickness or remorse of murder.

    I, too, have dropped off fear--
        Behind the barrage, dead as my platoon,
        And sailed my spirit surging, light and clear
        Past the entanglement where hopes lay strewn;

    And witnessed exultation--
        Faces that used to curse me, scowl for scowl,
        Shine and lift up with passion of oblation,
        Seraphic for an...

And what of home, how goes it, boys,
While we die here in stench and noise?
"The hill stands up and hedges wind
Over the crest and drop behind;
Here swallows dip and wild things go
On peaceful errands to and fro
Across the sloping meadow floor,
And make no guess at blasting war.
In woods that fledge the round hill-shoulder
Leaves shoot and open, fall and moulder,
And shoot again.    Meadows yet show
Alternate white of drifted snow
And daisies.    Children play at shop,
Warm days, on the flat boulder-top,
With wildflower coinage, and the wares
Are bits of glass and unripe pears.
Crows perch upon the backs of sheep,
The wheat goes yellow:    women reap,
Autumn winds ruffle brook and pond,
Flutter the hedge and fly beyond.
So the first things ...

(France, August first, 1914)



    Far and near, high and clear,
    Hark to the call of War!
Over the gorse and the golden dells,
Ringing and swinging of clamorous bells,
Praying and saying of wild farewells:
    War! War! War!

    High and low, all must go:
    Hark to the shout of War!
Leave to the women the harvest yield;
Gird ye, men, for the sinister field;
A sabre instead of a scythe to wield:
    War! Red War!

    Rich and poor, lord and boor,
    Hark to the blast of War!
Tinker and tailor and millionaire,
Actor in triumph and priest in prayer,
Comrades now in the hell out there,
    Sweep to the fire of War!

    Prince and page, sot and sage,
    Hark to the roar of War!
Poet, professor and c...

I

Moonlight and dew-drenched blossom, and the scent
Of summer gardens; these can bring you all
Those dreams that in the starlit silence fall:
Sweet songs are full of odours.
    While I went
Last night in drizzling dusk along a lane,
I passed a squalid farm; from byre and midden
Came the rank smell that brought me once again
A dream of war that in the past was hidden.

II

Up a disconsolate straggling village street
I saw the tired troops trudge: I heard their feet.
The cheery Q.M.S. was there to meet
And guide our Company in ...
    I watched them stumble
Into some crazy hovel, too beat to grumble;
Saw them file inward, slipping from their backs
Rifles, equipment, packs.
On filthy straw they sit in the gloom, each face
Bowe...

    War
    I abhor,
    And yet how sweet
    The sound along the marching street
    Of drum and fife, and I forget
    Wet eyes of widows, and forget
    Broken old mothers, and the whole
    Dark butchery without a soul.

    Without a soul - save this bright drink
    Of heady music, sweet as hell;
    And even my peace-abiding feet
    Go marching with the marching street,
    For yonder, yonder goes the fife,
    And what care I for human life!
    The tears fill my astonished eyes
    And my full heart is like to break,
    And yet 'tis all embannered lies,
    A dream those little drummers make.

    O it is wickedness to clothe
    Yon hideous grinning thing that stalks
    Hidden in music, like a queen
    That in ...

    I've tinkered at my bits of rhymes
    In weary, woeful, waiting times;
    In doleful hours of battle-din,
    Ere yet they brought the wounded in;
    Through vigils of the fateful night,
    In lousy barns by candle-light;
    In dug-outs, sagging and aflood,
    On stretchers stiff and bleared with blood;
    By ragged grove, by ruined road,
    By hearths accurst where Love abode;
    By broken altars, blackened shrines
    I've tinkered at my bits of rhymes.

    I've solaced me with scraps of song
    The desolated ways along:
    Through sickly fields all shrapnel-sown,
    And meadows reaped by death alone;
    By blazing cross and splintered spire,
    By headless Virgin in the mire;
    By gardens gashed amid their bloom,
   ...