War

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 selfsame 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 worldwide battle lie between,
Death lies between, and friend-destroying sea.
Yet here, a year ago, we talked and stood
As I stnad 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...

We were wearied in the battle,
    Tempted, and pained, and tried
By day the din and the carnage,
    By night the rain's fierce tide;
But we heard a loving message,
    From the Prince's tent it came,
"Each meet in the banqueting house.
    In memory of my name."

We gathered; a motley regiment,
    Some young in the war of life,
Some chiefs in the Royal Army,
    Some old and sick with strife,
Some limped in the sacred pathway,
    Some were foot sore and worn,
Some had their lances all shivered,
    Some had their banners torn.

And we all looked dim and dusty;
    We all were stained with sin;
But we held the Prince's message,
    And the porter said "Come in."
We went to the banqueting house;
    We sat at the Prince's b...

Angel of Peace, the hounds of war,
Unleashed, are all abroad,
And war's foul trade again is made
    Man's leading aim in life.
Blood dyes the billow and the sod;
    The very winds are rife
With tales of slaughter.    Angel, pray,
What can we do or think or say
In times like these?
    'Child, think of God!'

'Before this little speck in space
Called Earth with light was shod,
Great chains and tiers of splendid spheres
    Were fashioned by His hand.
Be thine the part to love and laud,
    Nor seek to understand.
Go lift thine eyes from death-charged guns
To one who made a billion suns;
And trust and wait.
    Child, dwell on God!'

"Fall in! Now, get a move on!" (Curse the rain.)
We splash away along the straggling village,
Out to the flat rich country green with June....
And sunset flares across wet crops and tillage,
Blazing with splendour-patches. Harvest soon
Up in the Line. "Perhaps the War'll be done
By Christmas-time. Keep smiling then, old son!"

Here's the Canal: it's dusk; we cross the bridge.
"Lead on there by platoons." The Line's a-glare
With shell-fire through the poplars; distant rattle
Of rifles and machine-guns. "Fritz is there!
Christ, ain't it lively, Sergeant? Is't a battle?"
More rain: the lightning blinks, and thunder rumbles.
"There's overhead artillery," some chap grumbles.

"What's all this mob, by the cross-road?" (The guides)....

Ye who heed a nation's call
And speed to arms therefor,
Ye who fear your children's march
To perils of the war,--
Soldiers of the deck and camp
And mothers of our men,
Hearken to a tale of France
And tell it oft again.

* * *

In the east of France by the roads of war,
(God save us evermore from Mars and Thor!}
Up and down the fair land iron armies came,
(Pity, Jesu, all who fell, calling Thy name).

Pleasant all the fields were round every town,
Garden airs went sweetly up, heaven smiled down;
Till under leaden hail with flaming breath,
Graves and ashen harvest were the keep of death.

One little town stood, white on a hill,
Chapel and hostel gates, farms and windmill,
Chapel and countryside met the gunner's path,
Till ...

Not Love, not War, nor the tumultuous swell,
Of civil conflict, nor the wrecks of change,
Nor Duty struggling with afflictions strange
Not these 'alone' inspire the tuneful shell;
But where untroubled peace and concord dwell,
There also is the Muse not loth to range,
Watching the twilight smoke of cot or grange,
Skyward ascending from a woody dell.
Meek aspirations please her, lone endeavour,
And sage content, and placid melancholy;
She loves to gaze upon a crystal river
Diaphanous because it travels slowly;
Soft is the music that would charm for ever;
The flower of sweetest smell is shy and lowly.

What He who, 'mid the kindred throng
Of Heroes that inspired his song,
Doth yet frequent the hill of storms,
The stars dim-twinkling through their forms!
What! Ossian here, a painted Thrall,
Mute fixture on a stuccoed wall;
To serve, an unsuspected screen
For show that must not yet be seen;
And, when the moment comes, to part
And vanish by mysterious art;
Head, harp, and body, split asunder,
For ingress to a world of wonder;
A gay saloon, with waters dancing
Upon the sight wherever glancing;
One loud cascade in front, and lo!
A thousand like it, white as snow
Streams on the walls, and torrent-foam
As active round the hollow dome,
Illusive cataracts! of their terrors
Not stripped, nor voiceless in the mirrors,
That catch the pageant from the...

(Roumanian)


When winter trees bestrew the path,
    Still to the twig a leaf or twain
Will cling and weep, not Winter's wrath,
    But that foreknown forlorner pain--
    To fall when green leaves come again.

I watch'd him sleep by the furrow--
    The first that fell in the fight.
His grave they would dig to-morrow:
    The battle called them to-night.

They bore him aside to the trees, there,
    By his undigg'd grave content
To lie on his back at ease there,
    And hark how the battle went.

The battle went by the village,
    And back through the night were borne
Far cries of murder and pillage,
    With smoke from the standing corn.

But when they came on the morrow,
    They talk'd not over t...

The Earth moans in her sleep
Like an old mother
Whose sons have gone to the war,
Who weeps silently in her heart
Till dreams comfort her.

The Earth tosses
As if she would shake off humanity,
A burden too heavy to be borne,
And free of the pest of intolerable men,
Spin with woods and waters
Joyously in the clear heavens
In the beautiful cool rains,
Bearing gladly the dumb animals,
And sleep when the time comes
Glistening in the remains of sunlight
With marmoreal innocency.

Be comforted, old mother,
Whose sons have gone to the war;
And be assured, O Earth,
Of your burden of passionate men,
For without them who would dream the dreams
That encompass you with glory,
Who would gather your youth
And store it in the jar o...

Through Alpine meadows soft-suffused
With rain, where thick the crocus blows,
Past the dark forges long disused,
The mule-track from Saint Laurent goes.
The bridge is cross'd, and slow we ride,
Through forest, up the mountain-side.
The autumnal evening darkens round,
The wind is up, and drives the rain;
While, hark! far down, with strangled sound
Doth the Dead Guier's stream complain,
Where that wet smoke, among the woods,
Over his boiling cauldron broods.
Swift rush the spectral vapours white
Past limestone scars with ragged pines,
Showing then blotting from our sight!
Halt through the cloud-drift something shines!
High in the valley, wet and drear,
The huts of Courrerie appear.
Strike leftward! cries our guide; and higher
Mounts up the stony f...

The day's sharp strife is ended now,
Our work is done, God knoweth how!
As on the thronged, unrestful town
The patience of the moon looks down,
I wait to hear, beside the wire,
The voices of its tongues of fire.
Slow, doubtful, faint,they seem at first:
Be strong, my heart, to know the worst!
Hark! there the Alleghanies spoke;
That sound from lake and prairie broke,
That sunset-gun of triumph rent
The silence of a continent!
That signal from Nebraska sprung,
This, from Nevada's mountain tongue!
Is that thy answer, strong and free,
O loyal heart of Tennessee?
What strange, glad voice is that which calls
From Wagner's grave and Sumter's walls?
From Mississippi's fountain-head
A sound as of the hisoh's tread!
There rustled freedom's Charter Oa...

        It seemed that out of the battle I escaped
        Down some profound dull tunnel, long since scooped
        Through granites which Titanic wars had groined.
        Yet also there encumbered sleepers groaned,
        Too fast in thought or death to be bestirred.
        Then, as I probed them, one sprang up, and stared
        With piteous recognition in fixed eyes,
        Lifting distressful hands as if to bless.
        And by his smile, I knew that sullen hall;
        With a thousand fears that vision's face was grained;
        Yet no blood reached there from the upper ground,
        And no guns thumped, or down the flues made moan.
        "Strange, friend," I said, "Here is no cause to mourn."
        "None," said the other, "Save the undone years,
  ...

(Written after the British Service at Trinity Church, New York)


I.

Before those golden altar-lights we stood,
    Each one of us remembering his own dead.
A more than earthly beauty seemed to brood
    On that hushed throng, and bless each bending head.

Beautiful on that gold, the deep-sea blue
    Of those young seamen, ranked on either side,
Blent with the khaki, while the silence grew
    Deep, as for wings--Oh, deep as England's pride.

Beautiful on that gold, two banners rose--
    Two flags that told how Freedom's realm was made,
One fair with stars of hope, and one that shows
    The glorious cross of England's long crusade;

Two flags, now joined, till that high will be done
Which sent them forth to make the whole world one...

Behind the town the sun sinks down
Gilding the vane upon the spire,
While many a wall reels to its fall
Beneath the fell artillery fire.

As sinks that sun mortar and gun
Like living things leap grim and hot,
And far and wide across the tide
Spray-furrows show the flying shot.

White smoke in clouds yon earthwork shrouds
Where, steeped in battle to the lips,
The French amain pour fiery rain
On town, and walls, and English ships.

That deadly sleet smites lines and fleet,
As closes in the Autumn night,
And Aboville from head to heel
Thrills with the battle's wild delight.

At every flash oak timbers crash -
A sudden glare yon frigate dyes!
Then flames up-gush, and roar, and rush,
From deck to where her pennon flies!

Lately our poets loiter'd in green lanes,
Content to catch the ballads of the plains;
I fancied I had strength enough to climb
A loftier station at no distant time,
And might securely from intrusion doze
Upon the flowers thro' which Ilissus flows.
In those pale olive grounds all voices cease,
And from afar dust fills the paths of Greece.
My sluber broken and my doublet torn,
I find the laurel also bears a thorn.

Now, joy and thanks forevermore!
The dreary night has wellnigh passed,
The slumbers of the North are o'er,
The Giant stands erect at last!
More than we hoped in that dark time
When, faint with watching, few and worn,
We saw no welcome day-star climb
The cold gray pathway of the morn!
O weary hours! O night of years!
What storms our darkling pathway swept,
Where, beating back our thronging fears,
By Faith alone our march we kept.
How jeered the scoffing crowd behind,
How mocked before the tyrant train,
As, one by one, the true and kind
Fell fainting in our path of pain!
They died, their brave hearts breaking slow,
But, self-forgetful to the last,
In words of cheer and bugle blow
Their breath upon the darkness passed.
A mighty host, on either...

The Sky Line.

Like black fangs in a cruel ogre's jaw
    The grim piles lift against the sunset sky;
Down drops the night, and shuts the horrid maw--
    I listen, breathless, but there comes no cry.


Defeat.

He sits and looks into the west
    Where twilight gathers, wan and gray,
A knight who quit the Golden Quest,
    And flung Excalibur away.


To an Amazon.

O! twain in spirit, we shall know
    Thy like no more, so fierce, so mild,
One breast shorn clean to rest the bow,
    One milk-full for thy warrior child.


The Old Mother.

Life is like an old mother whom trouble and toil
Have sufficed the best part of her nature to spoil,
Whom her children, the Passions, so ...

From Australia.

Oh, tell me, God of Battles! Oh, say what is to come!
The King is in his trenches, the millionaire at home;
The Kaiser with his toiling troops, the Czar is at the front.
Oh! Tell me, God of Battles! Who bears the battle’s brunt?
The Queen knits socks for soldiers, the Empress does the same,
And know no more than peasant girls which nation is to blame.
The wounded live to fight again, or live to slave for bread;
The Slain have graves above the Slain the Dead are with the Dead.
The widowed young shall wed or not, the widowed old remain
And all the nations of the world prepare for war again!
But ere that time shall be, O God, say what shall here befall!
Ten millions at the battle fronts, and we’re five millions all!
The world You made was wide, O God, the ...