War

O for a moon to light me home!
    O for a lanthorn green!
For those sweet stars the Pleiades,
That glitter in the twilight trees;
    O for a lovelorn taper! O
    For a lanthorn green!

O for a frock of tartan!
    O for clear, wild, grey eyes!
For fingers light as violets,
'Neath branches that the blackbird frets;
    O for a thistly meadow! O
    For clear, wild grey eyes!

O for a heart like almond boughs!
    O for sweet thoughts like rain!
O for first-love like fields of grey,
Shut April-buds at break of day!
    O for a sleep like music!
    For still dreams like rain!

(1803)
See "The Trumpet-Major"
IN MEMORY OF ONE OF THE WRITER'S FAMILY WHO WAS A VOLUNTEER DURING THE WAR WITH NAPOLEON



In a ferny byway
Near the great South-Wessex Highway,
A homestead raised its breakfast-smoke aloft;
The dew-damps still lay steamless, for the sun had made no sky-way,
And twilight cloaked the croft.

'Twas hard to realize on
This snug side the mute horizon
That beyond it hostile armaments might steer,
Save from seeing in the porchway a fair woman weep with eyes on
A harnessed Volunteer.

In haste he'd flown there
To his comely wife alone there,
While marching south hard by, to still her fears,
For she soon would be a mother, and few messengers were known there
In these campaigning years.

'Twas time...

No more to watch by Night's eternal shore,
    With England's chivalry at dawn to ride;
No more defeat, faith, victory---O! no more
    A cause on earth for which we might have died.

Hark! ah, the nightingale
The tawny-throated!
Hark, from that moonlit cedar what a burst!
What triumph! hark! what pain!

O wanderer from a Grecian shore,
Still, after many years, in distant lands,
Still nourishing in thy bewilder'd brain
That wild, unquench'd, deep-sunken, old-world pain

Say, will it never heal?
And can this fragrant lawn
With its cool trees, and night,
And the sweet, tranquil Thames,
And moonshine, and the dew,
To thy rack'd heart and brain
Afford no balm?

Dost thou to-night behold,
Here, through the moonlight on this English grass,
The unfriendly palace in the Thracian wild?
Dost thou again peruse
With hot cheeks and sear'd eyes
The too clear web, and thy dumb sister's shame?
Dost thou once more ass...

    When the German troops were marching with the Uhlans far ahead,
    The objective point being Paris, as the Berlin wireless said,
    There was trouble in the Louvre, 'mong the paintings on the walls,
    There were shoutings 'cross the centuries, there were loud artistic calls;
    "Mona Lisa" ceased her smiling and "The Banker and His Wife"
    Turned to Millet's "Women Gleaning" - begged protection for their life;
    While "The Gypsy Girl" of Franz Hals, fearful of impending fate,
    Roused "The Shepherds in Arcadia" with "The Hun is at the Gate!"

    Then the panic spread on all sides till the battle of the Marne
    Solved all danger of the looting, removed all need to warn;
    Straight "The Lace Maker" from Flemish Bruges in the joyous choral led
    Smiled at "Char...

"With sacrifice before the rising morn
Vows have I made by fruitless hope inspired;
And from the infernal Gods, 'mid shades forlorn
Of night, my slaughtered Lord have I required:
Celestial pity I again implore;
Restore him to my sight great Jove, restore!"
So speaking, and by fervent love endowed
With faith, the Suppliant heavenward lifts her hands;
While, like the sun emerging from a cloud,
Her countenance brightens and her eye expands;
Her bosom heaves and spreads, her stature grows;
As she expects the issue in repose.

O terror! what hath she perceived? O joy!
What doth she look on? whom doth she behold?
Her Hero slain upon the beach of Troy?
His vital presence? his corporeal mould?
It is if sense deceive her not 'tis He!
And a God leads him, wing...

Out of the golden remote wild west where the sea without shore is,
Full of the sunset, and sad, if at all, with the fulness of joy,
As a wind sets in with the autumn that blows from the region of stories,
Blows with a perfume of songs and of memories beloved from a boy,
Blows from the capes of the past oversea to the bays of the present,
Filled as with shadow of sound with the pulse of invisible feet,
Far out to the shallows and straits of the future, by rough ways or pleasant,
Is it thither the wind’s wings beat? is it hither to me, O my sweet?
For thee, in the stream of the deep tide-wind blowing in with the water,
Thee I behold as a bird borne in with the wind from the west,
Straight from the sunset, across white waves whence rose as a daughter
Venus thy mother, in years when the w...

Everyone suddenly burst out singing;
And I was filled with such delight
As prisoned birds must find in freedom
Winging wildly across the white
Orchards and dark green fields; on; on; and out of sight.

Everyone's voice was suddenly lifted,
And beauty came like the setting sun.
My heart was shaken with tears and horror
Drifted away ... O but every one
Was a bird; and the song was wordless; the singing will never be done.

April, 1919.

Robert Rawlin! Frosts were falling
When the ranger's horn was calling
Through the woods to Canada.

Gone the winter's sleet and snowing,
Gone the spring-time's bud and blowing,
Gone the summer's harvest mowing,
And again the fields are gray.
Yet away, he's away!
Faint and fainter hope is growing
In the hearts that mourn his stay.

Where the lion, crouching high on
Abraham's rock with teeth of iron,
Glares o'er wood and wave away,
Faintly thence, as pines far sighing,
Or as thunder spent and dying,
Come the challenge and replying,
Come the sounds of flight and fray.
Well-a-day! Hope and pray!
Some are living, some are lying
In their red graves far away.

Straggling rangers, worn with dangers,
Homeward faring, weary strang...

I

        O, fairest Dame of sylvan glades,
We come to pay thee homage due,
Embrace thee softly and to kiss
Thy lovely, long-forsaken cheeks;
To smooth thy flowing silver locks
And bind about thy snowy neck
A necklace golden studded full
With rarest gems and shining pearls.
        Our eyes, though sometimes dimmed with tears,
In purer lustre sparkle forth
Whene'er they fall agaze on thee!
Our ears attuned to thy sweet lay
Catch every flowing, cadent note
And bear it ever safe within
Our rapturous hearts, which gladly leap
Whene'er thy name is called!
Deep in our souls the quenchless fire
Of love full brightly burns upon
The sacred altar, set apart
For sprite commune and sacrifice;
Whose high-priest tends with loving care,
A...

(To R. F. B.)


We are the Choice of the Will: God, when He gave the word
That called us into line, set in our hand a sword;

Set us a sword to wield none else could lift and draw,
And bade us forth to the sound of the trumpet of the Law.

East and west and north, wherever the battle grew,
As men to a feast we fared, the work of the Will to do.

Bent upon vast beginnings, bidding anarchy cease,
(Had we hacked it to the Pit, we had left it a place of peace!)

Marching, building, sailing, pillar of cloud or fire,
Sons of the Will, we fought the fight of the Will, our sire.

Road was never so rough that we left its purpose dark;
Stark was ever the sea, but our ships were yet more stark;

We tracked the winds of the world to the steps of t...

Far inland here Death's pinions mocked the roar
Of English seas;
We sleep to wake no more,
Hushed, and at ease;
Till sound a trump, shore on to echoing shore,
Rouse from a peace, unwonted then to war,
Us and our enemies.

Some poets sing o' gipsy queens,
An some o' ladies fine;
Aw'll sing a song o' other scenes, -
A humbler muse is mine.
Jewels, an' gold, an silken frills,
Are things too heigh for me;
But wol mi harp wi vigour thrills,
Aw'll strike a chord for thee.

Poor lassie wan,
Do th' best tha can,
Although thi fate be hard.
A time ther'll be
When sich as thee
Shall have yor full reward.

At hauf-past five tha leaves thi bed,
An off tha goes to wark;
An gropes thi way to mill or shed,
Six months o'th' year i'th' dark.
Tha gets but little for thi pains,
But that's noa fault o' thine;
Thi maister reckons up his gains,
An ligs i bed till nine.

Poor lassie wan, &c.

He's little childer ov his own
'At's qu...

The skies are strown with stars,
The streets are fresh with dew
A thin moon drifts to westward,
The night is hushed and cheerful.
My thought is quick with you.

Near windows gleam and laugh,
And far away a train
Clanks glowing through the stillness:
A great content's in all things,
And life is not in vain.

1877

Leaden skies and a lonesome shadow
    Where summer has passed with her gorgeous train;
Snow on the mountain, and frost on the meadow -
    A white face pressed to the window pane;
A cold mist falling, a bleak wind calling,
    And oh! but life seems vain.

Rain is better than golden weather,
    When the heart is dulled with a dumb despair.
Dead leaves lie where they walked together,
    The hammock is gone, and the rustic chair.
Let bleak snows cover the whole world over -
    It will never again seem fair.

Time laughs lightly at youth's sad 'Never,'
    Summer shall come again, smiling once more,
High o'er the cold world the sun shines for ever,
    Hearts that seemed dead are alive at the core.
Oh, but the pain of it -oh, but the gain of it,

I saw old General at bay;
(Old as he was, his grey eyes yet shone out in battle like stars;)
His small force was now completely hemm'd in, in his works;
He call'd for volunteers to run the enemy's lines - a desperate emergency;
I saw a hundred and more step forth from the ranks - but two or three were selected;
I saw them receive their orders aside - they listen'd with care - the adjutant was very grave;
I saw them depart with cheerfulness, freely risking their lives.

    A glory lights the skies of Flanders
        Where the blood-stained fields lie bare,
    Where the clouds of war have gathered,
        Built their parapets in the air;
    Halted stands the Teuton army,
        Checked its onslaught at a sign;
    Forward roll the warlike forces,
        Sons of Canada in line.

    Let them taste of Northern courage
        Where the lordly maple grows;
    Let them face the heroes nurtured
        Where the stars have wed the snows;
    We are sons of sires undaunted,
        Children of the hills and plains;
    Ours a courage born of duty,
        Pluck and dash of many strains.

    Tell it to our children's children
        How Canadians saved the day;
    Write it with the pen of history,
...

It got beyond all orders an' it got beyond all 'ope;
It got to shammin' wounded an' retirin' from the 'alt.
'Ole companies was lookin' for the nearest road to slope;
It were just a bloomin' knock-out, an' our fault!

Now there ain't no chorus 'ere to give,
Nor there ain't no band to play;
An' I wish I was dead 'fore I done what I did,
Or seen what I seed that day!

We was sick o' bein' punished, an' we let 'em know it, too;
An' a company-commander up an' 'it us with a sword,
An' some one shouted "'Ook it!" an' it come to ~sove-ki-poo~,
An' we chucked our rifles from us, O my Gawd!

There was thirty dead an' wounded on the ground we wouldn't keep,
No, there wasn't more than twenty when the front begun to go;
But, Christ! along the line o' flight they cut u...