Still goes the strife; the anguish does not die.
Stronger the flesh is grown from earthy years,
In siege about my soul that upward peers
To see and hold its Good. The spirit's eye
Approves the better things; but senses spy
The passing sweets, spurning the present fears,
And take their moment's prize. Ah, then hot tears
Deluge my soul, and contrite moans my cry!

Courage, my heart: bright patience to the end!
Few years remain; then goes the warring wall
Of sensely flesh, that men will throw to earth.
So be it; so the contrite soul shall wend
A homeward way unto the Captain's call,
Eternally to know contrition's worth.

Norman Conquest, 1066

England's on the anvil, hear the hammers ring,
Clanging from the Severn to the Tyne!
Never was a blacksmith like our Norman King,
England's being hammered, hammered, hammered into line!

England's on the anvil! Heavy are the blows!
(But the work will be a marvel when it's done.)
Little bits of Kingdoms cannot stand against their foes.
England's being hammered, hammered, hammered into one!

There shall be one people, it shall serve one Lord,
(Neither Priest nor Baron shall escape!)
It shall have one speech and law, soul and strength and sword.
England's being hammered, hammered, hammered into shape!

We wait beneath the furnace-blast
The pangs of transformation;
Not painlessly doth God recast
And mould anew the nation.
Hot burns the fire
Where wrongs expire;
Nor spares the hand
That from the land
Uproots the ancient evil.

The hand-breadth cloud the sages feared
Its bloody rain is dropping;
The poison plant the fathers spared
All else is overtopping.
East, West, South, North,
It curses the earth;
All justice dies,
And fraud and lies
Live only in its shadow.

What gives the wheat-field blades of steel?
What points the rebel cannon?
What sets the roaring rabble’s heel
On the old star-spangled pennon?
What breaks the oath
Of the men o’ the South?
What whets the knife
For the Union’s life?
Hark to the...

Perhaps one is in prison    -
fidgeting as time
draws to a close    -
a scrap of house tunic
between the fingers
or when labouring to break
cuticles on swollen fingers
pressing both hands against ears
that refuse to hear the stop sound
of rushing blood.

Then again, in the last hour before
end time, before dawn's arrival and
floodlit sky finds you    -
knuckles clasping bars, pitiless bayonet-like
with eyes swishing truncheons at all the
getaway air your lungs will never take;
wheezing in growing fear to the sound of footsteps,
clank of keys and gallow's humour as they prepare
to Skuttle your short life, wall up clouds of their
own pestilence nakedly mask each firing squad
gathering for its fighting chance.

Almighty Power! Who through the past
    Our Nation's course has safely led;
Behold again the sky o'ercast,
    Again is heard the martial tread!
        Our stay in each contingency,
        Our Father's God, we turn to thee!

For lo! The bugle note of war
    Is wafted from a southern strand!
O Lord of Battles! we implore
    The guidance of Thy mighty hand,
        While as of yore, the hero draws
        His sword in Freedom's sacred cause!

And when at last the oaken wreath
    Shall crown afresh the victor's brow;
And Peace the conquering sword resheath,
    Be with us then, as well as now!
        Our stay in each contingency,
        In peace or war, we turn to Thee!

Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates and men decay.
--Goldsmith.


I fear the palace of the rich,
    I fear the hovel of the poor;
Though fortified by moat and ditch,
    The castle strong could not endure;
Nor can the squalid hovel be
    A source of strength, and those who cause
This widening discrepancy
    Infringe on God's eternal laws.

The heritage of man, the earth,
    Was framed for homes, not vast estates;
A lowering scale of human worth
    Each generation demonstrates,
Which feels the landlord's iron hand,
    And hopeless, plod with effort brave;
Who love no home can love no land;
    These own no home, until the grave.

The nation's strongest safeguards lie
In free...

I dreamed a Voice, of one God-authorised,
Cried loudly thro' the world, 'Disarm!    Disarm!'
And there was consternation in the camps;
And men who strutted under braid and lace
Beat on their medalled breasts, and wailed, 'Undone!'
The word was echoed from a thousand hills,
And shop and mill, and factory and forge,
Where throve the awful industries of death,
Hushed into silence.    Scrawled upon the doors,
The passer read, 'Peace bids her children starve.'
But foolish women clasped their little sons
And wept for joy, not reasoning like men.

Again the Voice commanded:    'Now go forth
And build a world for Progress and for Peace.
This work has waited since the earth was shaped;
But men were fighting, and they could not toil.
The needs of life outnumber nee...

Is it not strange? A year ago to-day,
With scarce a thought beyond the hum-drum round,
I did my decent job and earned my pay;
Was averagely happy, I'll be bound.
Ay, in my little groove I was content,
Seeing my life run smoothly to the end,
With prosy days in stolid labour spent,
And jolly nights, a pipe, a glass, a friend.
In God's good time a hearth fire's cosy gleam,
A wife and kids, and all a fellow needs;
When presto! like a bubble goes my dream:
I leap upon the Stage of Splendid Deeds.
I yell with rage; I wallow deep in gore:
I, that was clerk in a drysalter's store.

Stranger than any book I've ever read.
Here on the reeking battlefield I lie,
Under the stars, propped up with smeary dead,
Like too, if no one takes me in, to die.
Hit on th...

Faire stood the Wind for France,
When we our Sayles aduance,
Nor now to proue our chance,
        Longer will tarry;
But putting to the Mayne,
At Kaux, the Mouth of Sene,
With all his Martiall Trayne,
        Landed King HARRY.

And taking many a Fort,
Furnish'd in Warlike sort,
Marcheth tow'rds Agincourt,
        In happy howre;
Skirmishing day by day,
With those that stop'd his way,
Where the French Gen'rall lay,
        With all his Power.

Which in his Hight of Pride,
King HENRY to deride,
His Ransome to prouide
        To the King sending.
Which he neglects the while,
As from a Nation vile,
Yet with an angry smile,
        Their fall portending.

And turning to his Men,
Quoth our braue HENRY then...

I saw a city filled with lust and shame,
Where men, like wolves, slunk through the grim half-light;
And sudden, in the midst of it, there came
One who spoke boldly for the cause of Right.

And speaking, fell before that brutish race
Like some poor wren that shrieking eagles tear,
While brute Dishonour, with her bloodless face
Stood by and smote his lips that moved in prayer.

"Speak not of God! In centuries that word
Hath not been uttered! Our own king are we."
And God stretched forth his finger as He heard
And o'er it cast a thousand leagues of sea.

There was a time when it was counted high
    To be a patriot--whether by the zeal
    Of peaceful labour for the country's weal,
Or by the courage in her cause to die:

For King and Country was a rallying cry
    That turned men's hearts to fire, their nerves to steel;
    Not to unheeding ears did it appeal,
A pulpit formula, a platform lie.

Only a fool will wantonly desire
That war should come, outpouring blood and fire,
    And bringing grief and hunger in her train.
And yet, if there be found no other way,
God send us war, and with it send the day
    When love of country shall be real again!

An inconclusive peace!--
A peace that would be no peace--
Naught but a treacherous truce for breeding
Of a later, greater, baser-still betrayal!--
"No!" ...
The spirits of our myriad valiant dead,
Who died to make peace sure and life secure,
Thunder one mighty cry of righteous indignation,--
One vast imperative, unanswerable "No!" ...
"Not for that, not for that, did we die!"--
They cry;--
"--To give fresh life to godless knavery!
--To forge again the chains of slavery
Such as humanity has never known!
We gave our lives to set Life free,
Loyally, willingly gave we,
Lest on our children, and on theirs,
Should come like misery.
And now, from our souls' heights and depths,
We cry to you,--"Beware,
Lest you defraud us of one smallest atom of th...

I

Veteran memories rally to muster
Here at the call of the old battle days:
Cavalry clatter and cannon's hoarse bluster:
All the wild whirl of the fight's broken maze:
Clangor of bugle and flashing of sabre,
Smoke-stifled flags and the howl of the shell,
With earth for a rest place and death for a neighbor,
And dreams of a charge and the deep rebel yell.
Stern was our task in the field where the reaping
Spared the ripe harvest, but laid our men low:
Grim was the sorrow that held us from weeping:
Awful the rush of the strife's ebb and flow.
Swift came the silence - our enemy hiding
Sudden retreat in the cloud-muffled night:
Swift as a hawk-pounce our hill-and-dale riding;
Hundreds on hundreds we caught in their flight!
Hard and incessant the danger a...

And these are Christians! God! the horror of it!
How long, O Lord! how long, O Lord! how long
Wilt Thou endure this crime? and there, above it,
Look down on Earth nor sweep away the wrong!
Are these Thy teachings? Where is then that pity,
Which bade the weary, suffering come to Thee?
War takes its toll of life in field and City,
And Thou must see! O Christianity!
And then the children! Oh, Thou art another!
Not God! but Fiend, whom God has given release!
Will prayer avail naught? tears of father, mother?
To give at last the weary world surcease
From butchery? that back again hath brought her
Into that age barbarian that priced
Hate above Love; and, shod with steel and slaughter,
Stamped on the Cross and on the face of Christ.

Purged, with the life they left, of all
That makes life paltry and mean and small,
In their new dedication charged
With something heightened, enriched, enlarged,
That lends a light to their lusty brows
And a song to the rhythm of their tramping feet,
These are the men that have taken vows,
These are the hardy, the flower, the elite, -
These are the men that are moved no more
By the will to traffic and grasp and store
And ring with pleasure and wealth and love
The circles that self is the center of;
But they are moved by the powers that force
The sea forever to ebb and rise,
That hold Arcturus in his course,
And marshal at noon in tropic skies
The clouds that tower on some snow-capped chain
And drift out over the peopled plain.
They are big with the b...

Halt! ye Legions, sheathe your Steel:
Blood grows precious; shed no more:
Cease your toils; your wounds to heal
Lo! beams of Mercy reach the shore!
From Realms of everlasting light
The favour'd guest of Heaven is come:
Prostrate your Banners at the sight,
And bear the glorious tidings home.

The plunging corpse with half-clos'd eyes,
No more shall stain th' unconscious brine;
Yon pendant gay, that streaming flies,
Around its idle Staff shall twine.
Behold! along th' etherial sky
Her beams o'er conquering Navies spread;
Peace! Peace! the leaping Sailors cry,
With shouts that might arouse the dead.

Then forth Britannia's thunder pours;
A vast reiterated sound!
From Line to Line the Cannon roars,
And spreads the blazing joy around.
...

        Written as a tribute to my brother, W. M. Strang, with the Engineers.


        He said, "I'm Daddy's soldier boy,"
            When he was five years old;
        And then went out and built snow forts,
            Although the day was cold.

        The snowballs were his hand grenades,
            A stick his bayonette;
        And with a home-made wooden gun
            The foe he bravely met.

        In five more years he joined the "scouts"
            And hiked across the hills;
        He learned to wear a khaki suit,
            And do military drills.

        And so the years passed swiftly on,
            And now he is a man;
        He's in the trenches over there,
            Fighting for Uncle Sam.

  ...

    I was crushed between Altgeld and Armour.
    I lost many friends, much time and money
    Fighting for Altgeld whom Editor Whedon
    Denounced as the candidate of gamblers and anarchists.
    Then Armour started to ship dressed meat to Spoon River,
    Forcing me to shut down my slaughter-house
    And my butcher shop went all to pieces.
    The new forces of Altgeld and Armour caught me
    At the same time. I thought it due me, to recoup the money I lost
    And to make good the friends that left me,
    For the Governor to appoint me Canal Commissioner.
    Instead he appointed Whedon of the Spoon River Argus,
    So I ran for the legislature and was elected.
    I said to hell with principle and sold my vote
    On Charles T. Yerkes' street-car franchise.