Up and be doing, all who have a hand
To lift, a back to bend. It must not be
In times like these that vaguely linger we
To air our vaunts and hopes; and leave our land

Untended as a wild of weeds and sand.
- Say, then, "I come!" and go, O women and men
Of palace, ploughshare, easel, counter, pen;
That scareless, scathless, England still may stand.

Would years but let me stir as once I stirred
At many a dawn to take the forward track,
And with a stride plunged on to enterprize,

I now would speed like yester wind that whirred
Through yielding pines; and serve with never a slack,
So loud for promptness all around outcries!

March 1917.

How often in the years that close,
When truce had stilled the sieging gun,
The soldiers, mounting on their works,
With mutual curious glance have run
From face to face along the fronting show,
And kinsman spied, or friend--even in a foe.

What thoughts conflicting then were shared,
While sacred tenderness perforce
Welled from the heart and wet the eye;
And something of a strange remorse
Rebelled against the sanctioned sin of blood,
And Christian wars of natural brotherhood.

Then stirred the god within the breast--
The witness that is man's at birth;
A deep misgiving undermined
Each plea and subterfuge of earth;
They felt in that rapt pause, with warning rife,
Horror and anguish for the civil strife.

Of North or South they reeked not ...

It isn't the foe that we fear;
It isn't the bullets that whine;
It isn't the business career
Of a shell, or the bust of a mine;
It isn't the snipers who seek
To nip our young hopes in the bud:
No, it isn't the guns,
And it isn't the Huns -
It's the MUD,
        MUD,
        MUD.

It isn't the melee we mind.
That often is rather good fun.
It isn't the shrapnel we find
Obtrusive when rained by the ton;
It isn't the bounce of the bombs
That gives us a positive pain:
It's the strafing we get
When the weather is wet -
It's the RAIN,
        RAIN,
            RAIN.

It isn't because we lack grit
We shrink from the horrors of war.
We don't mind the battle a bit;
In fact that is what we are for;
It isn't the ...

Naked and grey the Cotswolds stand
Beneath the autumn sun,
And the stubble-fields on either hand
Where Stour and Avon run.
There is no change in the patient land
That has bred us every one.

She should have passed in cloud and fire
And saved us from this sin
Of war, red war,' twixt child and sire,
Household and kith and kin,
In the heart of a sleepy Midland shire.
With the harvest scarcely in.

But there is no change as we meet at last
On the brow-head or the plain,
And the raw astonished ranks stand fast
To slay or to be slain
By the men they knew in the kindly past
That shall never come again,

By the men they met at dance or chase,
In the tavern or the hall,
At the j ustice-bench and the market-place,
At the cudgel-pl...

One lesson, Nature, let me learn of thee,
One lesson which in every wind is blown,
One lesson of two duties kept at one
Though the loud world proclaim their enmity.

Of toil unsever'd from tranquility!
Of labor, that in lasting fruit outgrows
Far noisier schemes, accomplish'd in repose,
Too great for haste, too high for rivalry.

Yes, while on earth a thousand discords ring,
Man's fitful uproar mingling with his toil,
Still do thy sleepless ministers move on,

Their glorious tasks in silence perfecting;
Still working, blaming still our vain turmoil,
Laborers that shall not fail, when man is gone.

They pass through the great iron gates -
Men with eyes gravely discerning,
Skilled to appraise the tunnage of cranes
Or split an inch into thousandths -
Men tempered by fire as the ore is
And planned to resistance
Like steel that has cooled in the trough;
Silent of purpose, inflexible, set to fulfilment -
To conquer, withstand, overthrow...
Men mannered to large undertakings,
Knowing force as a brother
And power as something to play with,
Seeing blood as a slip of the iron,
To be wiped from the tools
Lest they rust.

But what if they stood aside,
Who hold the earth so careless in the crook of their arms?

What of the flamboyant cities
And the lights guttering out like candles in a wind...
And the armies halted...
And the train mid...

A
acquaint, acquainted.
ae, one.
aff, off.
afore, before.
a'gate, everywhere.
ain, own.
aince, once.
ang-bang-pang, embonpoint.
argy-bargy, argument.
attour, out, over.
auld, old.
ava', at all.
awa', away; fair awa' wi' it, fairly done for.
awyte, an affirmative exclamation.
ayont, beyond.

B
Ba', ball; to get on the ba', to go on a jollification, to get drunk.
bade, stayed.
bairnie, child.
baith, both.
bane-doctorin', bone-setting.
banned, cursed.
barley-bree, whisky.
bathered, bothered.
bauchles, old shoes, slippers.
bedfast, bed-ridden.
beelin', suppurating.
beerit, buried.
besom, broom; a woman of loose character.
bide, stay.
biggin', building.
biled, boiled.
billy, f...

No, Bill, I'm not a-spooning out no patriotic tosh
(The cove be'ind the sandbags ain't a death-or-glory cuss).
And though I strafes 'em good and 'ard I doesn't 'ate the Boche,
I guess they're mostly decent, just the same as most of us.
I guess they loves their 'omes and kids as much as you or me;
And just the same as you or me they'd rather shake than fight;
And if we'd 'appened to be born at Berlin-on-the-Spree,
We'd be out there with 'Ans and Fritz, dead sure that we was right.

A-standin' up to the sandbags
It's funny the thoughts wot come;
Starin' into the darkness,
'Earin' the bullets 'um;
(ZING! ZIP! PING! RIP!
'ARK 'OW THE BULLETS 'UM!)
A-leanin' against the sandbags
Wiv me rifle under me ear,
Oh, I've 'ad more thoughts on a sentry-go
T...

None goes to warfare but with this intent -
The gains must dead the fears of detriment.

Oaks multiplied apace, and o'er the seas
Big rumors went in many a winding ring;
And stories fabulous on every breeze
        Swept to a distant King.

Full many a tale of wild romance, and myth,
In large hyperbole the New World told,
And down from days of Raleigh and of Smith
The Colonies meant gold.

Not from Banchoonan's mines came forth the ore,
But from the waters, and the woods, and fields,
Paid for in blood, but bringing more and more
The wealth that labor yields.

Then seeing this, that King beyond the sea,
The jus divinum filling all his soul,
Bethought him that he held these lands in fee
And absolute control.

When this high claim in action was displayed
With one accord the young Plantations spoke,
And told him, E...

After the sack of the City, when Rome was sunk to a name,
In the years that the lights were darkened, or ever St. Wilfrid came,
Low on the borders of Britain (the ancient poets sing)
Between the Cliff and the Forest there ruled a Saxon King.
Stubborn all were his people from cottar to overlord,
Not to be cowed by the cudgel, scarce to be schooled by the sword;
Quick to turn at their pleasure, cruel to cross in their mood,
And set on paths of their choosing as the hogs of Andred's Wood.
Laws they made in the Witan, the laws of flaying and fine,
Common, loppage and pannage, the theft and the track of kine,
Statutes of tun and of market for the fish and the malt and the meal,
The tax on the Bramber packhorse and the tax on the Hastings keel.
Over the graves of the Druids and under t...

Above the din of commerce, above the clamour and rattle
    Of labour disputing with riches, of Anarchists' threats and groans,
Above the hurry and hustle and roar of that bloodless battle,
    Where men are fighting for riches, I hear the falling of thrones.

I see no savage host, I hear no martial drumming,
    But down in the dust at our feet lie the useless crowns of kings;
And the mighty spirit of Progress is steadily coming, coming,
    And the flag of one republic abroad to the world he flings.

The Universal Republic, where worth, not birth, is royal;
    Where the lowliest born may climb on a self-made ladder to fame;
Where the highest and proudest born, if he be not true and loyal,
    Shall find no masking title to cover and gild his shame.

Not with the...

Another battle! and the sounds have rolled
By many a gloomy gorge and wasted plain
O’er huddled hills and mountains manifold,
Like winds that run before a heavy rain
When Autumn lops the leaves and drooping grain,
And earth lies deep in brown and cloudy gold.
My brothers, lo! our grand old England stands,
With weapons gleaming in her ready hands,
Outside the tumult! Let us watch and trust
That she will never darken in the dust
And drift of wild contention, but remain
The hope and stay of many troubled lands,
Where so she waits the issue of the fight,
Aloof; but praying “God defend the Right!”

Strike hands, young men!
We know not when
Death or disaster comes,
Mightier than battle-drums
To summon us away.
Death bids us say farewell
To all we love, nor stay
For tears; - and who can tell
How soon misfortune's hand
May smite us where we stand,
Dragging us down, aloof,
Under the swift world's hoof?

Strike hands for faith, and power
To gladden the passing hour;
To wield the sword, or raise a song; -
To press the grape; or crush out wrong.
And strengthen right.
Give me the man of sturdy palm
And vigorous brain;
Hearty, companionable, sane,
'Mid all commotions calm,
Yet filled with quick, enthusiastic fire; -
Give me the man
Whose impulses aspire,
And all his features seem to say, "I can!"

Strike hand...

All the world over, nursing their scars,
Sit the old fighting-men broke in the wars,
Sit the old fighting-men, surly and grim
Mocking the lilt of the conquerors' hymn.

Dust of the battle o'erwhelmed them and hid.
Fame never found them for aught that they did.
Wounded and spent to the lazar they drew,
Lining the road where the Legions roll through.

Sons of the Laurel who press to your meed,
(Worthy God's pity most, you who succeed!)
Ere you go triumphing, crowned, to the stars,
Pity poor fighting-men, broke in the wars!

The day's high work is over and done,
And these no more will need the sun:
Blow, you bugles of ENGLAND, blow!
These are gone whither all must go,
Mightily gone from the field they won.
So in the workaday wear of battle,
Touched to glory with GOD'S own red,
Bear we our chosen to their bed.
Settle them lovingly where they fell,
In that good lap they loved so well;
And, their deliveries to the dear LORD said,
And the last desperate volleys ranged and sped,
Blow, you bugles of ENGLAND, blow
Over the camps of her beaten foe -
Blow glory and pity to the victor Mother,
Sad, O, sad in her sacrificial dead!

Labour, and love, and strife, and mirth,
They gave their part in this goodly Earth -
Blow, you bugles of ENGLAND, blow! -
That her Name as a su...

Labour we must, and labour hard
I' th' forum here, or vineyard.

Not from Mars and not from Thor
Comes the war, the welcome war,
Many months we waited for
To free us from the bondage
Of Winter's gloomy reign:
Valor to our hope is bound,
Songs of courage loud resound,
Vowed is Spring to win her ground
Through all our northern country,
From Oregon to Maine.

All our loyal brave allies
In the Southlands mobilize,
Faith is sworn to our emprise,
The scouting breezes whisper
That help is sure today:
Vanguards of the springtime rains
Cannonade the hills and plains,
Freeing them from Winter's chains,
So birds and buds may flourish
Around the throne of May.

Hark! and hear the clarion call
Bluebirds give by fence and wall!
Look! The darts of sunlight fall,
And red shields of the robins