Nay. We see well what we are doing, Though some may not see— Dalliers as they be— England's need are we; Her distress would leave us rueing; Nay. We well see what we are doing, Though some may not see!

In our heart of hearts believing Victory crowns the just, And that braggarts must Surely bite the dust, Press we to the field ungrieving, In our heart of hearts believing Victory crowns the just.

Hence the faith and fire within us Men who march away Ere the barn-cocks say Night is growing gray, To hazards whence no tears can win us; Hence the faith and fire within us Men who march away.

Thomas Hardy

September 5, 1914



WE WILLED IT NOT

We willed it not. We have not lived in hate, Loving too well the shires of England thrown From sea to sea to covet your estate, Or wish one flight of fortune from your throne.

We had grown proud because the nations stood Hoping together against the calumny That, tortured of its old barbarian blood, Barbarian still the heart of man should be.

Builders there are who name you overlord, Building with us the citadels of light, Who hold as we this chartered sin abhorred, And cry you risen Caesar of the Night.

Beethoven speaks with Milton on this day, And Shakespeare's word with Goethe's beats the sky, In witness of the birthright you betray, In witness of the vision you deny.

We love the hearth, the quiet hills, the song, The friendly gossip come from every land; And very peace were now a nameless wrong— You thrust this bitter quarrel to our hand.

For this your pride the tragic armies go, And the grim navies watch along the seas; You trade in death, you mock at life, you throw To God the tumult of your blasphemies.

You rob us of our love-right. It is said. In treason to the world, you are enthroned, We rise, and, by the yet ungathered dead, Not lightly shall the treason be atoned.

John Drinkwater



THE DEATH OF PEACE

Now slowly sinks the day-long labouring Sun Behind the tranquil trees and old church-tower; And we who watch him know our day is done; For us too comes the evening—and the hour.

The sunbeams slanting through those ancient trees, The sunlit lichens burning on the byre, The lark descending, and the homing bees, Proclaim the sweet relief all things desire.

Golden the river brims beneath the west, And holy peace to all the world is given; The songless stockdove preens her ruddied breast; The blue smoke windeth like a prayer to heaven.

* * * * *

O old, old England, land of golden peace, Thy fields are spun with gossameres of gold, And golden garners gather thy increase, And plenty crowns thy loveliness untold.

By sunlight or by starlight ever thou Art excellent in beauty manifold; The still star victory ever gems thy brow; Age cannot age thee, ages make thee old.

Thy beauty brightens with the evening sun Across the long-lit meads and distant spire: So sleep thou well—like his thy labour done; Rest in thy glory as he rests in fire.

* * * * *

But even in this hour of soft repose A gentle sadness chides us like a friend— The sorrow of the joy that overflows, The burden of the beauty that must end.

And from the fading sunset comes a cry, And in the twilight voices wailing past, Like wild-swans calling, "When we rest we die, And woe to them that linger and are last";

And as the Sun sinks, sudden in heav'n new born There shines an armed Angel like a Star, Who cries above the darkling world in scorn, "God comes to Judgment. Learn ye what ye are."

* * * * *

From fire to umber fades the sunset-gold, From umber into silver and twilight; The infant flowers their orisons have told And turn together folded for the night;

The garden urns are black against the eve; The white moth flitters through the fragrant glooms; How beautiful the heav'ns!—But yet we grieve And wander restless from the lighted rooms.

For through the world to-night a murmur thrills As at some new-born prodigy of time— Peace dies like twilight bleeding on the hills, And Darkness creeps to hide the hateful crime.

Art thou no more, O Maiden Heaven-born O Peace, bright Angel of the windless morn? Who comest down to bless our furrow'd fields, Or stand like Beauty smiling 'mid the corn:

Mistress of mirth and ease and summer dreams, Who lingerest among the woods and streams To help us heap the harvest 'neath the moon, And homeward laughing lead the lumb'ring teams:

Who teachest to our children thy wise lore; Who keepest full the goodman's golden store; Who crownest Life with plenty, Death with flow'rs; Peace, Queen of Kindness—but of earth, no more.

* * * * *

Not thine but ours the fault, thy care was vain; For this that we have done be ours the pain; Thou gayest much, as He who gave us all, And as we slew Him for it thou art slain.

Heav'n left to men the moulding of their fate: To live as wolves or pile the pillar'd State— Like boars and bears to grunt and growl in mire, Or dwell aloft, effulgent gods, elate.

Thou liftedst us: we slew and with thee fell— From golden thrones of wisdom weeping fell. Fate rends the chaplets from our feeble brows; The spires of Heaven fade in fogs of hell.

* * * * *

She faints, she falls; her dying eyes are dim; Her fingers play with those bright buds she bore To please us, but that she can bring no more; And dying yet she smiles—as Christ on him Who slew Him slain. Her eyes so beauteous Are lit with tears shed—not for herself but us.

The gentle Beings of the hearth and home; The lovely Dryads of her aisled woods; The Angels that do dwell in solitudes Where she dwelleth; and joyous Spirits that roam To bless her bleating flocks and fruitful lands; Are gather'd there to weep, and kiss her dying hands.

"Look, look," they cry, "she is not dead, she breathes! And we have staunched the damned wound and deep, The cavern-carven wound. She doth but sleep And will awake. Bring wine, and new-wound wreaths Wherewith to crown awaking her dear head, And make her Queen again."—But no, for Peace was dead.

* * * * *

And then there came black Lords; and Dwarfs obscene With lavish tongues; and Trolls; and treacherous Things Like loose-lipp'd Councillors and cruel Kings Who sharpen lies and daggers subterrene: And flashed their evil eyes and weeping cried, "We ruled the world for Peace. By her own hand she died."

* * * * *

In secret he made sharp the bitter blade, And poison'd it with bane of lies and drew, And stabb'd—O God! the Cruel Cripple slew; And cowards fled or lent him trembling aid, She fell and died—in all the tale of time The direst deed e'er done, the most accursed crime.

Ronald Ross



IN WAR-TIME

(AN AMERICAN HOMEWARD-BOUND)

Further and further we leave the scene Of war—and of England's care; I try to keep my mind serene— But my heart stays there;

For a distant song of pain and wrong My spirit doth deep confuse, And I sit all day on the deck, and long— And long for news!

I seem to see them in battle-line— Heroes with hearts of gold, But of their victory a sign The Fates withhold;

And the hours too tardy-footed pass, The voiceless hush grows dense 'Mid the imaginings, alas! That feed suspense.

Oh, might I lie on the wind, or fly In the wilful sea-bird's track, Would I hurry on, with a homesick cry— Or hasten back?

Florence Earle Coates



THE ANVIL

Burned from the ore's rejected dross, The iron whitens in the heat. With plangent strokes of pain and loss The hammers on the iron beat. Searched by the fire, through death and dole We feel the iron in our soul.

O dreadful Forge! if torn and bruised The heart, more urgent comes our cry Not to be spared but to be used, Brain, sinew, and spirit, before we die. Beat out the iron, edge it keen, And shape us to the end we mean!

Laurence Binyon



THE FOOL RINGS HIS BELLS

Come, Death, I'd have a word with thee; And thou, poor Innocency; And Love—a lad with broken wing; And Pity, too: The Fool shall sing to you, As Fools will sing.

Ay, music hath small sense, And a tune's soon told, And Earth is old, And my poor wits are dense; Yet have I secrets,—dark, my dear, To breathe you all: Come near. And lest some hideous listener tells, I'll ring my bells.

They're all at war! Yes, yes, their bodies go 'Neath burning sun and icy star To chaunted songs of woe, Dragging cold cannon through a mud Of rain and blood; The new moon glinting hard on eyes Wide with insanities!

Hush!... I use words I hardly know the meaning of; And the mute birds Are glancing at Love! From out their shade of leaf and flower, Trembling at treacheries

Which even in noonday cower, Heed, heed not what I said Of frenzied hosts of men, More fools than I, On envy, hatred fed, Who kill, and die— Spake I not plainly, then? Yet Pity whispered, "Why?"

Thou silly thing, off to thy daisies go. Mine was not news for child to know, And Death—no ears hath. He hath supped where creep Eyeless worms in hush of sleep; Yet, when he smiles, the hand he draws Athwart his grinning jaws Faintly their thin bones rattle, and.... There, there; Hearken how my bells in the air Drive away care!...

Nay, but a dream I had Of a world all mad. Not a simple happy mad like me, Who am mad like an empty scene Of water and willow tree, Where the wind hath been; But that foul Satan-mad, Who rots in his own head, And counts the dead, Not honest one—and two— But for the ghosts they were, Brave, faithful, true, When, head in air, In Earth's dear green and blue Heaven they did share With Beauty who bade them there....

There, now! he goes— Old Bones; I've wearied him. Ay, and the light doth dim, And asleep's the rose, And tired Innocence In dreams is hence.... Come, Love, my lad, Nodding that drowsy head, 'T is time thy prayers were said.

Walter de la Mare



THE ROAD TO DIEPPE

[Concerning the experiences of a journey on foot through the night of August 4, 1914 (the night after the formal declaration of war between England and Germany), from a town near Amiens, in France, to Dieppe, a distance of somewhat more than forty miles.]

Before I knew, the Dawn was on the road, Close at my side, so silently he came Nor gave a sign of salutation, save To touch with light my sleeve and make the way Appear as if a shining countenance Had looked on it. Strange was this radiant Youth, As I, to these fair, fertile parts of France, Where Caesar with his legions once had passed, And where the Kaiser's Uhlans yet would pass Or e'er another moon should cope with clouds For mastery of these same fields.—To-night (And but a month has gone since I walked there) Well might the Kaiser write, as Caesar wrote, In his new Commentaries on a Gallic war, "Fortissimi Belgae."—A moon ago! Who would have then divined that dead would lie Like swaths of grain beneath the harvest moon Upon these lands the ancient Belgae held, From Normandy beyond renowned Liege!—

But it was out of that dread August night From which all Europe woke to war, that we, This beautiful Dawn-Youth, and I, had come, He from afar. Beyond grim Petrograd He'd waked the moujik from his peaceful dreams, Bid the muezzin call to morning prayer Where minarets rise o'er the Golden Horn, And driven shadows from the Prussian march To lie beneath the lindens of the stadt. Softly he'd stirred the bells to ring at Rheims, He'd knocked at high Montmartre, hardly asleep; Heard the sweet carillon of doomed Louvain, Boylike, had tarried for a moment's play Amid the traceries of Amiens, And then was hast'ning on the road to Dieppe, When he o'ertook me drowsy from the hours Through which I'd walked, with no companions else Than ghostly kilometer posts that stood As sentinels' of space along the way.— Often, in doubt, I'd paused to question one, With nervous hands, as they who read Moon-type; And more than once I'd caught a moment's sleep Beside the highway, in the dripping grass, While one of these white sentinels stood guard, Knowing me for a friend, who loves the road, And best of all by night, when wheels do sleep And stars alone do walk abroad.—But once Three watchful shadows, deeper than the dark, Laid hands on me and searched me for the marks Of traitor or of spy, only to find Over my heart the badge of loyalty.— With wish for bon voyage they gave me o'er To the white guards who led me on again.

Thus Dawn o'ertook me and with magic speech Made me forget the night as we strode on. Where'er he looked a miracle was wrought: A tree grew from the darkness at a glance; A hut was thatched; a new chateau was reared Of stone, as weathered as the church at Caen; Gray blooms were coloured suddenly in red; A flag was flung across the eastern sky.— Nearer at hand, he made me then aware Of peasant women bending in the fields, Cradling and gleaning by the first scant light, Their sons and husbands somewhere o'er the edge Of these green-golden fields which they had sowed, But will not reap,—out somewhere on the march, God but knows where and if they come again. One fallow field he pointed out to me Where but the day before a peasant ploughed, Dreaming of next year's fruit, and there his plough Stood now mid-field, his horses commandeered, A monstrous sable crow perched on the beam.

Before I knew, the Dawn was on the road, Far from my side, so silently he went, Catching his golden helmet as he ran, And hast'ning on along the dun straight way, Where old men's sabots now began to clack And withered women, knitting, led their cows, On, on to call the men of Kitchener Down to their coasts,—I shouting after him: "O Dawn, would you had let the world sleep on Till all its armament were turned to rust, Nor waked it to this day of hideous hate, Of man's red murder and of woman's woe!"

Famished and lame, I came at last to Dieppe, But Dawn had made his way across the sea, And, as I climbed with heavy feet the cliff, Was even then upon the sky-built towers Of that great capital where nations all, Teuton, Italian, Gallic, English, Slav, Forget long hates in one consummate faith.

John Finley



TO FELLOW TRAVELLERS IN GREECE

MARCH-SEPTEMBER, 1914

'T was in the piping tune of peace We trod the sacred soil of Greece, Nor thought, where the Ilissus runs, Of Teuton craft or Teuton guns;

Nor dreamt that, ere the year was spent, Their iron challenge insolent Would round the world's horizons pour, From Europe to the Australian shore.

The tides of war had ebb'd away From Trachis and Thermopylae, Long centuries had come and gone Since that fierce day at Marathon;

Freedom was firmly based, and we Wall'd by our own encircling sea; The ancient passions dead, and men Battl'd with ledger and with pen.

So seem'd it, but to them alone The wisdom of the gods is known; Lest freedom's price decline, from far Zeus hurl'd the thunderbolt of war.

And so once more the Persian steel The armies of the Greeks must feel, And once again a Xerxes know The virtue of a Spartan foe.

Thus may the cloudy fates unroll'd Retrace the starry circles old, And the recurrent heavens decree A Periclean dynasty.

W. Macneile Dixon



"WHEN THERE IS PEACE"

"When there is Peace our land no more Will be the land we knew of yore." Thus do our facile seers foretell The truth that none can buy or sell And e'en the wisest must ignore.

When we have bled at every pore, Shall we still strive for gear and store? Will it be Heaven? Will it be Hell, When there is Peace?

This let us pray for, this implore: That all base dreams thrust out at door, We may in loftier aims excel And, like men waking from a spell, Grow stronger, nobler, than before, When there is Peace.

Austin Dobson



A PRAYER IN TIME OF WAR

[ The war will change many things in art and life, and among them, it is to be hoped, many of our own ideas as to what is, and what is not, "intellectual."]

Thou, whose deep ways are in the sea, Whose footsteps are not known, To-night a world that turned from Thee Is waiting—at Thy Throne.

The towering Babels that we raised Where scoffing sophists brawl, The little Antichrists we praised— The night is on them all.

The fool hath said.... The fool hath said.... And we, who deemed him wise, We who believed that Thou wast dead, How should we seek Thine eyes?

How should we seek to Thee for power Who scorned Thee yesterday? How should we kneel, in this dread hour? Lord, teach us how to pray!

Grant us the single heart, once more, That mocks no sacred thing, The Sword of Truth our fathers wore When Thou wast Lord and King.

Let darkness unto darkness tell Our deep unspoken prayer, For, while our souls in darkness dwell, We know that Thou art there.

Alfred Noyes



THEN AND NOW

When battles were fought With a chivalrous sense of should and ought, In spirit men said, "End we quick or dead, Honour is some reward! Let us fight fair—for our own best or worst; So, Gentlemen of the Guard, Fire first!"

In the open they stood, Man to man in his knightlihood: They would not deign To profit by a stain On the honourable rules, Knowing that practise perfidy no man durst Who in the heroic schools Was nurst.

But now, behold, what Is war with those where honour is not! Rama laments Its dead innocents; Herod howls: "Sly slaughter Rules now! Let us, by modes once called accurst, Overhead, under water, Stab first."

Thomas Hardy



THE KAISER AND GOD

["I rejoice with you in Wilhelm's first victory. How magnificently God supported him!"—Telegram from the Kaiser to the Crown Princess.]

Led by Wilhelm, as you tell, God has done extremely well; You with patronizing nod Show that you approve of God. Kaiser, face a question new— This—does God approve of you?

Broken pledges, treaties torn, Your first page of war adorn; We on fouler things must look Who read further in that book, Where you did in time of war All that you in peace forswore, Where you, barbarously wise, Bade your soldiers terrorize,

Where you made—the deed was fine— Women screen your firing line. Villages burned down to dust, Torture, murder, bestial lust, Filth too foul for printer's ink, Crime from which the apes would shrink— Strange the offerings that you press On the God of Righteousness!

Kaiser, when you'd decorate Sons or friends who serve your State, Not that Iron Cross bestow, But a cross of wood, and so— So remind the world that you Have made Calvary anew.

Kaiser, when you'd kneel in prayer Look upon your hands, and there Let that deep and awful stain From the Wood of children slain Burn your very soul with shame, Till you dare not breathe that Name That now you glibly advertise— God as one of your allies.

Impious braggart, you forget; God is not your conscript yet; You shall learn in dumb amaze That His ways are not your ways, That the mire through which you trod Is not the high white road of God.

To Whom, whichever way the combat rolls, We, fighting to the end, commend our souls.

Barry Pain



THE SUPERMAN

The horror-haunted Belgian plains riven by shot and shell Are strewn with her undaunted sons who stayed the jaws of hell. In every sunny vale of France death is the countersign. The purest blood in Britain's veins is being poured like wine.

Far, far across the crimsoned map the impassioned armies sweep. Destruction flashes down the sky and penetrates the deep. The Dreadnought knows the silent dread, and seas incarnadine Attest the carnival of strife, the madman's battle scene.

Relentless, savage, hot, and grim the infuriate columns press Where terror simulates disdain and danger is largess, Where greedy youth claims death for bride and agony seems bliss. It is the cause, the cause, my soul! which sanctifies all this.

Ride, Cossacks, ride! Charge, Turcos, charge! The fateful hour has come. Let all the guns of Britain roar or be forever dumb. The Superman has burst his bonds. With Kultur-flag unfurled And prayer on lip he runs amuck, imperilling the world.

The impious creed that might is right in him personified Bids all creation bend before the insatiate Teuton pride, Which, nourished on Valhalla dreams of empire unconfined, Would make the cannon and the sword the despots of mankind.

Efficient, thorough, strong, and brave—his vision is to kill. Force is the hearthstone of his might, the pole-star of his will. His forges glow malevolent: their minions never tire To deck the goddess of his lust whose twins are blood and fire.

O world grown sick with butchery and manifold distress! O broken Belgium robbed of all save grief and ghastliness! Should Prussian power enslave the world and arrogance prevail, Let chaos come, let Moloch rule, and Christ give place to Baal.

Robert Grant



THREE HILLS

There is a hill in England, Green fields and a school I know, Where the balls fly fast in summer, And the whispering elm-trees grow, A little hill, a dear hill, And the playing fields below.

There is a hill in Flanders, Heaped with a thousand slain, Where the shells fly night and noontide And the ghosts that died in vain,— A little hill, a hard hill To the souls that died in pain.

There is a hill in Jewry, Three crosses pierce the sky, On the midmost He is dying To save all those who die,— A little hill, a kind hill To souls in jeopardy.

Everard Owen

Harrow, December, 1915



THE RETURN

I heard the rumbling guns. I saw the smoke, The unintelligible shock of hosts that still, Far off, unseeing, strove and strove again; And Beauty flying naked down the hill

From morn to eve: and the stern night cried Peace! And shut the strife in darkness: all was still, Then slowly crept a triumph on the dark— And I heard Beauty singing up the hill.

John Freeman



THE MOBILIZATION IN BRITTANY

I

It was silent in the street. I did not know until a woman told me, Sobbing over the muslin she sold me. Then I went out and walked to the square And saw a few dazed people standing there.

And then the drums beat, the drums beat! O then the drums beat! And hurrying, stumbling through the street Came the hurrying stumbling feet. O I have heard the drums beat For war! I have heard the townsfolk come, I have heard the roll and thunder of the nearest drum As the drummer stopped and cried, "Hear! Be strong! The summons comes! Prepare!" Closing he prayed us to be calm....

And there was calm in my heart of the desert, of the dead sea, Of vast plains of the West before the coming storm, And there was calm in their eyes like the last calm that shall be.

And then the drum beat, The fatal drum, beat, And the drummer marched through the street And down to another square, And the drummer above took up the beat And sent it onward where Huddled, we stood and heard the drums roll, And then a bell began to toll.

O I have heard the thunder of drums Crashing into simple poor homes. I have heard the drums roll "Farewell!" I have heard the tolling cathedral bell. Will it ever peal again? Shall I ever smile or feel again? What was joy? What was pain?

For I have heard the drums beat, I have seen the drummer striding from street to street, Crying, "Be strong! Hear what I must tell!" While the drums roared and rolled and beat For war!

II

Last night the men of this region were leaving. Now they are far. Rough and strong they are, proud and gay they are. So this is the way of war....

The train was full and we all shouted as it pulled away. They sang an old war-song, they were true to themselves, they were gay! We might have thought they were going for a holiday—

Except for something in the air, Except for the weeping of the ruddy old women of Finistere. The younger women do not weep. They dream and stare.

They seem to be walking in dreams. They seem not to know It is their homes, their happiness, vanishing so. (Every strong man between twenty and forty must go.)

They sang an old war-song. I have heard it often in other days, But never before when War was walking the world's highways. They sang, they shouted, the Marseillaise!

The train went and another has gone, but none, coming, has brought word. Though you may know, you, out in the world, we have not heard, We are not sure that the great battalions have stirred—

Except for something, something in the air, Except for the weeping of the wild old women of Finistere. How long will the others dream and stare?

The train went. The strong men of this region are all away, afar. Rough and strong they are, proud and gay they are. So this is the way of war....

Grace Fallow Norton



THE TOY BAND

(A SONG OF THE GREAT RETREAT)

Dreary lay the long road, dreary lay the town, Lights out and never a glint o' moon: Weary lay the stragglers, half a thousand down, Sad sighed the weary big Dragoon. "Oh! if I'd a drum here to make them take the road again, Oh! if I'd a fife to wheedle, Come, boys, come! You that mean to fight it out, wake and take your load again, Fall in! Fall in! Follow the fife and drum!

"Hey, but here's a toy shop, here's a drum for me, Penny whistles too to play the tune! Half a thousand dead men soon shall hear and see We're a band!" said the weary big Dragoon. "Rubadub! Rubadub! Wake and take the road again, Wheedle-deedle-deedle-dee, Come, boys, come! You that mean to fight it out, wake and take your load again, Fall in! Fall in! Follow the fife and drum!"

Cheerly goes the dark road, cheerly goes the night, Cheerly goes the blood to keep the beat: Half a thousand dead men marching on to fight With a little penny drum to lift their feet. Rubadub! Rubadub! Wake and take the road again, Wheedle-deedle-deedle-dee, Come, boys, come! You that mean to fight it out, wake and take your load again, Fall in! Fall in! Follow the fife and drum!

As long as there's an Englishman to ask a tale of me, As long as I can tell the tale aright, We'll not forget the penny whistle's wheedle-deedle-dee And the big Dragoon a-beating down the night, Rubadub! Rubadub! Wake and take the road again, Wheedle-deedle-deedle-dee, Come, boys, come! You that mean to fight it out, wake and take your load again, Fall in! Fall in! Follow the fife and drum!

Henry Newbolt



THOMAS OF THE LIGHT HEART

Facing the guns, he jokes as well As any Judge upon the Bench; Between the crash of shell and shell His laughter rings along the trench; He seems immensely tickled by a Projectile which he calls a "Black Maria."

He whistles down the day-long road, And, when the chilly shadows fall And heavier hangs the weary load, Is he down-hearted? Not at all. 'T is then he takes a light and airy View of the tedious route to Tipperary.

His songs are not exactly hymns; He never learned them in the choir; And yet they brace his dragging limbs Although they miss the sacred fire; Although his choice and cherished gems Do not include "The Watch upon the Thames."

He takes to fighting as a game; He does no talking, through his hat, Of holy missions; all the same He has his faith—be sure of that; He'll not disgrace his sporting breed, Nor play what isn't cricket. There's his creed.

Owen Seaman

October, 1914



IN THE TRENCHES

As I lay in the trenches Under the Hunter's Moon, My mind ran to the lenches Cut in a Wiltshire down.

I saw their long black shadows, The beeches in the lane, The gray church in the meadows And my white cottage—plain.

Thinks I, the down lies dreaming Under that hot moon's eye, Which sees the shells fly screaming And men and horses die.

And what makes she, I wonder, Of the horror and the blood, And what's her luck, to sunder The evil from the good?

'T was more than I could compass, For how was I to think With such infernal rumpus In such a blasted stink?

But here's a thought to tally With t'other. That moon sees A shrouded German valley With woods and ghostly trees.

And maybe there's a river As we have got at home With poplar-trees aquiver And clots of whirling foam.

And over there some fellow, A German and a foe, Whose gills are turning yellow As sure as mine are so,

Watches that riding glory Apparel'd in her gold, And craves to hear the story Her frozen lips enfold.

And if he sees as clearly As I do where her shrine Must fall, he longs as dearly. With heart as full as mine.

Maurice Hewlett



THE GUARDS CAME THROUGH

Men of the Twenty-first Up by the Chalk Pit Wood, Weak with our wounds and our thirst, Wanting our sleep and our food, After a day and a night— God, shall we ever forget! Beaten and broke in the fight, But sticking it—sticking it yet. Trying to hold the line, Fainting and spent and done, Always the thud and the whine, Always the yell of the Hun! Northumberland, Lancaster, York, Durham and Somerset, Fighting alone, worn to the bone, But sticking it—sticking it yet.

Never a message of hope! Never a word of cheer! Fronting Hill 70's shell-swept slope, With the dull dead plain in our rear. Always the whine of the shell, Always the roar of its burst, Always the tortures of hell, As waiting and wincing we cursed Our luck and the guns and the Boche, When our Corporal shouted, "Stand to!" And I heard some one cry, "Clear the front for the Guards!" And the Guards came through.

Our throats they were parched and hot, But Lord, if you'd heard the cheers! Irish and Welsh and Scot, Coldstream and Grenadiers. Two brigades, if you please, Dressing as straight as a hem, We—we were down on our knees, Praying for us and for them! Lord, I could speak for a week, But how could you understand! How should your cheeks be wet, Such feelin's don't come to you. But when can me or my mates forget, When the Guards came through?

"Five yards left extend!" It passed from rank to rank. Line after line with never a bend, And a touch of the London swank. A trifle of swank and dash, Cool as a home parade, Twinkle and glitter and flash, Flinching never a shade, With the shrapnel right in their face Doing their Hyde Park stunt, Keeping their swing at an easy pace, Arms at the trail, eyes front! Man, it was great to see! Man, it was fine to do! It's a cot and a hospital ward for me, But I'll tell 'em in Blighty, wherever I be, How the Guards came through.

Arthur Conan Doyle



THE PASSENGERS OF A RETARDED SUBMERSIBLE

NOVEMBER, 1916

THE AMERICAN PEOPLE: What was it kept you so long, brave German submersible? We have been very anxious lest matters had not gone well With you and the precious cargo of your country's drugs and dyes. But here you are at last, and the sight is good for our eyes, Glad to welcome you up and out of the caves of the sea, And ready for sale or barter, whatever your will may be.

THE CAPTAIN OF THE SUBMERSIBLE: Oh, do not be impatient, good friends of this neutral land, That we have been so tardy in reaching your eager strand. We were stopped by a curious chance just off the Irish coast, Where the mightiest wreck ever was lay crowded with a host Of the dead that went down with her; and some prayed us to bring them here That they might be at home with their brothers and sisters dear. We Germans have tender hearts, and it grieved us sore to say We were not a passenger ship, and to most we must answer nay, But if from among their hundreds they could somehow a half-score choose We thought we could manage to bring them, and we would not refuse. They chose, and the women and children that are greeting you here are those Ghosts of the women and children that the rest of the hundred chose.

THE AMERICAN PEOPLE: What guff are you giving us, Captain? We are able to tell, we hope, A dozen ghosts, when we see them, apart from a periscope. Come, come, get down to business! For time is money, you know, And you must make up in both to us for having been so slow. Better tell this story of yours to the submarines, for we Know there was no such wreck, and none of your spookery.

THE GHOSTS OF THE LUSITANIA WOMEN AND CHILDREN: Oh, kind kin of our murderers, take us back when you sail away; Our own kin have forgotten us. O Captain, do not stay! But hasten, Captain, hasten: The wreck that lies under the sea Shall be ever the home for us this land can never be.

William Dean Howells



EDITH CAVELL

She was binding the wounds of her enemies when they came— The lint in her hand unrolled. They battered the door with their rifle-butts, crashed it in: She faced them gentle and bold.

They haled her before the judges where they sat In their places, helmet on head. With question and menace the judges assailed her, "Yes, I have broken your law," she said.

"I have tended the hurt and hidden the hunted, have done As a sister does to a brother, Because of a law that is greater than that you have made, Because I could do none other.

"Deal as you will with me. This is my choice to the end, To live in the life I vowed." "She is self-confessed," they cried; "she is self-condemned. She shall die, that the rest may be cowed."

In the terrible hour of the dawn, when the veins are cold, They led her forth to the wall. "I have loved my land," she said, "but it is not enough: Love requires of me all.

"I will empty my heart of the bitterness, hating none." And sweetness filled her brave With a vision of understanding beyond the hour That knelled to the waiting grave.

They bound her eyes, but she stood as if she shone. The rifles it was that shook When the hoarse command rang out. They could not endure That last, that defenceless look.

And the officer strode and pistolled her surely, ashamed That men, seasoned in blood, Should quail at a woman, only a woman,— As a flower stamped in the mud.

And now that the deed was securely done, in the night When none had known her fate, They answered those that had striven for her, day by day: "It is over, you come too late."

And with many words and sorrowful-phrased excuse Argued their German right To kill, most legally; hard though the duty be, The law must assert its might.

Only a woman! yet she had pity on them, The victim offered slain To the gods of fear that they worship. Leave them there, Red hands, to clutch their gain!

She bewailed not herself, and we will bewail her not, But with tears of pride rejoice That an English soul was found so crystal-clear To be triumphant voice

Of the human heart that dares adventure all But live to itself untrue, And beyond all laws sees love as the light in the night, As the star it must answer to.

The hurts she healed, the thousands comforted—these Make a fragrance of her fame. But because she stept to her star right on through death It is Victory speaks her name.

Laurence Binyon



THE HELL-GATE OF SOISSONS

My name is Darino, the poet. You have heard? Oui, Comedie Francaise. Perchance it has happened, mon ami, you know of my unworthy lays. Ah, then you must guess how my fingers are itching to talk to a pen; For I was at Soissons, and saw it, the death of the twelve Englishmen.

My leg, malheureusement, I left it behind on the banks of the Aisne. Regret? I would pay with the other to witness their valor again. A trifle, indeed, I assure you, to give for the honor to tell How that handful of British, undaunted, went into the Gateway of Hell.

Let me draw you a plan of the battle. Here we French and your Engineers stood; Over there a detachment of German sharpshooters lay hid in a wood. A mitrailleuse battery planted on top of this well-chosen ridge Held the road for the Prussians and covered the direct approach to the bridge.

It was madness to dare the dense murder that spewed from those ghastly machines. (Only those who have danced to its music can know what the mitrailleuse means.) But the bridge on the Aisne was a menace; our safety demanded its fall: "Engineers,—volunteers!" In a body, the Royals stood out at the call.

Death at best was the fate of that mission—to their glory not one was dismayed. A party was chosen—and seven survived till the powder was laid. And they died with their fuses unlighted. Another detachment! Again A sortie is made—all too vainly. The bridge still commanded the Aisne.

We were fighting two foes—Time and Prussia—the moments were worth more than troops. We must blow up the bridge. A lone soldier darts out from the Royals and swoops For the fuse! Fate seems with us. We cheer him; he answers—our hopes are reborn! A ball rips his visor—his khaki shows red where another has torn.

Will he live—will he last—will he make it? Helas! And so near to the goal! A second, he dies! then a third one! A fourth! Still the Germans take toll! A fifth, magnifique! It is magic! How does he escape them? He may.... Yes, he does! See, the match flares! A rifle rings out from the wood and says "Nay!"

Six, seven, eight, nine take their places, six, seven, eight, nine brave their hail; Six, seven, eight, nine—how we count them! But the sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth fail! A tenth! Sacre nom! But these English are soldiers—they know how to try; (He fumbles the place where his jaw was)—they show, too, how heroes can die.

Ten we count—ten who ventured unquailing—ten there were—and ten are no more! Yet another salutes and superbly essays where the ten failed before. God of Battles, look down and protect him! Lord, his heart is as Thine— let him live! But the mitrailleuse splutters and stutters, and riddles him into a sieve.

Then I thought of my sins, and sat waiting the charge that we could not withstand. And I thought of my beautiful Paris, and gave a last look at the land, At France, my belle France, in her glory of blue sky and green field and wood. Death with honor, but never surrender. And to die with such men—it was good.

They are forming—the bugles are blaring—they will cross in a moment and then.... When out of the line of the Royals (your island, mon ami, breeds men) Burst a private, a tawny-haired giant—it was hopeless, but, ciel! how he ran! Bon Dieu please remember the pattern, and make many more on his plan!

No cheers from our ranks, and the Germans, they halted in wonderment too; See, he reaches the bridge; ah! he lights it! I am dreaming, it cannot be true. Screams of rage! Fusillade! They have killed him! Too late though, the good work is done. By the valor of twelve English martyrs, the Hell-Gate of Soissons is won!

Herbert Kaufman



THE VIRGIN OF ALBERT

(NOTRE DAME DE BREBIERES)

Shyly expectant, gazing up at Her, They linger, Gaul and Briton, side by side: Death they know well, for daily have they died, Spending their boyhood ever bravelier; They wait: here is no priest or chorister, Birds skirt the stricken tower, terrified; Desolate, empty, is the Eastertide, Yet still they wait, watching the Babe and Her.

Broken, the Mother stoops: the brutish foe Hurled with dull hate his bolts, and down She swayed, Down, till She saw the toiling swarms below,— Platoons, guns, transports, endlessly arrayed: "Women are woe for them! let Me be theirs, And comfort them, and hearken all their prayers!"

George Herbert Clarke



RETREAT

Broken, bewildered by the long retreat Across the stifling leagues of southern plain, Across the scorching leagues of trampled grain, Half-stunned, half-blinded, by the trudge of feet And dusty smother of the August heat, He dreamt of flowers in an English lane, Of hedgerow flowers glistening after rain— All-heal and willow-herb and meadow-sweet.

All-heal and willow-herb and meadow-sweet— The innocent names kept up a cool refrain— All-heal and willow-herb and meadow-sweet, Chiming and tinkling in his aching brain, Until he babbled like a child again— "All-heal and willow-herb and meadow-sweet."

Wilfrid Wilson Gibson



A LETTER FROM THE FRONT

I was out early to-day, spying about From the top of a haystack—such a lovely morning— And when I mounted again to canter back I saw across a field in the broad sunlight A young Gunner Subaltern, stalking along With a rook-rifle held at the ready, and—would you believe it?— A domestic cat, soberly marching beside him.

So I laughed, and felt quite well disposed to the youngster, And shouted out "the top of the morning" to him, And wished him "Good sport!"—and then I remembered My rank, and his, and what I ought to be doing: And I rode nearer, and added, "I can only suppose You have not seen the Commander-in-Chief's order Forbidding English officers to annoy their Allies By hunting and shooting." But he stood and saluted And said earnestly, "I beg your pardon, Sir, I was only going out to shoot a sparrow To feed my cat with." So there was the whole picture, The lovely early morning, the occasional shell Screeching and scattering past us, the empty landscape,— Empty, except for the young Gunner saluting, And the cat, anxiously watching his every movement.

I may be wrong, and I may have told it badly, But it struck me as being extremely ludicrous.

Henry Newbolt



RHEIMS CATHEDRAL—1914

A winged death has smitten dumb thy bells, And poured them molten from thy tragic towers: Now are the windows dust that were thy flower Patterned like frost, petalled like asphodels. Gone are the angels and the archangels, The saints, the little lamb above thy door, The shepherd Christ! They are not, any more, Save in the soul where exiled beauty dwells.

But who has heard within thy vaulted gloom That old divine insistence of the sea, When music flows along the sculptured stone In tides of prayer, for him thy windows bloom Like faithful sunset, warm immortally! Thy bells live on, and Heaven is in their tone!

Grace Hazard Conkling



I HAVE A RENDEZVOUS WITH DEATH....

I have a rendezvous with Death At some disputed barricade, When Spring comes back with rustling shade And apple-blossoms fill the air— I have a rendezvous with Death When Spring brings back blue days and fair.

It may be he shall take my hand And lead me into his dark land And close my eyes and quench my breath— It may be I shall pass him still. I have a rendezvous with Death On some scarred slope of battered hill, When Spring comes round again this year And the first meadow-flowers appear.

God knows 't were better to be deep Pillowed in silk and scented down, Where Love throbs out in blissful sleep Pulse nigh to pulse, and breath to breath, Where hushed awakenings are dear.... But I've a rendezvous with Death At midnight in some flaming town, When Spring trips north again this year, And I to my pledged word am true, I shall not fail that rendezvous.

Alan Seeger



THE SOLDIER

If I should die, think only this of me: That there's some corner of a foreign field That is for ever England. There shall be In that rich earth a richer dust concealed; A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware, Gave once her flowers to love, her ways to roam, A body of England's, breathing English air, Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.

And think this heart, all evil shed away, A pulse in the eternal mind, no less Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given; Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day; And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness, In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.

Rupert Brooke



EXPECTANS EXPECTAVI

From morn to midnight, all day through, I laugh and play as others do, I sin and chatter, just the same As others with a different name.

And all year long upon the stage, I dance and tumble and do rage So vehemently, I scarcely see The inner and eternal me.

I have a temple I do not Visit, a heart I have forgot, A self that I have never met, A secret shrine—and yet, and yet

This sanctuary of my soul Unwitting I keep white and whole, Unlatched and lit, if Thou should'st care To enter or to tarry there.

With parted lips and outstretched hands And listening ears Thy servant stands, Call Thou early, call Thou late, To Thy great service dedicate.

Charles Hamilton Sorley

May, 1915



THE VOLUNTEER

Here lies a clerk who half his life had spent Toiling at ledgers in a city grey, Thinking that so his days would drift away With no lance broken in life's tournament: Yet ever 'twixt the books and his bright eyes The gleaming eagles of the legions came, And horsemen, charging under phantom skies, Went thundering past beneath the oriflamme.

And now those waiting dreams are satisfied; From twilight to the halls of dawn he went; His lance is broken; but he lies content With that high hour, in which he lived and died. And falling thus he wants no recompense, Who found his battle in the last resort; Nor needs he any hearse to bear him hence, Who goes to join the men of Agincourt.

Herbert Asquith



INTO BATTLE

The naked earth is warm with Spring, And with green grass and bursting trees Leans to the sun's gaze glorying, And quivers in the sunny breeze; And Life is Colour and Warmth and Light, And a striving evermore for these; And he is dead who will not fight; And who dies fighting has increase.

The fighting man shall from the sun Take warmth, and life from the glowing earth; Speed with the light-foot winds to run, And with the trees to newer birth; And find, when fighting shall be done, Great rest, and fullness after dearth.

All the bright company of Heaven Hold him in their high comradeship, The Dog-Star, and the Sisters Seven, Orion's Belt and sworded hip.

The woodland trees that stand together, They stand to him each one a friend; They gently speak in the windy weather; They guide to valley and ridges' end.

The kestrel hovering by day, And the little owls that call by night, Bid him be swift and keen as they, As keen of ear, as swift of sight.

The blackbird sings to him, "Brother, brother, If this be the last song you shall sing, Sing well, for you may not sing another; Brother, sing."

In dreary, doubtful, waiting hours, Before the brazen frenzy starts, The horses show him nobler powers; O patient eyes, courageous hearts!

And when the burning moment breaks, And all things else are out of mind, And only Joy-of-Battle takes Him by the throat, and makes him blind,

Through joy and blindness he shall know, Not caring much to know, that still Nor lead nor steel shall reach him, so That it be not the Destined Will.

The thundering line of battle stands, And in the air Death moans and sings; But Day shall clasp him with strong hands, And Night shall fold him in soft wings.

Julian Grenfell

Flanders, April, 1915



THE CRICKETERS OF FLANDERS

The first to climb the parapet With "cricket balls" in either hand; The first to vanish in the smoke Of God-forsaken No Man's Land; First at the wire and soonest through, First at those red-mouthed hounds of hell, The Maxims, and the first to fall,— They do their bit and do it well.

Full sixty yards I've seen them throw With all that nicety of aim They learned on British cricket-fields. Ah, bombing is a Briton's game! Shell-hole to shell-hole, trench, to trench, "Lobbing them over" with an eye As true as though it were a game And friends were having tea close by.

Pull down some art-offending thing Of carven stone, and in its stead Let splendid bronze commemorate These men, the living and the dead. No figure of heroic size, Towering skyward like a god; But just a lad who might have stepped From any British bombing squad.

His shrapnel helmet set atilt, His bombing waistcoat sagging low, His rifle slung across his back: Poised in the very act to throw. And let some graven legend tell Of those weird battles in the West Wherein he put old skill to use, And played old games with sterner zest.

Thus should he stand, reminding those In less-believing days, perchance, How Britain's fighting cricketers Helped bomb the Germans out of France. And other eyes than ours would see; And other hearts than ours would thrill; And others say, as we have said: "A sportsman and a soldier still!"

James Norman Hall



"ALL THE HILLS AND VALES ALONG"

All the hills and vales along Earth is bursting into song, And the singers are the chaps Who are going to die perhaps. O sing, marching men, Till the valleys ring again. Give your gladness to earth's keeping, So be glad, when you are sleeping.

Cast away regret and rue, Think what you are marching to. Little live, great pass. Jesus Christ and Barabbas Were found the same day. This died, that went his way. So sing with joyful breath. For why, you are going to death. Teeming earth will surely store All the gladness that you pour.

Earth that never doubts nor fears, Earth that knows of death, not tears, Earth that bore with joyful ease Hemlock for Socrates, Earth that blossomed and was glad 'Neath the cross that Christ had, Shall rejoice and blossom too When the bullet reaches you. Wherefore, men marching On the road to death, sing! Pour your gladness on earth's head, So be merry, so be dead.

From the hills and valleys earth. Shouts back the sound of mirth, Tramp of feet and lilt of song Ringing all the road along. All the music of their going, Ringing, swinging, glad song-throwing, Earth will echo still, when foot Lies numb and voice mute. On, marching men, on To the gates of death with song. Sow your gladness for earth's reaping, So you may be glad, though sleeping. Strew your gladness on earth's bed, So be merry, so be dead.

Charles Hamilton Sorley



NO MAN'S LAND

No Man's Land is an eerie sight At early dawn in the pale gray light. Never a house and never a hedge In No Man's Land from edge to edge, And never a living soul walks there To taste the fresh of the morning air;— Only some lumps of rotting clay, That were friends or foemen yesterday.

What are the bounds of No Man's Land? You can see them clearly on either hand, A mound of rag-bags gray in the sun, Or a furrow of brown where the earthworks run From the eastern hills to the western sea, Through field or forest o'er river and lea; No man may pass them, but aim you well And Death rides across on the bullet or shell.

But No Man's Land is a goblin sight When patrols crawl over at dead o' night; Boche or British, Belgian or French, You dice with death when you cross the trench. When the "rapid," like fireflies in the dark, Flits down the parapet spark by spark, And you drop for cover to keep your head With your face on the breast of the four months' dead.

The man who ranges in No Man's Land Is dogged by the shadows on either hand When the star-shell's flare, as it bursts o'erhead, Scares the gray rats that feed on the dead, And the bursting bomb or the bayonet-snatch May answer the click of your safety-catch, For the lone patrol, with his life in his hand, Is hunting for blood in No Man's Land.

James H. Knight-Adkin



CHAMPAGNE, 1914-15

In the glad revels, in the happy fetes, When cheeks are flushed, and glasses gilt and pearled With the sweet wine of France that concentrates The sunshine and the beauty of the world,

Drink sometimes, you whose footsteps yet may tread The undisturbed, delightful paths of Earth, To those whose blood, in pious duty shed, Hallows the soil where that same wine had birth.

Here, by devoted comrades laid away, Along our lines they slumber where they fell, Beside the crater at the Ferme d'Alger And up the bloody slopes of La Pompelle,

And round the city whose cathedral towers The enemies of Beauty dared profane, And in the mat of multicolored flowers That clothe the sunny chalk-fields of Champagne,

Under the little crosses where they rise The soldier rests. Now round him undismayed The cannon thunders, and at night he lies At peace beneath the eternal fusillade....

That other generations might possess— From shame and menace free in years to come— A richer heritage of happiness, He marched to that heroic martyrdom.

Esteeming less the forfeit that he paid Than undishonored that his flag might float Over the towers of liberty, he made His breast the bulwark and his blood the moat.

Obscurely sacrificed, his nameless tomb, Bare of the sculptor's art, the poet's lines, Summer shall flush with poppy-fields in bloom, And Autumn yellow with maturing vines.

There the grape-pickers at their harvesting Shall lightly tread and load their wicker trays, Blessing his memory as they toil and sing In the slant sunshine of October days....

I love to think that if my blood should be So privileged to sink where his has sunk, I shall not pass from Earth entirely, But when the banquet rings, when healths are drunk,

And faces that the joys of living fill Glow radiant with laughter and good cheer, In beaming cups some spark of me shall still Brim toward the lips that once I held so dear.

So shall one coveting no higher plane Than nature clothes in color and flesh and tone, Even from the grave put upward to attain The dreams youth cherished and missed and might have known;

And that strong need that strove unsatisfied Toward earthly beauty in all forms it wore, Not death itself shall utterly divide From the beloved shapes it thirsted for.

Alas, how many an adept for whose arms Life held delicious offerings perished here, How many in the prime of all that charms, Crowned with all gifts that conquer and endear!

Honor them not so much with tears and flowers, But you with whom the sweet fulfilment lies, Where in the anguish of atrocious hours Turned their last thoughts and closed their dying eyes,

Rather when music on bright gatherings lays Its tender spell, and joy is uppermost, Be mindful of the men they were, and raise Your glasses to them in one silent toast.

Drink to them—amorous of dear Earth as well, They asked no tribute lovelier than this— And in the wine that ripened where they fell, Oh, frame your lips as though it were a kiss.

Alan Seeger

Champagne, France,

July, 1915



HEADQUARTERS

A league and a league from the trenches—from the traversed maze of the lines, Where daylong the sniper watches and daylong the bullet whines, And the cratered earth is in travail with mines and with countermines— Here, where haply some woman dreamed (are those her roses that bloom In the garden beyond the windows of my littered working room?) We have decked the map for our masters as a bride is decked for the groom.

Fair, on each lettered numbered square—crossroad and mound and wire, Loophole, redoubt, and emplacement—lie the targets their mouths desire; Gay with purples and browns and blues, have we traced them their arcs of fire.

And ever the type-keys chatter; and ever our keen wires bring Word from the watchers a-crouch below, word from the watchers a-wing: And ever we hear the distant growl of our hid 'guns thundering.

Hear it hardly, and turn again to our maps, where the trench lines crawl, Red on the gray and each with a sign for the ranging shrapnel's fall— Snakes that our masters shall scotch at dawn, as is written here on the wall.

For the weeks of our waiting draw to a close.... There is scarcely a leaf astir In the garden beyond my windows, where the twilight shadows blur The blaze of some woman's roses.... "Bombardment orders, sir."

Gilbert Frankau



HOME THOUGHTS FROM LAVENTIE

Green gardens in Laventie! Soldiers only know the street Where the mud is churned and splashed about By battle-wending feet; And yet beside one stricken house there is a glimpse of grass— Look for it when you pass.

Beyond the church whose pitted spire Seems balanced on a strand Of swaying stone and tottering brick, Two roofless ruins stand; And here, among the wreckage, where the back-wall should have been, We found a garden green.

The grass was never trodden on, The little path of gravel Was overgrown with celandine; No other folk did travel Along its weedy surface but the nimble-footed mouse, Running from house to house.

So all along the tender blades Of soft and vivid grass We lay, nor heard the limber wheels That pass and ever pass In noisy continuity until their stony rattle Seems in itself a battle.

At length we rose up from this ease Of tranquil happy mind, And searched the garden's little length Some new pleasaunce to find; And there some yellow daffodils, and jasmine hanging high, Did rest the tired eye.

The fairest and most fragrant Of the many sweets we found Was a little bush of Daphne flower Upon a mossy mound, And so thick were the blossoms set and so divine the scent, That we were well content.

Hungry for Spring I bent my head, The perfume fanned my face, And all my soul was dancing In that lovely little place, Dancing with a measured step from wrecked and shattered towns Away ... upon the Downs.

I saw green banks of daffodil, Slim poplars in the breeze, Great tan-brown hares in gusty March A-courting on the leas. And meadows, with their glittering streams—and silver-scurrying dace— Home, what a perfect place!

E. Wyndham Tennant



A PETITION

All that a man might ask thou hast given me, England, Birthright and happy childhood's long heart's-ease, And love whose range is deep beyond all sounding And wider than all seas: A heart to front the world and find God in it. Eyes blind enow but not too blind to see The lovely things behind the dross and darkness, And lovelier things to be; And friends whose loyalty time nor death shall weaken And quenchless hope and laughter's golden store— All that a man might ask thou hast given me, England, Yet grant thou one thing more: That now when envious foes would spoil thy splendour, Unversed in arms, a dreamer such, as I, May in thy ranks be deemed not all unworthy, England, for thee to die.

Robert Ernest Vernede



FULFILMENT

Was there love once? I have forgotten her. Was there grief once? Grief yet is mine. Other loves I have, men rough, but men who stir More grief, more joy, than love of thee and thine.

Faces cheerful, full of whimsical mirth, Lined by the wind, burned by the sun; Bodies enraptured by the abounding earth, As whose children we are brethren: one.

And any moment may descend hot death To shatter limbs! Pulp, tear, blast Beloved soldiers who love rough life and breath Not less for dying faithful to the last.

O the fading eyes, the grimed face turned bony, Oped mouth gushing, fallen head, Lessening pressure of a hand, shrunk, clammed and stony! O sudden spasm, release of the dead!

Was there love once? I have forgotten her. Was there grief once? Grief yet is mine. O loved, living, dying, heroic soldier, All, all my joy, my grief, my love, are thine.

Robert Nichols



THE DAY'S MARCH

The battery grides and jingles, Mile succeeds to mile; Shaking the noonday sunshine The guns lunge out awhile, And then are still awhile.

We amble along the highway; The reeking, powdery dust Ascends and cakes our faces With a striped, sweaty crust.

Under the still sky's violet The heat throbs on the air.... The white road's dusty radiance Assumes a dark glare.

With a head hot and heavy, And eyes that cannot rest, And a black heart burning In a stifled breast,

I sit in the saddle, I feel the road unroll, And keep my senses straightened Toward to-morrow's goal.

There, over unknown meadows Which we must reach at last, Day and night thunders A black and chilly blast.

Heads forget heaviness, Hearts forget spleen, For by that mighty winnowing Being is blown clean.

Light in the eyes again, Strength in the hand, A spirit dares, dies, forgives, And can understand!

And, best! Love comes back again After grief and shame, And along the wind of death Throws a clean flame.

* * * * *

The battery grides and jingles, Mile succeeds to mile; Suddenly battering the silence The guns burst out awhile....

I lift my head and smile.

Robert Nichols



THE SIGN

We are here in a wood of little beeches: And the leaves are like black lace Against a sky of nacre.

One bough of clear promise Across the moon.

It is in this wise that God speaketh unto me. He layeth hands of healing upon my flesh, Stilling it in an eternal peace, Until my soul reaches out myriad and infinite hands Toward him, And is eased of its hunger.

And I know that this passes: This implacable fury and torment of men, As a thing insensate and vain: And the stillness hath said unto me, Over the tumult of sounds and shaken flame, Out of the terrible beauty of wrath, I alone am eternal.

One bough of clear promise Across the moon.

Frederic Manning



THE TRENCHES

Endless lanes sunken in the clay, Bays, and traverses, fringed with wasted herbage, Seed-pods of blue scabious, and some lingering blooms; And the sky, seen as from a well, Brilliant with frosty stars. We stumble, cursing, on the slippery duck-boards. Goaded like the damned by some invisible wrath, A will stronger than weariness, stronger than animal fear, Implacable and monotonous.

Here a shaft, slanting, and below A dusty and flickering light from one feeble candle And prone figures sleeping uneasily, Murmuring, And men who cannot sleep, With faces impassive as masks, Bright, feverish eyes, and drawn lips, Sad, pitiless, terrible faces, Each an incarnate curse.

Here in a bay, a helmeted sentry Silent and motionless, watching while two sleep, And he sees before him With indifferent eyes the blasted and torn land Peopled with stiff prone forms, stupidly rigid, As tho' they had not been men.

Dead are the lips where love laughed or sang, The hands of youth eager to lay hold of life, Eyes that have laughed to eyes, And these were begotten, O Love, and lived lightly, and burnt With the lust of a man's first strength: ere they were rent. Almost at unawares, savagely; and strewn In bloody fragments, to be the carrion Of rats and crows.

And the sentry moves not, searching Night for menace with weary eyes.

Frederic Manning



SONNETS

I

I see across the chasm of flying years The pyre of Dido on the vacant shore; I see Medea's fury and hear the roar Of rushing flames, the new bride's burning tears; And ever as still another vision peers Thro' memory's mist to stir me more and more, I say that surely I have lived before And known this joy and trembled with these fears.

The passion that they show me burns so high; Their love, in me who have not looked on love, So fiercely flames; so wildly comes the cry Of stricken women the warrior's call above, That I would gladly lay me down and die To wake again where Helen and Hector move.

II

The falling rain is music overhead, The dark night, lit by no Intruding star, Fit covering yields to thoughts that roam afar And turn again familiar paths to tread, Where many a laden hour too quickly sped In happier times, before the dawn of war, Before the spoiler had whet his sword to mar The faithful living and the mighty dead.

It is not that my soul is weighed with woe, But rather wonder, seeing they do but sleep. As birds that in the sinking summer sweep Across the heaven to happier climes to go, So they are gone; and sometimes we must weep, And sometimes, smiling, murmur, "Be it so!"

Henry William Hutchinson



THE MESSINES ROAD

I

The road that runs up to Messines Is double-locked with gates of fire, Barred with high ramparts, and between The unbridged river, and the wire.

None ever goes up to Messines, For Death lurks all about the town, Death holds the vale as his demesne, And only Death moves up and down.

II

Choked with wild weeds, and overgrown With rank grass, all torn and rent By war's opposing engines, strewn With debris from each day's event!

And in the dark the broken trees, Whose arching boughs were once its shade, Grim and distorted, ghostly ease In groans their souls vexed and afraid.

Yet here the farmer drove his cart, Here friendly folk would meet and pass, Here bore the good wife eggs to mart And old and young walked up to Mass.

Here schoolboys lingered in the way, Here the bent packman laboured by, And lovers at the end o' the day Whispered their secret blushingly.

A goodly road for simple needs, An avenue to praise and paint, Kept by fair use from wreck and weeds, Blessed by the shrine of its own saint.

III

The road that runs up to Messines! Ah, how we guard it day and night! And how they guard it, who o'erween A stricken people, with their might!

But we shall go up to Messines Even thro' that fire-defended gate. Over and thro' all else between And give the highway back its state.

J. E. Stewart



THE CHALLENGE OF THE GUNS

By day, by night, along the lines their dull boom rings, And that reverberating roar its challenge flings. Not only unto thee across the narrow sea, But from the loneliest vale in the last land's heart The sad-eyed watching mother sees her sons depart.

And freighted full the tumbling waters of ocean are With aid for England from England's sons afar. The glass is dim; we see not wisely, far, nor well, But bred of English bone, and reared on Freedom's wine, All that we have and are we lay on England's shrine.

A. N. Field



THE BEACH ROAD BY THE WOOD

I know a beach road, A road where I would go, It runs up northward From Cooden Bay to Hoe; And there, in the High Woods, Daffodils grow.

And whoever walks along there Stops short and sees, By the moist tree-roots In a clearing of the trees, Yellow great battalions of them, Blowing in the breeze.

While the spring sun brightens, And the dull sky clears, They blow their golden trumpets, Those golden trumpeteers! They blow their golden trumpets And they shake their glancing spears.

And all the rocking beech-trees Are bright with buds again, And the green and open spaces Are greener after rain, And far to southward one can hear The sullen, moaning rain.

Once before I die I will leave the town behind, The loud town, the dark town That cramps and chills the mind, And I'll stand again bareheaded there In the sunlight and the wind.

Yes, I shall stand Where as a boy I stood Above the dykes and levels In the beach road by the wood, And I'll smell again the sea breeze, Salt and harsh and good.

And there shall rise to me From that consecrated ground The old dreams, the lost dreams That years and cares have drowned; Welling up within me And above me and around The song that I could never sing And the face I never found.

Geoffrey Howard



GERMAN PRISONERS

When first I saw you in the curious street Like some platoon of soldier ghosts in grey, My mad impulse was all to smite and slay, To spit upon you—tread you 'neath my feet. But when I saw how each sad soul did greet My gaze with no sign of defiant frown, How from tired eyes looked spirits broken down, How each face showed the pale flag of defeat, And doubt, despair, and disillusionment, And how were grievous wounds on many a head. And on your garb red-faced was other red; And how you stooped as men whose strength was spent, I knew that we had suffered each as other, And could have grasped your hand and cried, "My brother!"

Joseph Lee



"—BUT A SHORT TIME TO LIVE"

Our little hour,—how swift it flies When poppies flare and lilies smile; How soon the fleeting minute dies, Leaving us but a little while To dream our dream, to sing our song, To pick the fruit, to pluck the flower, The Gods—They do not give us long,— One little hour.

Our little hour,—how short it is When Love with dew-eyed loveliness Raises her lips for ours to kiss And dies within our first caress. Youth flickers out like wind-blown flame, Sweets of to-day to-morrow sour, For Time and Death, relentless, claim Our little hour.

Our little hour,—how short a tune To wage our wars, to fan our hates, To take our fill of armoured crime, To troop our banners, storm the gates. Blood on the sword, our eyes blood-red, Blind in our puny reign of power, Do we forget how soon is sped Our little hour?

Our little hour,—how soon it dies: How short a time to tell our beads, To chant our feeble Litanies, To think sweet thoughts, to do good deeds. The altar lights grow pale and dim, The bells hang silent in the tower— So passes with the dying hymn Our little hour.

Leslie Coulson



BEFORE ACTION

By all the glories of the day, And the cool evening's benison: By the last sunset touch that lay Upon the hills when day was done; By beauty lavishly outpoured, And blessings carelessly received, By all the days that I have lived, Make me a soldier, Lord.

By all of all men's hopes and fears, And all the wonders poets sing, The laughter of unclouded years, And every sad and lovely thing: By the romantic ages stored With high endeavour that was his, By all his mad catastrophes, Make me a man, O Lord.

I, that on my familiar hill Saw with uncomprehending eyes A hundred of Thy sunsets spill Their fresh and sanguine sacrifice, Ere the sun swings his noonday sword Must say good-bye to all of this:— By all delights that I shall miss, Help me to die, O Lord.

W. N. Hodgson ("Edward Melbourne")



COURAGE

Alone amid the battle-din untouched Stands out one figure beautiful, serene; No grime of smoke nor reeking blood hath smutched The virgin brow of this unconquered queen. She is the Joy of Courage vanquishing The unstilled tremors of the fearful heart; And it is she that bids the poet sing, And gives to each the strength to bear his part.

Her eye shall not be dimmed, but as a flame Shall light the distant ages with its fire, That men may know the glory of her name, That purified our souls of fear's desire. And she doth calm our sorrow, soothe our pain, And she shall lead us back to peace again.

Dyneley Hussey



OPTIMISM

At last there'll dawn the last of the long year, Of the long year that seemed to dream no end, Whose every dawn but turned the world more drear, And slew some hope, or led away some friend. Or be you dark, or buffeting, or blind, We care not, day, but leave not death behind.

The hours that feed on war go heavy-hearted, Death is no fare wherewith to make hearts fain. Oh, we are sick to find that they who started With glamour in their eyes came not again. O day, be long and heavy if you will, But on our hopes set not a bitter heel.

For tiny hopes like tiny flowers of Spring Will come, though death and ruin hold the land, Though storms may roar they may not break the wing Of the earthed lark whose song is ever bland. Fell year unpitiful, slow days of scorn, Your kind shall die, and sweeter days be born.

A. Victor Ratcliffe



THE BATTLEFIELD

Around no fire the soldiers sleep to-night, But lie a-wearied on the ice-bound field, With cloaks wrapt round their sleeping forms, to shield Them from the northern winds. Ere comes the light Of morn brave men must arm, stern foes to fight. The sentry stands, his limbs with cold congealed; His head a-nod with sleep; he cannot yield, Though sleep and snow in deadly force unite.

Amongst the sleepers lies the Boy awake, And wide-eyed plans brave glories that transcend The deeds of heroes dead; then dreams o'ertake His tired-out brain, and lofty fancies blend To one grand theme, and through all barriers break To guard from hurt his faithful sleeping friend.

Sydney Oswald



"ON LES AURA!"

SOLDAT JACQUES BONHOMME LOQUITUR:

See you that stretch of shell-torn mud spotted with pools of mire, Crossed by a burst abandoned trench and tortured strands of wire, Where splintered pickets reel and sag and leprous trench-rats play, That scour the Devil's hunting-ground to seek their carrion prey? That is the field my father loved, the field that once was mine, The land I nursed for my child's child as my fathers did long syne.

See there a mound of powdered stones, all flattened, smashed, and torn, Gone black with damp and green with slime?—Ere you and I were born My father's father built a house, a little house and bare, And there I brought my woman home—that heap of rubble there! The soil of France! Fat fields and green that bred my blood and bone! Each wound that scars my bosom's pride burns deeper than my own.

But yet there is one thing to say—one thing that pays for all, Whatever lot our bodies know, whatever fate befall, We hold the line! We hold it still! My fields are No Man's Land, But the good God is debonair and holds us by the hand. "On les aura!" See there! and there I soaked heaps of huddled, grey! My fields shall laugh—enriched by those who sought them for a prey.

James H. Knight-Adkin



TO AN OLD LADY SEEN AT A GUESTHOUSE FOR SOLDIERS

Quiet thou didst stand at thine appointed place, There was no press to purchase—younger grace Attracts the youth of valour. Thou didst not know, Like the old, kindly Martha, to and fro To haste. Yet one could say, "In thine I prize The strength of calm that held in Mary's eyes." And when they came, thy gracious smile so wrought They knew that they were given, not that they bought. Thou didst not tempt to vauntings, and pretence Was dumb before thy perfect woman's sense. Blest who have seen, for they shall ever see The radiance of thy benignity.

Alexander Robertson



THE CASUALTY CLEARING STATION

A bowl of daffodils, A crimson-quilted bed, Sheets and pillows white as snow— White and gold and red— And sisters moving to and fro, With soft and silent tread.

So all my spirit fills With pleasure infinite, And all the feathered wings of rest Seem flocking from the radiant West To bear me thro' the night.

See, how they close me in. They, and the sisters' arms. One eye is closed, the other lid Is watching how my spirit slid Toward some red-roofed farms, And having crept beneath them slept Secure from war's alarms.

Gilbert Waterhouse



HILLS OF HOME

Oh! yon hills are filled with sunlight, and the green leaves paled to gold, And the smoking mists of Autumn hanging faintly o'er the wold; I dream of hills of other days whose sides I loved to roam When Spring was dancing through the lanes of those distant hills of home.

The winds of heaven gathered there as pure and cold as dew; Wood-sorrel and wild violets along the hedgerows grew, The blossom on the pear-trees was as white as flakes of foam In the orchard 'neath the shadow of those distant hills of home.

The first white frost in the meadow will be shining there to-day And the furrowed upland glinting warm beside the woodland way; There, a bright face and a clear hearth will be waiting when I come, And my heart is throbbing wildly for those distant hills of home.

Malcolm Hemphrey



THE RED CROSS SPIRIT SPEAKS

Wherever war, with its red woes, Or flood, or fire, or famine goes, There, too, go I; If earth in any quarter quakes Or pestilence its ravage makes, Thither I fly.

I kneel behind the soldier's trench, I walk 'mid shambles' smear and stench, The dead I mourn; I bear the stretcher and I bend O'er Fritz and Pierre and Jack to mend What shells have torn.

I go wherever men may dare, I go wherever woman's care And love can live, Wherever strength and skill can bring Surcease to human suffering, Or solace give.

I helped upon Haldora's shore; With Hospitaller Knights I bore The first red cross; I was the Lady of the Lamp; I saw in Solferino's camp The crimson loss.

I am your pennies and your pounds; I am your bodies on their rounds Of pain afar: I am you, doing what you would If you were only where you could— Your avatar.

The cross which on my arm I wear, The flag which o'er my breast I bear, Is but the sign Of what you'd sacrifice for him Who suffers on the hellish rim Of war's red line.

John Finley



CHAPLAIN TO THE FORCES

["I have once more to remark upon the devotion to duty, courage, and contempt of danger which has characterized the work of the Chaplains of the Army throughout this campaign."—Sir John French, in the Neuve Chapelle dispatch.]

Ambassador of Christ you go Up to the very gates of Hell, Through fog of powder, storm of shell, To speak your Master's message: "Lo, The Prince of Peace is with you still, His peace be with you, His good-will."

It is not small, your priesthood's price. To be a man and yet stand by, To hold your life while others die, To bless, not share the sacrifice, To watch the strife and take no part— You with the fire at your heart.

But yours, for our great Captain Christ, To know the sweat of agony, The darkness of Gethsemane, In anguish for these souls unpriced. Vicegerent of God's pity you, A sword must pierce your own soul through.

In the pale gleam of new-born day, Apart in some tree-shadowed place, Your altar but a packing-case, Rude as the shed where Mary lay, Your sanctuary the rain-drenched sod, You bring the kneeling soldier God.

As sentinel you guard the gate 'Twixt life and death, and unto death Speed the brave soul whose failing breath Shudders not at the grip of Fate, But answers, gallant to the end, "Christ is the Word—and I his friend."

Then God go with you, priest of God, For all is well and shall be well. What though you tread the roads of Hell, Your Captain these same ways has trod. Above the anguish and the loss Still floats the ensign of His Cross.

Winifred M. Letts



SONG OF THE RED CROSS

O gracious ones, we bless your name Upon our bended knee; The voice of love with tongue of flame Records your charity. Your hearts, your lives right willingly ye gave, That sacred ruth might shine; Ye fell, bright spirits, brave amongst the brave, Compassionate, divine.

Example from your lustrous deeds The conqueror shall take, Sowing sublime and fruitful seeds Of aidos in this ache. And when our griefs have passed on gloomy wing, When friend and foe are sped, Sons of a morning to be born shall sing The radiant Cross of Red; Sons of a morning to be born shall sing The radiant Cross of Red.

Eden Phillpotts



THE HEALERS

In a vision of the night I saw them, In the battles of the night. 'Mid the roar and the reeling shadows of blood They were moving like light,

Light of the reason, guarded Tense within the will, As a lantern under a tossing of boughs Burns steady and still.

With scrutiny calm, and with fingers Patient as swift They bind up the hurts and the pain-writhen Bodies uplift,

Untired and defenceless; around them With shrieks in its breath Bursts stark from the terrible horizon Impersonal death;

But they take not their courage from anger That blinds the hot being; They take not their pity from weakness; Tender, yet seeing;

Feeling, yet nerved to the uttermost; Keen, like steel; Yet the wounds of the mind they are stricken with, Who shall heal?

They endure to have eyes of the watcher In hell, and not swerve For an hour from the faith that they follow, The light that they serve.

Man true to man, to his kindness That overflows all, To his spirit erect in the thunder When all his forts fall,—

This light, in the tiger-mad welter, They serve and they save. What song shall be worthy to sing of them— Braver than the brave?

Laurence Binyon



THE RED CROSS NURSES

Out where the line of battle cleaves The horizon of woe And sightless warriors clutch the leaves The Red Cross nurses go. In where the cots of agony Mark death's unmeasured tide— Bear up the battle's harvestry— The Red Cross nurses glide.

Look! Where the hell of steel has torn Its way through slumbering earth The orphaned urchins kneel forlorn And wonder at their birth. Until, above them, calm and wise With smile and guiding hand, God looking through their gentle eyes, The Red Cross nurses stand.

Thomas L. Masson



KILMENY

(A SONG OF THE TRAWLERS)

Dark, dark lay the drifters, against the red west, As they shot their long meshes of steel overside; And the oily green waters were rocking to rest When Kilmeny went out, at the turn of the tide. And nobody knew where that lassie would roam, For the magic that called her was tapping unseen, It was well nigh a week ere Kilmeny came home, And nobody knew where Kilmeny had been.

She'd a gun at her bow that was Newcastle's best, And a gun at her stern that was fresh from the Clyde, And a secret her skipper had never confessed, Not even at dawn, to his newly wed bride; And a wireless that whispered above like a gnome, The laughter of London, the boasts of Berlin. O, it may have been mermaids that lured her from home, But nobody knew where Kilmeny had been.

It was dark when Kilmeny came home from her quest, With her bridge dabbled red where her skipper had died; But she moved like a bride with a rose at her breast; And "Well done, Kilmeny!" the admiral cried.

Now at sixty-four fathom a conger may come, And nose at the bones of a drowned submarine; But late in the evening Kilmeny came home, And nobody knew where Kilmeny had been.

There's a wandering shadow that stares at the foam, Though they sing all the night to old England, their queen, Late, late in the evening Kilmeny came home, And nobody knew where Kilmeny had been.

Alfred Noyes



THE MINE-SWEEPERS

Dawn off the Foreland—the young flood making Jumbled and short and steep— Black in the hollows and bright where it's breaking— Awkward water to sweep. "Mines reported in the fairway, Warn all traffic and detain. Sent up Unity, Claribel, Assyrian, Stormcock, and Golden Gain."

Noon off the Foreland—the first ebb making Lumpy and strong in the bight. Boom after boom, and the golf-hut shaking And the jackdaws wild with fright. "Mines located in the fairway, Boats now working up the chain, Sweepers—Unity, Claribel, Assyrian, Stormcock, and Golden Gain."

Dusk off the Foreland—the last light going And the traffic crowding through, And five damned trawlers with their syreens blowing Heading the whole review! "Sweep completed in the fairway. No more mines remain. Sent back Unity, Claribel, Assyrian, Stormcock, and Golden Gain."

Rudyard Kipling_



MARE LIBERUM

You dare to say with perjured lips, "We fight to make the ocean free"? You, whose black trail of butchered ships Bestrews the bed of every sea Where German submarines have wrought Their horrors! Have you never thought,— What you call freedom, men call piracy!

Unnumbered ghosts that haunt the wave Where you have murdered, cry you down; And seamen whom you would not save, Weave now in weed-grown depths a crown Of shame for your imperious head,— A dark memorial of the dead,— Women and children whom you left to drown.

Nay, not till thieves are set to guard The gold, and corsairs called to keep O'er peaceful commerce watch and ward, And wolves to herd the helpless sheep, Shall men and women look to thee— Thou ruthless Old Man of the Sea— To safeguard law and freedom on the deep!

In nobler breeds we put our trust: The nations in whose sacred lore The "Ought" stands out above the "Must," And Honor rules in peace and war. With these we hold in soul and heart, With these we choose our lot and part, Till Liberty is safe on sea and shore.

Henry van Dyke

February 11, 1917



THE DAWN PATROL

Sometimes I fly at dawn above the sea, Where, underneath, the restless waters flow— Silver, and cold, and slow, Dim in the east there burns a new-born sun, Whose rosy gleams along the ripples run, Save where the mist droops low, Hiding the level loneliness from me.

And now appears beneath the milk-white haze A little fleet of anchored ships, which lie In clustered company, And seem as they are yet fast bound by sleep, Although the day has long begun to peep, With red-inflamed eye, Along the still, deserted ocean ways.

The fresh, cold wind of dawn blows on my face As in the sun's raw heart I swiftly fly, And watch the seas glide by. Scarce human seem I, moving through the skies, And far removed from warlike enterprise— Like some great gull on high Whose white and gleaming wings beat on through space.

Then do I feel with God quite, quite alone, High in the virgin morn, so white and still, And free from human ill: My prayers transcend my feeble earth-bound plaints— As though I sang among the happy Saints With many a holy thrill— As though the glowing sun were God's bright Throne.

My flight is done. I cross the line of foam That breaks around a town of grey and red, Whose streets and squares lie dead Beneath the silent dawn—then am I proud That England's peace to guard I am allowed; Then bow my humble head, In thanks to Him Who brings me safely home.

Paul Bewsher



DESTROYERS OFF JUTLAND

["If lost hounds could speak when they cast up next day after an unchecked night among the wild life of the dark they would talk much as our destroyers do."—Rudyard Kipling.]

They had hot scent across the spumy sea, Gehenna and her sister, swift Shaitan, That in the pack, with Goblin, Eblis ran And many a couple more, full cry, foot-free; The dog-fox and his brood were fain to flee, But bare of fang and dangerous to the van That pressed them close. So when the kill began Some hounds were lamed and some died splendidly.

But from the dusk along the Skagerack, Until dawn loomed upon the Reef of Horn And the last fox had slunk back to his earth, They kept the great traditions of the pack, Staunch-hearted through the hunt, as they were born, These hounds that England suckled at the birth.

Reginald McIntosh Cleveland



BRITISH MERCHANT SERVICE

Oh, down by Millwall Basin as I went the other day, I met a skipper that I knew, and to him I did say: "Now what's the cargo, Captain, that brings you up this way?"

"Oh, I've been up and down (said he) and round about also.... From Sydney to the Skagerack, and Kiel to Callao.... With a leaking steam-pipe all the way to Californ-i-o....

"With pots and pans and ivory fans and every kind of thing, Rails and nails and cotton bales, and sewer pipes and string.... But now I'm through with cargoes, and I'm here to serve the King!

"And if it's sweeping mines (to which my fancy somewhat leans) Or hanging out with booby-traps for the skulking submarines, I'm here to do my blooming best and give the beggars beans!

"A rough job and a tough job is the best job for me, And what or where I don't much care, I'll take what it may be, For a tight place is the right place when it's foul weather at sea!"

* * * * *

There's not a port he doesn't know from Melbourne to New York; He's as hard as a lump of harness beef, and as salt as pickled pork.... And he'll stand by a wreck in a murdering gale and count it part of his work!

He's the terror of the fo'c's'le when he heals its various ills With turpentine and mustard leaves, and poultices and pills.... But he knows the sea like the palm of his hand, as a shepherd knows the hills.