Men of my blood, you English men!From misty hill and misty fen,From cot, and town, and plough, and moor,Come in—before I shut the door!Into my courtyard paved with stonesThat keep the names, that keep the bones,Of none but English men who cameFree of their lives, to guard my fame.
I am your native land who bredNo driven heart, no driven head;I fly a flag in every seaRound the old Earth, of Liberty!I am the Land that boasts a crown;The sun comes up, the sun goes down—And never men may say of me,Mine is a breed that is not free.
I have a wreath! My forehead wearsA hundred leaves—a hundred yearsI never knew the words: "You must!"And shall my wreath return to dust?Freemen! The door is yet ajar;From northern star to southern star,O ye who count and ye who delve,Come in—before my clock strikes twelve!
John Galsworthy
England, in this great fight to which you goBecause, where Honour calls you, go you must,Be glad, whatever comes, at least to knowYou have your quarrel just.
Peace was your care; before the nations' barHer cause you pleaded and her ends you sought;But not for her sake, being what you are,Could you be bribed and bought.
Others may spurn the pledge of land to land,May with the brute sword stain a gallant past;But by the seal to whichyouset your hand,Thank God, you still stand fast!
Forth, then, to front that peril of the deepWith smiling lips and in your eyes the light,Steadfast and confident, of those who keepTheir storied 'scutcheon bright.
And we, whose burden is to watch and wait,—High-hearted ever, strong in faith and prayer,—We ask what offering we may consecrate,What humble service share.
To steel our souls against the lust of ease;To bear in silence though our hearts may bleed;To spend ourselves, and never count the cost,For others' greater need;—
To go our quiet ways, subdued and sane;To hush all vulgar clamour of the street;With level calm to face alike the strainOf triumph or defeat;
This be our part, for so we serve you best,So best confirm their prowess and their pride,Your warrior sons, to whom in this high testOur fortunes we confide.
Owen Seaman
August 12, 1914
A sudden swirl of song in the bright sky—The little lark adoring his lord the sun;Across the corn the lazy ripples run;Under the eaves, conferring drowsily,
Doves droop or amble; the agile waterflyWrinkles the pool; and flowers, gay and dun,Rose, bluebell, rhododendron, one by one,The buccaneering bees prove busily.
Ah, who may trace this tranquil lovelinessIn verse felicitous?—no measure tells;But gazing on her bosom we can guessWhy men strike hard for England in red hells,Falling on dreams, 'mid Death's extreme caress,Of English daisies dancing in English dells.
George Herbert Clarke
Because for once the sword broke in her hand,The words she spoke seemed perished for a space;All wrong was brazen, and in every landThe tyrants walked abroad with naked face.
The waters turned to blood, as rose the StarOf evil Fate denying all release.The rulers smote, the feeble crying "War!"The usurers robbed, the naked crying "Peace!"
And her own feet were caught in nets of gold,And her own soul profaned by sects that squirm,And little men climbed her high seats and soldHer honour to the vulture and the worm.
And she seemed broken and they thought her dead,The Overmen, so brave against the weak.Has your last word of sophistry been said,O cult of slaves? Then it is hers to speak.
Clear the slow mists from her half-darkened eyes,As slow mists parted over Valmy fell,As once again her hands in high surpriseTake hold upon the battlements of Hell.
Cecil Chesterton
Give us a name to fill the mindWith the shining thoughts that lead mankind,The glory of learning, the joy of art,—A name that tells of a splendid partIn the long, long toil and the strenuous fightOf the human race to win its wayFrom the feudal darkness into the dayOf Freedom, Brotherhood, Equal Right,—A name like a star, a name of light—I give youFrance!
Give us a name to stir the bloodWith a warmer glow and a swifter flood,—A name like the sound of a trumpet, clear,And silver-sweet, and iron-strong,That calls three million men to their feet,Ready to march, and steady to meetThe foes who threaten that name with wrong,—A name that rings like a battle-song.I give youFrance!
Give us a name to move the heartWith the strength that noble griefs impart,A name that speaks of the blood outpouredTo save mankind from the sway of the sword,—A name that calls on the world to shareIn the burden of sacrificial strifeWhere the cause at stake is the world's free lifeAnd the rule of the people everywhere,—A name like a vow, a name like a prayer.I give youFrance!
Henry van Dyke
Franceline rose in the dawning gray,And her heart would dance though she knelt to pray,For her man Michel had holiday,Fighting for France.
She offered her prayer by the cradle-side,And with baby palms folded in hers she cried:"If I have but one prayer, dear, crucifiedChrist—save France!
"But if I have two, then, by Mary's grace,Carry me safe to the meeting-place,Let me look once again on my dear love's face,Save him for France!"
She crooned to her boy: "Oh, how glad he'll be,Little three-months old, to set eyes on thee!For, 'Rather than gold, would I give,' wrote he,'A son to France.'
"Come, now, be good, little straysauterelle,For we're going by-by to thy papa Michel,But I'll not say where for fear thou wilt tell,Little pigeon of France!
"Six days' leave and a year between!But what would you have? In six days clean,Heaven was made," said Franceline,"Heaven and France."
She came to the town of the nameless name,To the marching troops in the street she came,And she held high her boy like a taper flameBurning for France.
Fresh from the trenches and gray with grime,Silent they march like a pantomime;"But what need of music? My heart beats time—Vive la France!"
His regiment comes. Oh, then where is he?"There is dust in my eyes, for I cannot see,—Is that my Michel to the right of thee,Soldier of France?"
Then out of the ranks a comrade fell,—"Yesterday—'t was a splinter of shell—And he whispered thy name, did thy poor Michel,Dying for France."
The tread of the troops on the pavement throbbedLike a woman's heart of its last joy robbed,As she lifted her boy to the flag, and sobbed:"Vive la France!"
Charlotte Holmes Crawford
She came not into the Presence as a martyred saint might come, Crowned, white-robed and adoring, with very reverence dumb,—
She stood as a straight young soldier, confident, gallant, strong, Who asks a boon of his captain in the sudden hush of the drum.
She said: "Now have I stayed too long in this my place of bliss,With these glad dead that, comforted, forget what sorrow isUpon that world whose stony stairs they climbed to come to this.
"But lo, a cry hath torn the peace wherein so long I stayed,Like a trumpet's call at Heaven's wall from a herald unafraid,—A million voices in one cry, 'Where is the Maid, the Maid?'
"I had forgot from too much joy that olden task of mine,But I have heard a certain word shatter the chant divine,Have watched a banner glow and grow before mine eyes for sign.
"I would return to that my land flung in the teeth of war,I would cast down my robe and crown that pleasure me no more,And don the armor that I knew, the valiant sword I bore.
"And angels militant shall fling the gates of Heaven wide,And souls new-dead whose lives were shed like leaves on war's red tideShall cross their swords above our heads and cheer us as we ride,
"For with me goes that soldier saint, Saint Michael of the sword,And I shall ride on his right side, a page beside his lord,And men shall follow like swift blades to reap a sure reward.
"Grant that I answer this my call, yea, though the end may beThe naked shame, the biting flame, the last, long agony;I would go singing down that road where fagots wait for me.
"Mine be the fire about my feet, the smoke above my head; So might I glow, a torch to show the path my heroes tread;My Captain! Oh, my Captain, let me go back!" she said.
Theodosia Garrison
You have become a forge of snow-white fire,A crucible of molten steel, O France!Your sons are stars who cluster to a dawnAnd fade in light for you, O glorious France!They pass through meteor changes with a songWhich to all islands and all continentsSays life is neither comfort, wealth, nor fame,Nor quiet hearthstones, friendship, wife nor child,Nor love, nor youth's delight, nor manhood's power,Nor many days spent in a chosen work,Nor honored merit, nor the patterned themeOf daily labor, nor the crowns nor wreathsOf seventy years.
These are not all of life,O France, whose sons amid the rolling thunderOf cannon stand in trenches where the deadClog the ensanguined ice. But life to theseProphetic and enraptured souls is vision,And the keen ecstasy of fated strife,And divination of the loss as gain,And reading mysteries with brightened eyesIn fiery shock and dazzling pain beforeThe orient splendour of the face of Death,As a great light beside a shadowy sea;And in a high will's strenuous exercise,Where the warmed spirit finds its fullest strengthAnd is no more afraid, and in the strokeOf azure lightning when the hidden essenceAnd shifting meaning of man's spiritual worthAnd mystical significance in timeAre instantly distilled to one clear dropWhich mirrors earth and heaven.
This is lifeFlaming to heaven in a minute's spanWhen the breath of battle blows the smouldering spark.And across these seasWe who cry Peace and treasure life and clingTo cities, happiness, or daily toilFor daily bread, or trail the long routineOf seventy years, taste not the terrible wineWhereof you drink, who drain and toss the cupEmpty and ringing by the finished feast;Or have it shaken from your hand by sightOf God against the olive woods.
As Joan of Arc amid the apple treesWith sacred joy first heard the voices, thenObeying plunged at Orleans in a fieldOf spears and lived her dream and died in fire,Thou, France, hast heard the voices and hast livedThe dream and known the meaning of the dream,And read its riddle: how the soul of manMay to one greatest purpose make itselfA lens of clearness, how it loves the cupOf deepest truth, and how its bitterest gallTurns sweet to soul's surrender.
And you say:Take days for repetition, stretch your handsFor mocked renewal of familiar things:The beaten path, the chair beside the window,The crowded street, the task, the accustomed sleep,And waking to the task, or many springsOf lifted cloud, blue water, flowering fields—The prison-house grows close no less, the feastA place of memory sick for senses dulledDown to the dusty end where pitiful TimeGrown weary cries Enough!
Edgar Lee Masters
Those who have stood for thy cause when the dark was around thee,Those who have pierced through the shadows and shining have found thee,Those who have held to their faith in thy courage and power,Thy spirit, thy honor, thy strength for a terrible hour,Now can rejoice that they see thee in light and in glory,Facing whatever may come as an end to the storyIn calm undespairing, with steady eyes fixed on the morrow—The morn that is pregnant with blood and with death and with sorrow.And whether the victory crowns thee, O France the eternal,Or whether the smoke and the dusk of a nightfall infernalGather about thee, and us, and the foe; and all treasuresRun with the flooding of war into bottomless measures—Fall what befalls: in this hour all those who are near theeAnd all who have loved thee, they rise and salute and revere thee!
Herbert Jones
[Since the bombardment of Strasburg, August 14, 1870, her statue in Paris, representing Alsace, has been draped in mourning by the French people.]
Near where the royal victims fellIn days gone by, caught in the swellOf a ruthless tideOf human passion, deep and wide:There where we twoA Nation's later sorrow knew—To-day, O friend! I stoodAmid a self-ruled multitudeThat by nor sound nor wordBetrayed how mightily its heart was stirred,
A memory Time never could efface—A memory of Grief—Like a great Silence brooded o'er the place;And men breathed hard, as seeking for reliefFrom an emotion strongThat would not cry, though held in check too long.
One felt that joy drew near—A joy intense that seemed itself to fear—Brightening in eyes that had been dull,As all with feeling gazedUpon the Strasburg figure, raisedAbove us—mourning, beautiful!
Then one stood at the statue's base, and spoke—Men needed not to ask what word;Each in his breast the message heard,Writ for him by Despair,That evermore in moving phraseBreathes from the Invalides and Père Lachaise—Vainly it seemed, alas!But now, France looking on the image there,Hope gave her back the lost Alsace.
A deeper hush fell on the crowd:A sound—the lightest—seemed too loud(Would, friend, you had been there!)As to that form the speaker rose,Took from her, fold on fold,The mournful crape, gray-worn and old,Her, proudly, to disclose,And with the touch of tender careThat fond emotion speaks,'Mid tears that none could quite command,Placed the Tricolor in her hand,And kissed her on both cheeks!
Florence Earle Coates
What is the gift we have given thee, Sister?What is the trust we have laid in thy hand?Hearts of our bravest, our best, and our dearest,Blood of our blood we have sown in thy land.
What for all time will the harvest be, Sister?What will spring up from the seed that is sown?Freedom and peace and goodwill among Nations,Love that will bind us with love all our own.
Bright is the path, that is opening before us,Upward and onward it mounts through the night;Sword shall not sever the bonds that unite usLeading the world to the fullness of light.
Sorrow hath made thee more beautiful, Sister,Nobler and purer than ever before;We who are chastened by sorrow and anguishHail thee as sister and queen evermore.
Frederick George Scott
Qui vive?Who passes by up there?Who moves—what stirs in the startled air?What whispers, thrills, exults up there?Qui vive?"The Flags of France."
What wind on a windless night is this,That breathes as light as a lover's kiss,That blows through the night with bugle notes,That streams like a pennant from a lance,That rustles, that floats?"The Flags of France."
What richly moves, what lightly stirs,Like a noble lady in a dance,When all men's eyes are in love with hersAnd needs must follow?"The Flags of France."
What calls to the heart—and the heart has heard,Speaks, and the soul has obeyed the word,Summons, and all the years advance,And the world goes forward with France—with France?Who called?"The Flags of France."
What flies—a glory, through the night,While the legions stream—a line of light,And men fall to the left and fall to the right,Buttheyfall not?"The Flags of France."
Qui vive?Who comes? What approaches there?What soundless tumult, what breath in the airTakes the breath in the throat, the blood from the heart?In a flame of dark, to the unheard beatOf an unseen drum and fleshless feet,Without glint of barrel or bayonets' glance,They approach—they come.Whocomes? (Hush! Hark!)"Qui vive?""The Flags of France."
Uncover the head and kneel—kneel down,A monarch passes, without a crown,Let the proud tears fall but the heart beat high:The Greatest of All is passing by,On its endless march in the endless Plan:"Qui vive?""The Spirit of Man."
"O Spirit of Man, pass on! Advance!"And they who lead, who hold the van?Kneel down!The Flags of France.
Grace Ellery Channing
Paris, 1917
O Race that Caesar knew,That won stern Roman praise,What land not envies youThe laurel of these days?
You built your cities richAround each towered hall,—Without, the statued niche,Within, the pictured wall.
Your ship-thronged wharves; your martsWith gorgeous Venice vied.Peace and her famous artsWere yours: though tide on tide
Of Europe's battle scourgedBlack field and reddened soil,From blood and smoke emergedPeace and her fruitful toil.
Yet when the challenge rang,"The War-Lord comes; give room!"Fearless to arms you sprangAgainst the odds of doom.
Like your own DamienWho sought that leper's isleTo die a simple manFor men with tranquil smile,
So strong in faith you daredDefy the giant, scornIgnobly to be spared,Though trampled, spoiled, and torn,
And in your faith aroseAnd smote, and smote again,Till those astonished foesReeled from their mounds of slain,
The faith that the free soul,Untaught by force to quail,Through fire and dirge and dolePrevails and shall prevail.
Still for your frontier standsThe host that knew no dread,Your little, stubborn land'sNameless, immortal dead.
Laurence Binyon
La Belgique ne regrette rien
Not with her ruined silver spires,Not with her cities shamed and rent,Perish the imperishable firesThat shape the homestead from the tent.
Wherever men are staunch and free,There shall she keep her fearless state,And homeless, to great nations beThe home of all that makes them great.
Edith Wharton
Champion of human honour, let us laveYour feet and bind your wounds on bended knee.Though coward hands have nailed you to the treeAnd shed your innocent blood and dug your grave,Rejoice and live! Your oriflamme shall wave—While man has power to perish and be free—A golden flame of holiest Liberty,Proud as the dawn and as the sunset brave.
Belgium, where dwelleth reverence for rightEnthroned above all ideals; where your fateAnd your supernal patience and your mightMost sacred grow in human estimate,You shine a star above this stormy nightLittle no more, but infinitely great.
Eden Phillpotts
[Lines dedicated to one of her priests, by whose words they were prompted.]
Land of the desolate, Mother of tears,Weeping your beauty marred and torn,Your children tossed upon the spears,Your altars rent, your hearths forlorn,Where Spring has no renewing spell,And Love no language save a long Farewell!
Ah, precious tears, and each a pearl,Whose price—for so in God we trustWho saw them fall in that blind swirlOf ravening flame and reeking dust—The spoiler with his life shall pay,When Justice at the last demands her Day.
O tried and proved, whose record standsLettered in blood too deep to fade,Take courage! Never in our handsShall the avenging sword be stayedTill you are healed of all your pain,And come with Honour to your own again.
Owen Seaman
May 19, 1915
Low and brown barns, thatched and repatched and tattered,Where I had seven sons until to-day,A little hill of hay your spur has scattered….This is not Paris. You have lost the way.
You, staring at your sword to find it brittle,Surprised at the surprise that was your plan,Who, shaking and breaking barriers not a little,Find never more the death-door of Sedan—
Must I for more than carnage call you claimant,Paying you a penny for each son you slay?Man, the whole globe in gold were no repaymentFor whatyouhave lost. And how shall I repay?
What is the price of that red spark that caught meFrom a kind farm that never had a name?What is the price of that dead man they brought me?For other dead men do not look the same.
How should I pay for one poor graven steepleWhereon you shattered what you shall not know?How should I pay you, miserable people?How should I pay you everything you owe?
Unhappy, can I give you back your honour?Though I forgave, would any man forget?While all the great green land has trampled on herThe treason and terror of the night we met.
Not any more in vengeance or in pardonAn old wife bargains for a bean that's hers.You have no word to break: no heart to harden.Ride on and prosper. You have lost your spurs.
Gilbert Keith Chesterton
A wind in the world! The dark departs;The chains now rust that crushed men's flesh and bones,Feet tread no more the mildewed prison stones,And slavery is lifted from your hearts.
A wind in the world! O CompanyOf darkened Russia, watching long in vain,Now shall you see the cloud of Russia's painGo shrinking out across a summer sky.
A wind in the world! Our God shall beIn all the future left, no kingly dollDecked out with dreadful sceptre, steel, and stole,But walk the earth—a man, in Charity.
* * * * *
A wind in the world! And doubts are blownTo dust along, and the old stars come forth—Stars of a creed to Pilgrim Fathers worthA field of broken spears and flowers strown.
A wind in the world! Now truancyFrom the true self is ended; to her partSteadfast again she moves, and from her heartA great America cries: Death to Tyranny!
A wind in the world! And we have comeTogether, sea by sea; in all the landsVision doth move at last, and Freedom standsWith brightened wings, and smiles and beckons home!
John Galsworthy
Land of the Martyrs—of the martyred deadAnd martyred living—now of noble fame!Long wert thou saddest of the nations, wedTo Sorrow as the fire to the flame,Not yet relentless History had writ of Teuton shame.
Thou knewest all the gloom of hope deferred.'Twixt God and Russia wrong had built such barEach by the other could no more be heard.Seen through the cloud, the child's familiar star,That once made Heaven near, had made it seem more far.
Land of the Breaking Dawn! No more look backTo that long night that nevermore can be:The sunless dungeon and the exile's track.To the world's dreams of terror let it flee.To gentle April cruel March is now antiquity.
Yet—of the Past one sacred relic save:That boundary-post 'twixt Russia and Despair,—Set where the dead might look upon his grave,—Kissed by him with his last-breathed Russian air.Keep it to witness to the world what heroes still may dare.
Land of New Hope, no more the minor key,No more the songs of exile long and lone;Thy tears henceforth be tears of memory.Sing, with the joy the joyless would have knownWho for this visioned happiness so gladly gave their own.
Land of the warm heart and the friendly hand,Strike the free chord; no more the muted strings!Forever let the equal record stand—A thousand winters for this Spring of Springs,That to a warring world, through thee, millennial longing brings.
On thy white tablets, cleansed of royal stain,What message to the future mayst thou write!—The People's Law, the bulwark of their reign,And vigilant Liberty, of ancient might,And Brotherhood, that can alone lead to the loftiest height.
Take, then, our hearts' rejoicing overflow,Thou new-born daughter of Democracy,Whose coming sets the expectant earth aglow.Soon the glad skies thy proud new flag shall see,And hear thy chanted hymns of hope for Russia new and free.
Robert Underwood Johnson
April, 1917
Of all my dreams by night and day,One dream will evermore return,The dream of Italy in May;The sky a brimming azure urnWhere lights of amber brood and burn;The doves about San Marco's square,The swimming Campanile tower,The giants, hammering out the hour,The palaces, the bright lagoons,The gondolas gliding here and thereUpon the tide that sways and swoons.
The domes of San Antonio,Where Padua 'mid her mulberry-treesReclines; Adige's crescent flowBeneath Verona's balconies;Rich Florence of the Medicis;Sienna's starlike streets that climbFrom hill to hill; Assisi wellRemembering the holy spellOf rapt St. Francis; with her crownOf battlements, embossed by time,Stern old Perugia looking down.
Then, mother of great empires, Rome,City of the majestic past,That o'er far leagues of alien foamThe shadows of her eagles cast,Imperious still; impending, vast,
The Colosseum's curving line;Pillar and arch and colonnade;St. Peter's consecrated shade,And Hadrian's tomb where Tiber strays;The ruins on the PalatineWith all their memories of dead days.
And Naples, with her sapphire arcOf bay, her perfect sweep of shore;Above her, like a demon stark,The dark fire-mountain evermoreLooming portentous, as of yore;Fair Capri with her cliffs and caves;Salerno drowsing 'mid her vinesAnd olives, and the shattered shrinesOf Paestum where the gray ghosts tread,And where the wilding rose still wavesAs when by Greek girls garlanded.
But hark! What sound the ear dismays,Mine Italy, mine Italy?Thou that wert wrapt in peace, the hazeOf loveliness spread over thee!Yet since the grapple needs must be,I who have wandered in the nightWith Dante, Petrarch's Laura known,Seen Vallombrosa's groves breeze-blown,Met Angelo and Raffael,Against iconoclastic mightIn this grim hour must wish thee well!
Clinton Scollard
"I will die cheering, if I needs must die;So shall my last breath write upon my lipsViva Italia!when my spirit slipsDown the great darkness from the mountain sky;And those who shall behold me where I lieShall murmur: 'Look, you! how his spirit dipsFrom glory into glory! the eclipseOf death is vanquished! Lo, his victor-cry!'
"Live, thou, upon my lips, Italia mine,The sacred death-cry of my frozen clay!Let thy dear light from my dead body shineAnd to the passer-by thy message say:'Ecco!though heaven has made my skies divine,My sons' love sanctifies my soil for aye!'"
George Edward Woodberry
By all the deeds to Thy dear glory done,By all the life blood, spilt to serve Thy need,By all the fettered lives Thy touch hath freed,By all Thy dream in us anew begun;By all the guerdon English sire to sonHath given of highest vision, kingliest deed,By all Thine agony, of God decreedFor trial and strength, our fate with Thine is one.
Still dwells Thy spirit in our hearts and lips,Honour and life we hold from none but Thee,And if we live Thy pensioners no moreBut seek a nation's might of men and ships,'T is but that when the world is black with warThy sons may stand beside Thee strong and free.
Archibald T. Strong
August, 1914
Great names of thy great captains gone beforeBeat with our blood, who have that blood of thee:Raleigh and Grenville, Wolfe, and all the freeFine souls who dared to front a world in war.Such only may outreach the envious yearsWhere feebler crowns and fainter stars remove,Nurtured in one remembrance and one loveToo high for passion and too stern for tears.
O little isle our fathers held for home,Not, not alone thy standards and thy hostsLead where thy sons shall follow, Mother Land:Quick as the north wind, ardent as the foam,Behold, behold the invulnerable ghostsOf all past greatnesses about thee stand.
Marjorie L.C. Pickthall
This is the ballad of Langemarck,A story of glory and might;Of the vast Hun horde, and Canada's partIn the great grim fight.
It was April fair on the Flanders Fields,But the dreadest April thenThat ever the years, in their fateful flight,Had brought to this world of men.
North and east, a monster wall,The mighty Hun ranks lay,With fort on fort, and iron-ringed trench,Menacing, grim and gray.
And south and west, like a serpent of fire,Serried the British lines,And in between, the dying and dead,And the stench of blood, and the trampled mud,On the fair, sweet Belgian vines.
And far to the eastward, harnessed and taut,Like a scimitar, shining and keen,Gleaming out of that ominous gloom,Old France's hosts were seen.
When out of the grim Hun lines one night,There rolled a sinister smoke;—A strange, weird cloud, like a pale, green shroud,And death lurked in its cloak.
On a fiend-like wind it curled alongOver the brave French ranks,Like a monster tree its vapours spread,In hideous, burning banksOf poisonous fumes that scorched the nightWith their sulphurous demon danks.
And men went mad with horror, and fledFrom that terrible, strangling death,That seemed to sear both body and soulWith its baleful, flaming breath.
Till even the little dark men of the south,Who feared neither God nor man,Those fierce, wild fighters of Afric's steppes,Broke their battalions and ran:—
Ran as they never had run before,Gasping, and fainting for breath;For they knew 't was no human foe that slew;And that hideous smoke meant death.
Then red in the reek of that evil cloud,The Hun swept over the plain;And the murderer's dirk did its monster work,'Mid the scythe-like shrapnel rain;
Till it seemed that at last the brute Hun hordesHad broken that wall of steel;And that soon, through this breach in the freeman's dyke,His trampling hosts would wheel;—
And sweep to the south in ravaging might,And Europe's peoples againBe trodden under the tyrant's heel,Like herds, in the Prussian pen.
But in that line on the British right,There massed a corps amain,Of men who hailed from a far west landOf mountain and forest and plain;
Men new to war and its dreadest deeds,But noble and staunch and true;Men of the open, East and West,Brew of old Britain's brew.
These were the men out there that night,When Hell loomed close ahead;Who saw that pitiful, hideous rout,And breathed those gases dread;While some went under and some went mad;But never a man there fled.
For the word was "Canada," theirs to fight,And keep on fighting still;—Britain said, fight, and fight they would,Though the Devil himself in sulphurous moodCame over that hideous hill.
Yea, stubborn, they stood, that hero band,Where no soul hoped to live;For five, 'gainst eighty thousand men,Were hopeless odds to give.
Yea, fought they on! 'T was Friday eve,When that demon gas drove down;'T was Saturday eve that saw them stillGrimly holding their own;
Sunday, Monday, saw them yet,A steadily lessening band,With "no surrender" in their hearts,But the dream of a far-off land,
Where mother and sister and love would weepFor the hushed heart lying still;—But never a thought but to do their part,And work the Empire's will.
Ringed round, hemmed in, and back to back,They fought there under the dark,And won for Empire, God and Right,At grim, red Langemarck.
Wonderful battles have shaken this world,Since the Dawn-God overthrew Dis;Wonderful struggles of right against wrong,Sung in the rhymes of the world's great song,But never a greater than this.
Bannockburn, Inkerman, Balaclava,Marathon's godlike stand;But never a more heroic deed,And never a greater warrior breed,In any war-man's land.
This is the ballad of Langemarck,A story of glory and might;Of the vast Hun horde, and Canada's partIn the great, grim fight.
Wilfred Campbell
With arrows on their quarters and with numbers on their hoofs,With the trampling sound of twenty that re-echoes in the roofs,Low of crest and dull of coat, wan and wild of eye,Through our English village the Canadians go by.
Shying at a passing cart, swerving from a car,Tossing up an anxious head to flaunt a snowy star,Racking at a Yankee gait, reaching at the rein,Twenty raw Canadians are tasting life again!
Hollow-necked and hollow-flanked, lean of rib and hip,Strained and sick and weary with the wallow of the ship,Glad to smell the turf again, hear the robin's call,Tread again the country road they lost at Montreal!
Fate may bring them dule and woe; better steeds than theySleep beside the English guns a hundred leagues away;But till war hath need of them, lightly lie their reins,Softly fall the feet of them along the English lanes.
Will H. Ogilvie
He said: "Thou petty people, let me pass.What canst thou do but bow to me and kneel?"But sudden a dry land caught fire like grass,And answer hurtled but from shell and steel.
He looked for silence, but a thunder cameUpon him, from Liège a leaden hail.All Belgium flew up at his throat in flameTill at her gates amazed his legions quail.
Take heed, for now on haunted ground they tread;There bowed a mightier war lord to his fall:Fear! lest that very green grass again grow redWith blood of German now as then with Gaul.
If him whom God destroys He maddens first,Then thy destruction slake thy madman's thirst.
Stephen Phillips
Now spake the Emperor to all his shining battle forces,To the Lancers, and the Rifles, to the Gunners and the Horses;—And his pride surged up within him as he saw their banners stream!—"'T is a twelve-day march to Paris, by the road our fathers travelled,And the prize is half an empire when the scarlet road's unravelled—Go you now across the border,God's decree and William's order—Climb the frowning Belgian ridgesWith your naked swords agleam!Seize the City of the Bridges—Then get on, get on to Paris—To the jewelled streets of Paris—To the lovely woman, Paris, that has driven me to dream!"
A hundred thousand fighting menThey climbed the frowning ridges,With their flaming swords drawn freeAnd their pennants at their knee.They went up to their desire,To the City of the Bridges,With their naked brands outdrawnLike the lances of the dawn!In a swelling surf of fire,Crawling higher—higher—higher—Till they crumpled up and diedLike a sudden wasted tide,And the thunder in their faces beat them down and flung them wide!
They had paid a thousand men,Yet they formed and came again,For they heard the silver bugles sounding challenge to their pride,And they rode with swords agleamFor the glory of a dream,And they stormed up to the cannon's mouth and withered there, anddied….The daylight lay in ashesOn the blackened western hill,And the dead were calm and still;But the Night was torn with gashes—Sudden ragged crimson gashes—And the siege-guns snarled and roared,With their flames thrust like a sword,And the tranquil moon came riding on the heaven's silver ford.
What a fearful world was there,Tangled in the cold moon's hair!Man and beast lay hurt and screaming,(Men must die when Kings are dreaming!)—While within the harried townMothers dragged their children downAs the awful rain came screaming,For the glory of a Crown!
So the Morning flung her cloakThrough the hanging pall of smoke—Trimmed with red, it was, and dripping with a deep and angry stain!And the Day came walking thenThrough a lane of murdered men,And her light fell down before her like a Cross upon the plain!But the forts still crowned the heightWith a bitter iron crown!They had lived to flame and fight,They had lived to keep the Town!And they poured their havoc downAll that day … and all that night….While four times their number came,Pawns that played a bloody game!—With a silver trumpeting,For the glory of the King,To the barriers of the thunder and the fury of the flame!
So they stormed the iron Hill,O'er the sleepers lying still,And their trumpets sang them forward through the dull succeeding dawns,But the thunder flung them wide,And they crumpled up and died,—They had waged the war of monarchs—and they died the death of pawns.
But the forts still stood…. Their breathSwept the foeman like a blade,Though ten thousand men were paidTo the hungry purse of Death,Though the field was wet with blood,Still the bold defences stood,Stood!
And the King came out with his bodyguard at the day's departing gleam—And the moon rode up behind the smoke and showed the King his dream.
Dana Burnet
There are five men in the moonlightThat by their shadows stand;Three hobble humped on crutches,And two lack each a hand.
Frogs somewhere near the roadsideChorus their chant absorbed:But a hush breathes out of the dream-lightThat far in heaven is orbed.
It is gentle as sleep fallingAnd wide as thought can span,The ancient peace and wonderThat brims the heart of man.
Beyond the hills it shines nowOn no peace but the dead,On reek of trenches thunder-shocked,Tense fury of wills in wrestle locked,A chaos crumbled red!
The five men in the moonlightChat, joke, or gaze apart.They talk of days and comrades,But each one hides his heart.
They wear clean cap and tunic,As when they went to war;A gleam comes where the medal's pinned:But they will fight no more.
The shadows, maimed and antic,Gesture and shape distort,Like mockery of a demon dumbOut of the hell-din whence they comeThat dogs them for his sport:
But as if dead men were risenAnd stood before me thereWith a terrible fame about them blownIn beams of spectral air,
I see them, men transfiguredAs in a dream, dilateFabulous with the Titan-throbOf battling Europe's fate;
For history's hushed before them,And legend flames afresh,—Verdun, the name of thunder,Is written on their flesh.
Laurence Binyon
Three hundred thousand men, but not enoughTo break this township on a winding stream;More yet must fall, and more, ere the red stuffThat built a nation's manhood may redeemThe Master's hopes and realize his dream.
They pave the way to Verdun; on their dustThe Hohenzollerns mount and, hand in hand,Gaze haggard south; for yet another thrustAnd higher hills must heap, ere they may standTo feed their eyes upon the promised land.
One barrow, borne of women, lifts them high,Built up of many a thousand human dead.Nursed on their mothers' bosoms, now they lie—A Golgotha, all shattered, torn and sped,A mountain for these royal feet to tread.
A Golgotha, upon whose carrion clayJustice of myriad men still in the wombShall heave two crosses; crucify and flayTwo memories accurs'd; then in the tombOf world-wide execration give them room.
Verdun! A clarion thy name shall ringAdown the ages and the Nations seeThy monuments of glory. Now we bringThank-offering and bend the reverent knee,Thou star upon the crown of Liberty!
Eden Phillpotts
Guns of Verdun point to MetzFrom the plated parapets;Guns of Metz grin back againO'er the fields of fair Lorraine.
Guns of Metz are long and grey,Growling through a summer day;Guns of Verdun, grey and long,Boom an echo of their song.
Guns of Metz to Verdun roar,"Sisters, you shall foot the score;"Guns of Verdun say to Metz,"Fear not, for we pay our debts."
Guns of Metz they grumble, "When?"Guns of Verdun answer then,"Sisters, when to guard LorraineGunners lay you East again!"
Patrick R. Chalmers
I saw the spires of OxfordAs I was passing by,The gray spires of OxfordAgainst the pearl-gray sky.My heart was with the Oxford menWho went abroad to die.
The years go fast in Oxford,The golden years and gay,The hoary Colleges look downOn careless boys at play.But when the bugles sounded warThey put their games away.
They left the peaceful river,The cricket-field, the quad,The shaven lawns of Oxford,To seek a bloody sod—They gave their merry youth awayFor country and for God.
God rest you, happy gentlemen,Who laid your good lives down,Who took the khaki and the gunInstead of cap and gown.God bring you to a fairer placeThan even Oxford town.
Winifred M. Letts
[The Boat Race will not be held this year (1915). The whole of last year's Oxford Eight and the great majority of the cricket and football teams are serving the King.]
Under the tow-path past the bargesNever an eight goes flashing by;Never a blatant coach on the marge isUrging his crew to do or die;Never the critic we knew enlarges,Fluent, on How and Why!
Once by the Iffley Road NovemberWelcomed the Football men aglow,Covered with mud, as you'll remember,Eager to vanquish Oxford's foe.Where are the teams of last December?Gone—where they had to go!
Where are her sons who waged at cricketWarfare against the foeman-friend?Far from the Parks, on a harder wicket,Still they attack and still defend;Playing a greater game, they'll stick it,Fearless until the end!
Oxford's goodliest children leave her,Hastily thrusting books aside;Still the hurrying weeks bereave her,Filling her heart with joy and pride;Only the thought of you can grieve her,You who have fought and died.
W. Snow
Beneath fair Magdalen's storied towersI wander in a dream,And hear the mellow chimes float outO'er Cherwell's ice-bound stream.
Throstle and blackbird stiff with coldHop on the frozen grass;Among the aged, upright oaksThe dun deer slowly pass.
The chapel organ rolls and swells,And voices still praise God;But ah! the thought of youthful friendsWho lie beneath the sod.
Now wounded men with gallant eyesGo hobbling down the street,And nurses from the hospitalsSpeed by with tireless feet.
The town is full of uniforms,And through the stormy sky,Frightening the rooks from the tallest trees,The aeroplanes roar by.
The older faces still are here,More grave and true and kind,Ennobled by the steadfast toilOf patient heart and mind.
And old-time friends are dearer grownTo fill a double place:Unshaken faith makes gloriousEach forward-looking face.
Old Oxford walls are grey and worn:She knows the truth of tears,But to-day she stands in her ancient prideCrowned with eternal years.
Gone are her sons: yet her heart is gladIn the glory of their youth,For she brought them forth to live or dieBy freedom, justice, truth.
Cold moonlight falls on silent towers;The young ghosts walk with the old;But Oxford dreams of the dawn of MayAnd her heart is free and bold.
Tertius van Dyke
Magdalen College,
January, 1917
SONNETS WRITTEN IN THE FALL OF 1914
Awake, ye nations, slumbering supine,Who round enring the European fray!Heard ye the trumpet sound? "The Day! the Day!The last that shall on England's Empire shine!The Parliament that broke the Right DivineShall see her realm of reason swept away,And lesser nations shall the sword obey—The sword o'er all carve the great world's design!"
So on the English Channel boasts the foeOn whose imperial brow death's helmet nods.Look where his hosts o'er bloody Belgium go,And mix a nation's past with blazing sods!A kingdom's waste! a people's homeless woe!Man's broken Word, and violated gods!
Far fall the day when England's realm shall seeThe sunset of dominion! Her increaseAbolishes the man-dividing seas,And frames the brotherhood on earth to be!She, in free peoples planting sovereignty,Orbs half the civil world in British peace;And though time dispossess her, and she cease,Rome-like she greatens in man's memory.
Oh, many a crown shall sink in war's turmoil,And many a new republic light the sky,Fleets sweep the ocean, nations till the soil,Genius be born and generations die.Orient and Occident together toil,Ere such a mighty work man rears on high!
Hearken, the feet of the Destroyer treadThe wine-press of the nations; fast the bloodPours from the side of Europe; in the floodOn the septentrional watershedThe rivers of fair France are running red!England, the mother-aerie of our brood,That on the summit of dominion stood,Shakes in the blast: heaven battles overhead!
Lift up thy head, O Rheims, of ages heirThat treasured up in thee their glorious sum;Upon whose brow, prophetically fair,Flamed the great morrow of the world to come;Haunt with thy beauty this volcanic airEre yet thou close, O Flower of Christendom!
As when the shadow of the sun's eclipseSweeps on the earth, and spreads a spectral air,As if the universe were dying there,On continent and isle the darkness dipsUnwonted gloom, and on the Atlantic slips;So in the night the Belgian cities flareHorizon-wide; the wandering people fareAlong the roads, and load the fleeing ships.
And westward borne that planetary sweepDarkening o'er England and her times to be,Already steps upon the ocean-deep!Watch well, my country, that unearthly sea,Lest when thou thinkest not, and in thy sleep,Unapt for war, that gloom enshadow thee.
I pray for peace; yet peace is but a prayer.How many wars have been in my brief years!All races and all faiths, both hemispheres,My eyes have seen embattled everywhereThe wide earth through; yet do I not despairOf peace, that slowly through far ages nears;Though not to me the golden morn appears,My faith is perfect in time's issue fair.
For man doth build on an eternal scale,And his ideals are framed of hope deferred;The millennium came not; yet Christ did not fail,Though ever unaccomplished is His word;Him Prince of Peace, though unenthroned, we hail,Supreme when in all bosoms He be heard.
This is my faith, and my mind's heritage,Wherein I toil, though in a lonely place,Who yet world-wide survey the human raceUnequal from wild nature disengageBody and soul, and life's old strife assuage;Still must abide, till heaven perfect its grace,And love grown wisdom sweeten in man's face,Alike the Christian and the heathen rage.
The tutelary genius of mankindRipens by slow degrees the final State,That in the soul shall its foundations findAnd only in victorious love grow great;Patient the heart must be, humble the mind,That doth the greater births of time await!
Whence not unmoved I see the nations formFrom Dover to the fountains of the Rhine,A hundred leagues, the scarlet battle-line,And by the Vistula great armies swarm,A vaster flood; rather my breast grows warm,Seeing all peoples of the earth combineUnder one standard, with one countersign,Grown brothers in the universal storm.
And never through the wide world yet there rangA mightier summons! O Thou who from the sideOf Athens and the loins of Casar sprang,Strike, Europe, with half the coming world alliedFor those ideals for which, since Homer sang,The hosts of thirty centuries have died.
George Edward Woodberry