O living pictures of the dead,O songs without a sound,O fellowship whose phantom treadHallows a phantom ground—How in a gleam have these revealedThe faith we had not found.
We have sought God in a cloudy Heaven,We have passed by God on earth:His seven sins and his sorrows seven,His wayworn mood and mirth,Like a ragged cloak have hid from usThe secret of his birth.
Brother of men, when now I seeThe lads go forth in line,Thou knowest my heart is hungry in meAs for thy bread and wine;Thou knowest my heart is bowed in meTo take their death for mine.
Henry Newbolt
[Political morality differs from individual morality, because there is no power above the State.—General von Bernhardt]
Shadow by shadow, stripped for fight,The lean black cruisers search the sea.Night-long their level shafts of lightRevolve, and find no enemy.Only they know each leaping waveMay hide the lightning, and their grave.
And in the land they guard so wellIs there no silent watch to keep?An age is dying, and the bellRings midnight on a vaster deep.But over all its waves, once moreThe searchlights move, from shore to shore.
And captains that we thought were dead,And dreamers that we thought were dumb,And voices that we thought were fled,Arise, and call us, and we come;And "Search in thine own soul," they cry;"For there, too, lurks thine enemy."
Search for the foe in thine own soul,The sloth, the intellectual pride;The trivial jest that veils the goalFor which, our fathers lived and died;The lawless dreams, the cynic Art,That rend thy nobler self apart.
Not far, not far into the night,These level swords of light can pierce;Yet for her faith does England fight,Her faith in this our universe,Believing Truth and Justice drawFrom founts of everlasting law;
The law that rules the stars, our stay,Our compass through the world's wide sea.The one sure light, the one sure way,The one firm base of Liberty;The one firm road that men have trodThrough Chaos to the throne of God.
Therefore a Power above the State,The unconquerable Power, returns,The fire, the fire that made her greatOnce more upon her altar burns,Once more, redeemed and healed and whole,She moves to the Eternal Goal.
Alfred Noyes
Now is the midnight of the nations: darkEven as death, beside her blood-dark seas,Earth, like a mother in birth agonies,Screams in her travail, and the planets harkHer million-throated terror. Naked, stark,Her torso writhes enormous, and her kneesShudder against the shadowed Pleiades,Wrenching the night's imponderable arc.
Christ! What shall be delivered to the mornOut of these pangs, if ever indeed anotherMorn shall succeed this night, or this vast motherSurvive to know the blood-spent offspring, tornFrom her racked flesh?—What splendour from the smother?What new-wing'd world, or mangled god still-born?
Percy MacKaye
What of the faith and fire within usMen who march awayEre the barn-cocks sayNight is growing gray,To hazards whence no tears can win us;What of the faith and fire within usMen who march away!
Is it a purblind prank, O think you,Friend with the musing eyeWho watch us stepping by,With doubt and dolorous sigh?Can much pondering so hoodwink you?Is it a purblind prank, O think you,Friend with the musing eye?
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 believingVictory crowns the just,And that braggarts mustSurely bite the dust,Press we to the field ungrieving,In our heart of hearts believingVictory crowns the just.
Hence the faith and fire within usMen who march awayEre the barn-cocks sayNight is growing gray,To hazards whence no tears can win us;Hence the faith and fire within usMen who march away.
Thomas Hardy
September 5, 1914
We willed it not. We have not lived in hate,Loving too well the shires of England thrownFrom sea to sea to covet your estate,Or wish one flight of fortune from your throne.
We had grown proud because the nations stoodHoping together against the calumnyThat, 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 throwTo 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
Now slowly sinks the day-long labouring SunBehind 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 thouArt 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 sunAcross 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 reposeA 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 bornThere 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 toldAnd 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 grieveAnd wander restless from the lighted rooms.
For through the world to-night a murmur thrillsAs 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-bornO 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 streamsTo 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 boreTo please us, but that she can bring no more;And dying yet she smiles—as Christ on himWho slew Him slain. Her eyes so beauteousAre 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 solitudesWhere she dwelleth; and joyous Spirits that roamTo 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 sleepAnd will awake. Bring wine, and new-wound wreathsWherewith 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 obsceneWith lavish tongues; and Trolls; and treacherous ThingsLike loose-lipp'd Councillors and cruel KingsWho 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 timeThe direst deed e'er done, the most accursed crime.
Ronald Ross
Further and further we leave the sceneOf 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 wrongMy 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 signThe 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 flyIn the wilful sea-bird's track,Would I hurry on, with a homesick cry—Or hasten back?
Florence Earle Coates
Burned from the ore's rejected dross,The iron whitens in the heat.With plangent strokes of pain and lossThe hammers on the iron beat.Searched by the fire, through death and doleWe feel the iron in our soul.
O dreadful Forge! if torn and bruisedThe heart, more urgent comes our cryNot 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
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 starTo chaunted songs of woe,Dragging cold cannon through a mudOf rain and blood;The new moon glinting hard on eyesWide with insanities!
Hush!… I use wordsI hardly know the meaning of;And the mute birdsAre glancing at Love!From out their shade of leaf and flower,Trembling at treacheries
Which even in noonday cower,Heed, heed not what I saidOf 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 creepEyeless worms in hush of sleep;Yet, when he smiles, the hand he drawsAthwart his grinning jawsFaintly their thin bones rattle, and…. There, there;Hearken how my bells in the airDrive away care!…
Nay, but a dream I hadOf a world all mad.Not a simple happy mad like me,Who am mad like an empty sceneOf 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 blueHeaven they did shareWith 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 InnocenceIn dreams is hence….Come, Love, my lad,Nodding that drowsy head,'T is time thy prayers were said.
Walter de la Mare
[Concerning the experiences of a journey on foot through the night ofAugust 4, 1914 (the night after the formal declaration of war betweenEngland 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 cameNor gave a sign of salutation, saveTo touch with light my sleeve and make the wayAppear as if a shining countenanceHad 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 passOr e'er another moon should cope with cloudsFor 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 lieLike swaths of grain beneath the harvest moonUpon these lands the ancient Belgae held,From Normandy beyond renowned Liège!—
But it was out of that dread August nightFrom which all Europe woke to war, that we,This beautiful Dawn-Youth, and I, had come,He from afar. Beyond grim PetrogradHe'd waked the moujik from his peaceful dreams,Bid the muezzin call to morning prayerWhere minarets rise o'er the Golden Horn,And driven shadows from the Prussian marchTo lie beneath the lindens of thestadt.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 playAmid the traceries of Amiens,And then was hast'ning on the road to Dieppe,When he o'ertook me drowsy from the hoursThrough which I'd walked, with no companions elseThan ghostly kilometer posts that stoodAs 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 sleepBeside 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 sleepAnd stars alone do walk abroad.—But onceThree watchful shadows, deeper than the dark,Laid hands on me and searched me for the marksOf traitor or of spy, only to findOver my heart the badge of loyalty.—With wish forbon voyagethey gave me o'erTo the white guards who led me on again.
Thus Dawn o'ertook me and with magic speechMade 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 rearedOf 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 awareOf peasant women bending in the fields,Cradling and gleaning by the first scant light,Their sons and husbands somewhere o'er the edgeOf 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 meWhere but the day before a peasant ploughed,Dreaming of next year's fruit, and there his ploughStood 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 clackAnd withered women, knitting, led their cows,On, on to call the men of KitchenerDown to their coasts,—I shouting after him:"O Dawn, would you had let the world sleep onTill 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 towersOf that great capital where nations all,Teuton, Italian, Gallic, English, Slav,Forget long hates in one consummate faith.
John Finley
'T was in the piping tune of peaceWe 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 insolentWould round the world's horizons pour,From Europe to the Australian shore.
The tides of war had ebb'd awayFrom Trachis and Thermopylae,Long centuries had come and goneSince that fierce day at Marathon;
Freedom was firmly based, and weWall'd by our own encircling sea;The ancient passions dead, and menBattl'd with ledger and with pen.
So seem'd it, but to them aloneThe wisdom of the gods is known;Lest freedom's price decline, from farZeus hurl'd the thunderbolt of war.
And so once more the Persian steelThe armies of the Greeks must feel,And once again a Xerxes knowThe virtue of a Spartan foe.
Thus may the cloudy fates unroll'dRetrace the starry circles old,And the recurrent heavens decreeA Periclean dynasty.
W. Macneile Dixon
"When there is Peace our land no moreWill be the land we knew of yore."Thus do our facile seers foretellThe truth that none can buy or sellAnd 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 excelAnd, like men waking from a spell,Grow stronger, nobler, than before,When there is Peace.
Austin Dobson
[ 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 TheeIs waiting—at Thy Throne.
The towering Babels that we raisedWhere 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 powerWho 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 woreWhen Thou wast Lord and King.
Let darkness unto darkness tellOur deep unspoken prayer,For, while our souls in darkness dwell,We know that Thou art there.
Alfred Noyes
When battles were foughtWith 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 deignTo profit by a stainOn the honourable rules,Knowing that practise perfidy no man durstWho in the heroic schoolsWas nurst.
But now, behold, whatIs war with those where honour is not!Rama lamentsIts dead innocents;Herod howls: "Sly slaughterRules now! Let us, by modes once called accurst,Overhead, under water,Stab first."
Thomas Hardy
["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 nodShow 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 lookWho read further in that book,Where you did in time of warAll 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 pressOn the God of Righteousness!
Kaiser, when you'd decorateSons or friends who serve your State,Not that Iron Cross bestow,But a cross of wood, and so—So remind the world that youHave made Calvary anew.
Kaiser, when you'd kneel in prayerLook upon your hands, and thereLet that deep and awful stainFrom the Wood of children slainBurn your very soul with shame,Till you dare not breathe that NameThat 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 amazeThat His ways are not your ways,That the mire through which you trodIs 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 horror-haunted Belgian plains riven by shot and shellAre 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 incarnadineAttest the carnival of strife, the madman's battle scene.
Relentless, savage, hot, and grim the infuriate columns pressWhere 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 unfurledAnd prayer on lip he runs amuck, imperilling the world.
The impious creed that might is right in him personifiedBids 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 tireTo 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
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 noontideAnd the ghosts that died in vain,—A little hill, a hard hillTo the souls that died in pain.
There is a hill in Jewry,Three crosses pierce the sky,On the midmost He is dyingTo save all those who die,—A little hill, a kind hillTo souls in jeopardy.
Everard Owen
Harrow, December, 1915
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
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 squareAnd 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 streetCame the hurrying stumbling feet.O I have heard the drums beatFor war!I have heard the townsfolk come,I have heard the roll and thunder of the nearest drumAs 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 streetAnd down to another square,And the drummer above took up the beatAnd sent it onward whereHuddled, we stood and heard the drums roll,And then a bell began to toll.
O I have heard the thunder of drumsCrashing 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 beatFor war!
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 Finistère.The younger women do not weep. They dream and stare.
They seem to be walking in dreams. They seem not to knowIt 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, theMarseillaise!
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 Finistère.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
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 seeWe'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 fightWith 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-deeAnd 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
Facing the guns, he jokes as wellAs any Judge upon the Bench;Between the crash of shell and shellHis laughter rings along the trench;He seems immensely tickled by aProjectile which he calls a "Black Maria."
He whistles down the day-long road,And, when the chilly shadows fallAnd heavier hangs the weary load,Is he down-hearted? Not at all.'T is then he takes a light and airyView 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 limbsAlthough they miss the sacred fire;Although his choice and cherished gemsDo 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 sameHe 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
As I lay in the trenchesUnder the Hunter's Moon,My mind ran to the lenchesCut in a Wiltshire down.
I saw their long black shadows,The beeches in the lane,The gray church in the meadowsAnd my white cottage—plain.
Thinks I, the down lies dreamingUnder that hot moon's eye,Which sees the shells fly screamingAnd men and horses die.
And what makes she, I wonder,Of the horror and the blood,And what's her luck, to sunderThe evil from the good?
'T was more than I could compass,For how was I to thinkWith such infernal rumpusIn such a blasted stink?
But here's a thought to tallyWith t'other. That moon seesA shrouded German valleyWith woods and ghostly trees.
And maybe there's a riverAs we have got at homeWith poplar-trees aquiverAnd clots of whirling foam.
And over there some fellow,A German and a foe,Whose gills are turning yellowAs sure as mine are so,
Watches that riding gloryApparel'd in her gold,And craves to hear the storyHer frozen lips enfold.
And if he sees as clearlyAs I do where her shrineMust fall, he longs as dearly.With heart as full as mine.
Maurice Hewlett
Men of the Twenty-firstUp 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 cursedOur luck and the guns and theBoche,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 shouldyourcheeks be wet,Such feelin's don't come toyou.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 faceDoing 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 AMERICAN PEOPLE:What was it kept you so long, brave German submersible?We have been very anxious lest matters had not gone wellWith 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 hostOf the dead that went down with her; and some prayed us to bring themhereThat they might be at home with their brothers and sisters dear.We Germans have tender hearts, and it grieved us sore to sayWe were not a passenger ship, and to most we must answer nay,But if from among their hundreds they could somehow a half-score chooseWe thought we could manage to bring them, and we would not refuse.They chose, and the women and children that are greeting you here arethoseGhosts 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 weKnow 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 seaShall be ever the home for us this land can never be.
William Dean Howells
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 satIn 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 doneAs 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 braveWith a vision of understanding beyond the hourThat knelled to the waiting grave.
They bound her eyes, but she stood as if she shone.The rifles it was that shookWhen the hoarse command rang out. They could not endureThat last, that defenceless look.
And the officer strode and pistolled her surely, ashamedThat 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 nightWhen 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 excuseArgued their German rightTo 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 slainTo 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 rejoiceThat an English soul was found so crystal-clearTo be triumphant voice
Of the human heart that dares adventure allBut 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—theseMake a fragrance of her fame.But because she stept to her star right on through deathIt is Victory speaks her name.
Laurence Binyon
My name is Darino, the poet. You have heard?Oui, Comédie Française.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 tellHow 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 Engineersstood;Over there a detachment of German sharpshooters lay hid in a wood.Amitrailleusebattery planted on top of this well-chosen ridgeHeld the road for the Prussians and covered the direct approach to thebridge.
It was madness to dare the dense murder that spewed from those ghastlymachines.(Only those who have danced to its music can know what themitrailleusemeans.)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 wasdismayed.A party was chosen—and seven survived till the powder was laid.Andtheydied with their fuses unlighted. Another detachment! AgainA sortie is made—all too vainly. The bridge still commanded the Aisne.
We were fighting two foes—Time and Prussia—the moments were worth morethan troops.Wemustblow up the bridge. A lone soldier darts out from the Royalsand swoopsFor the fuse! Fate seems with us. We cheer him; he answers—our hopesare reborn!A ball rips his visor—his khaki shows red where another has torn.
Will he live—will he last—will he make it?Hélas!And so near to thegoal!A second, he dies! then a third one! A fourth! Still the Germans taketoll!A fifth,magnifique! It is magic! How does he escape them? He may….Yes, hedoes! See, the match flares! A rifle rings out from the woodand says "Nay!"
Six, seven, eight, nine take their places, six, seven, eight, nine bravetheir hail;Six, seven, eight, nine—how we count them! But the sixth, seventh,eighth, and ninth fail!A tenth!Sacré nom!But these English are soldiers—they know how totry;(He fumbles the place where his jaw was)—they show, too, how heroes candie.
Ten we count—ten who ventured unquailing—ten there were—and ten areno 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 themitrailleusesplutters and stutters, and riddles him into asieve.
Then I thought of my sins, and sat waiting the charge that we could notwithstand.And I thought of my beautiful Paris, and gave a last look at the land,At France, mybelle France, in her glory of blue sky and green fieldand wood.Death with honor, but never surrender. And to die with such men—it wasgood.
They are forming—the bugles are blaring—they will cross in a momentand 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!howhe ran!Bon Dieuplease remember the pattern, and make many more on his plan!
No cheers from our ranks, and the Germans, they halted in wondermenttoo;See, he reaches the bridge; ah! he lights it! I am dreaming, itcannotbe true.Screams of rage!Fusillade!They have killed him! Too late though, thegood work is done.By the valor of twelve English martyrs, the Hell-Gate of Soissons iswon!
Herbert Kaufman
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 foeHurled 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
Broken, bewildered by the long retreatAcross the stifling leagues of southern plain,Across the scorching leagues of trampled grain,Half-stunned, half-blinded, by the trudge of feetAnd 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
I was out early to-day, spying aboutFrom the top of a haystack—such a lovely morning—And when I mounted again to canter backI saw across a field in the broad sunlightA young Gunner Subaltern, stalking alongWith 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 rememberedMy rank, and his, and what I ought to be doing:And I rode nearer, and added, "I can only supposeYou have not seen the Commander-in-Chief's orderForbidding English officers to annoy their AlliesBy hunting and shooting."But he stood and salutedAnd said earnestly, "I beg your pardon, Sir,I was only going out to shoot a sparrowTo feed my cat with."So there was the whole picture,The lovely early morning, the occasional shellScreeching 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 struckmeas being extremely ludicrous.
Henry Newbolt
A wingèd death has smitten dumb thy bells,And poured them molten from thy tragic towers:Now are the windows dust that were thy flowerPatterned 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 gloomThat old divine insistence of the sea,When music flows along the sculptured stoneIn tides of prayer, for him thy windows bloomLike faithful sunset, warm immortally!Thy bells live on, and Heaven is in their tone!
Grace Hazard Conkling
I have a rendezvous with DeathAt some disputed barricade,When Spring comes back with rustling shadeAnd apple-blossoms fill the air—I have a rendezvous with DeathWhen Spring brings back blue days and fair.
It may be he shall take my handAnd lead me into his dark landAnd close my eyes and quench my breath—It may be I shall pass him still.I have a rendezvous with DeathOn some scarred slope of battered hill,When Spring comes round again this yearAnd the first meadow-flowers appear.
God knows 't were better to be deepPillowed in silk and scented down,Where Love throbs out in blissful sleepPulse nigh to pulse, and breath to breath,Where hushed awakenings are dear….But I've a rendezvous with DeathAt 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
If I should die, think only this of me:That there's some corner of a foreign fieldThat is for ever England. There shall beIn 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 lessGives 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