"Who says their day is over, while others carry onThe little wooden crosses spell but the dead and gone?Not while they deck a sky line, not while they crown a view,Or a living soldier sees them and sets his teeth anew."
"Who says their day is over, while others carry onThe little wooden crosses spell but the dead and gone?Not while they deck a sky line, not while they crown a view,Or a living soldier sees them and sets his teeth anew."
(E. W. Hornung.)
Now, listen:
"In Flanders' fields the poppies growBetween the crosses, row on row,That mark our place;While, in the sky,The larks still bravely singing flyUnheard amid the guns.We are the dead; short days agoWe lived, saw dawn, felt sunsets glow,Loved and were loved, and now we lieIn Flanders' fields.Take up our battle with the foe;To you, from falling hands we throwThe torch, be yours to bear it high.If ye break faith with us who die,We shall not sleep, though poppies blowIn Flanders' fields."
"In Flanders' fields the poppies growBetween the crosses, row on row,That mark our place;While, in the sky,The larks still bravely singing flyUnheard amid the guns.We are the dead; short days agoWe lived, saw dawn, felt sunsets glow,Loved and were loved, and now we lieIn Flanders' fields.
Take up our battle with the foe;To you, from falling hands we throwThe torch, be yours to bear it high.If ye break faith with us who die,We shall not sleep, though poppies blowIn Flanders' fields."
(John McRae.)
It was before Verdun. All day long the lines in the field-gray uniforms had been assailing a French trench. Late in the afternoon the continual pressure forced the French to yield the ground. Only the dead and dyingwere left when the Germans filed through to take possession. Then a wondrous thing happened. There was a pile of the dead blocking up the trench, and that pile began to stir, a movement swept through it. Up from that ghastly heap there came first a hand, then an arm, a face, and a dying Frenchman looked his German conquerers in the eye. Then with a strength gathered from God knows where, he sprang to his feet, his voice rang out shrill, insistent, imperative, "Debout les morts,"—"To your feet, ye Dead," and by the Living God of Israel, the Dead heard him and up from the reek and mire of that blood-stained trench dying Frenchmen, men as good as dead, staggered to their feet and drove the living Germans from that trench. Soagain the Tricolor rose above the parapet, the evening breeze caressed it, the last rays of the setting Sun saluted it!
Is there more of that spirit among dead Frenchmen than there is in living Americans? Thank God, No. Seicheprey gives us the answer. When we see one American boy going through a barrage of fire seven times to bring ammunition up to the front, when we hear another mortally wounded hand over his grenades saying "I can't use these now, take them and use them," when we see the entire line, outnumbered eight to one, give ground slowly, exacting the maximum price for every yard and then at last come back, driving the Germans out of the village, out of every captured trench, until theflag once more covers every foot of ground over which it has flown at the sunrise; we know the soul of America still lives. But that spirit must live in us at home, as well as in the trenches of France. The cry of that dying Frenchman calls to us, insistent and imperative: "Debout les américains." "To your feet, America," and let your very soul make speed!