A Treasury of War Poetry Part 14

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 s.h.i.+ning 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 pa.s.sed, And where the Kaiser's Uhlans yet would pa.s.s 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 s.p.a.ce 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 gra.s.s, 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, G.o.d 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 sh.o.r.e.

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 pa.s.sions dead, and men Battl'd with ledger and with pen.

So seem'd it, but to them alone The wisdom of the G.o.ds 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 h.e.l.l, 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, n.o.bler, 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_