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THE RIVERSIDE LITERATURE SERIES
A TREASURY OF
WAR POETRY
BRITISH AND AMERICAN POEMS
OF THE WORLD WAR
1914-1917
Edited, With Introduction And Notes, By
GEORGE HERBERT CLARKE
Professor of English in the University of Tennessee
CONTENTS
I. AMERICA
RUDYARD KIPLING: The Choice
HENRY VAN DYKE: "Liberty Enlightening the World"
ROBERT BRIDGES: To the United States of America
VACHEL LINDSAY: Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight
JEANNE ROBERT FOSTER: The "William P. Frye"
II. ENGLAND AND AMERICA
FLORENCE T. HOLT: England and America
LIEUTENANT CHARLES LANGBRIDGE MORGAN: To America
HELEN GRAY CONE: A Chant of Love for England
HARDWICKE DRUMMOND RAWNSLEY: At St. Paul's: April 20, 1917
ROWLAND THIRLMERE: Jimmy Doane
ALFRED NOYES: Princeton, May, 1917
III. ENGLAND
SIR HENRY NEWBOLT: The Vigil
RUDYARD KIPLING: "For All we Have and Are"
JOHN GALSWORTHY: England to Free Men
SIR OWEN SEAMAN: _Pro Patria_
GEORGE HERBERT CLARKE: Lines Written in Surrey, 1917
IV. FRANCE
CECIL CHESTERTON: _France_
HENRY VAN DYKE: The Name of France
CHARLOTTE HOLMES CRAWFORD: _Vive la France!_
THEODOSIA GARRISON: The Soul of Jeanne d'Arc
EDGAR LEE MASTERS: O Glorious France
HERBERT JONES: To France
FLORENCE EARLE COATES: Place de la Concorde
CANON AND MAJOR FREDERICK GEORGE SCOTT: To France
GRACE ELLERY CHANNING: _Qui Vive?_
V. BELGIUM
LAURENCE BINYON: To the Belgians
EDITH WHARTON: Belgium
EDEN PHILLPOTTS: To Belgium
SIR OWEN SEAMAN: To Belgium in Exile
GILBERT KEITH CHESTERTON: The Wife of Flanders
VI. RUSSIA AND AMERICA
JOHN GALSWORTHY: Russia--America
ROBERT UNDERWOOD JOHNSON: To Russia New and Free
VII. ITALY
CLINTON SCOLLARD: Italy in Arms
GEORGE EDWARD WOODBERRY: On the Italian Front, MCMXVI
VIII. AUSTRALIA
ARCHIBALD T. STRONG: Australia to England
IX. CANADA
MARJORIE L. C. PICKTHALL: Canada to England
WILFRED CAMPBELL: Langemarck at Ypres
WILL H. OGILVIE: Canadians
X. LIÈGE
STEPHEN PHILLIPS: The Kaiser and Belgium
DANA BURNET: The Battle of Liège
XI. VERDUN
LAURENCE BINYON: Men of Verdun
EDEN PHILLPOTTS: Verdun
PATRICK R. CHALMERS: Guns of Verdun
XII. OXFORD
WINIFRED M. LETTS: The Spires of Oxford
W. SNOW: Oxford in War-Time
TERTIUS VAN DYKE: Oxford Revisited in War-Time
XIII. REFLECTIONS
GEORGE EDWARD WOODBERRY: Sonnets Written in the Fall of 1914
SIR HENRY NEWBOLT: The War Films
ALFRED NOYES: The Searchlights
PERCY MACKAYE: Christmas: 1915
THOMAS HARDY: "Men who March Away"
JOHN DRINKWATER: We Willed it Not
LIEUTENANT-COLONEL SIR RONALD ROSS: The Death of Peace
FLORENCE EARLE COATES: In War-Time
LAURENCE BINYON: The Anvil
WALTER DE LA MARE: The Fool Rings his Bells
JOHN FINLEY: The Road to Dieppe
W. MACNEILE DIXON: To Fellow Travellers in Greece
AUSTIN DOBSON: "When there is Peace"
ALFRED NOYES: A Prayer in Time of War
THOMAS HARDY: Then and Now
BARRY PAIN: The Kaiser and God
ROBERT GRANT: The Superman
EVERARD OWEN: Three Hills
XIV. INCIDENTS AND ASPECTS
JOHN FREEMAN: The Return
GRACE FALLOW NORTON: The Mobilization in Brittany
SIR HENRY NEWBOLT: The Toy Band
SIR OWEN SEAMAN: Thomas of the Light Heart
MAURICE HEWLETT: In the Trenches
SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE: The Guards Came Through
WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS: The Passengers of a Retarded Submersible
LAURENCE BUTTON: Edith Cavell
HERBERT KAUFMAN: The Hell-Gate of Soissons
GEORGE HERBERT CLARKE: The Virgin of Albert
WILFRID WILSON GIBSON: Retreat
SIR HENRY NEWBOLT: A Letter from the Front
GRACE HAZARD CONKLING: Rheims Cathedral--1914
XV. POETS MILITANT
ALAN SEEGER: I Have a Rendezvous with Death
LIEUTENANT RUPERT BROOKE: The Soldier
CAPTAIN CHARLES HAMILTON SORLEY: _Expectans Expectavi_
LIEUTENANT HERBERT ASQUITH: The Volunteer
CAPTAIN JULIAN GRENFELL: Into Battle
JAMES NORMAN HALL: The Cricketers of Flanders
CAPTAIN CHARLES HAMILTON SORLEY: "All the Hills and Vales Along"
CAPTAIN JAMES H. KNIGHT-ADKIN: No Man's Land
ALAN SEEGER: Champagne, 1914-15
CAPTAIN GILBERT FRANKAU: Headquarters
LIEUTENANT E. WYNDHAM TENNANT: Home Thoughts from Laventie
LIEUTENANT ROBERT ERNEST VERNÈDE: A Petition
ROBERT NICHOLS: Fulfilment
The Day's March
LIEUTENANT FREDERIC MANNING: The Sign
The Trenches
LIEUTENANT HENRY WILLIAM HUTCHINSON: Sonnets
CAPTAIN J. E. STEWART: The Messines Road
PRIVATE A. N. FIELD: The Challenge of the Guns
LIEUTENANT GEOFFREY HOWARD: The Beach Road by the Wood
SERGEANT JOSEPH LEE: German Prisoners
SERGEANT LESLIE COULSON: "--But a Short Time to Live"
LIEUTENANT W. N. HODGSON: Before Action
LIEUTENANT DYNELEY HUSSEY: Courage
LIEUTENANT A. VICTOR RATCLIFFE: Optimism
MAJOR SYDNEY OSWALD: The Battlefield
CAPTAIN JAMES H. KNIGHT-ADKIN: "_On Les Aura!_"
CORPORAL ALEXANDER ROBERTSON: To an Old Lady
Seen at a Guest-House for Soldiers
LIEUTENANT GILBERT WATERHOUSE: The Casualty
Clearing Station
LANCE-CORPORAL MALCOLM HEMPHREY: Hills of Home
XVI. AUXILIARIES
JOHN FINLEY: The Red Cross Spirit Speaks
WINIFRED M. LETTS: Chaplain to the Forces
EDEN PHILLPOTTS: Song of the Red Cross
LAURENCE BINYON: The Healers
THOMAS L. MARSON: The Red Cross Nurses
XVII. KEEPING THE SEAS
ALFRED NOYES: Kilmeny
RUDYARD KIPLING: The Mine-Sweepers
HENRY VAN DYKE: _Mare Liberum_
LIEUTENANT PAUL BEWSHER: The Dawn Patrol
REGINALD MCINTOSH CLEVELAND: Destroyers off Jutland
C. FOX SMITH: British Merchant Service
XVIII. THE WOUNDED
WINIFRED M. LETTS: To a Soldier in Hospital
WILFRID WILSON GIBSON: Between the Lines
ROBERT HAVEN SCHAUFFLER: The White Comrade
ROBERT W. SERVICE: Fleurette
ROBERT FROST: Not to Keep
XIX. THE FALLEN
LIEUTENANT RUPERT BROOKE: The Dead
JOHN MASEFIELD: The Island of Skyros
LAURENCE BINYON: For the Fallen
CAPTAIN CHARLES HAMILTON SORLEY: Two Sonnets
WALTER DE LA MARE: "How Sleep the Brave!"
EDWARD VERRALL LUCAS: The Debt
CANON AND MAJOR FREDERICK GEORGE SCOTT: _Requiescant_
LIEUTENANT ROBERT ERNEST VERNÈDE: To our Fallen
KATHARINE TYNAN: The Old Soldier
ROBERT BRIDGES: Lord Kitchener
JOHN HELSTON: Kitchener
LIEUTENANT HERBERT ASQUITH: The Fallen Subaltern
F. W. BOURDILLON: The Debt Unpayable
WILFRID WILSON GIBSON: The Messages
G. ROSTREVOR HAMILTON: A Cross in Flanders
HERMANN HAGEDORN: Resurrection
OSCAR C. A. CHILD: To a Hero
MORAY DALTON: Rupert Brooke (In Memoriam)
FRANCIS BICKLEY: The Players
CHARLES ALEXANDER RICHMOND: A Song
XX. WOMEN AND WAR
JOSEPHINE PRESTON PEABODY: Harvest Moon
JOSEPHINE PRESTON PEABODY: Harvest Moon: 1916
ADA TYRRELL: My Son
KATHARINE TYNAN: To the Others
GRACE FALLOW NORTON: The Journey
MARGARET PETERSON: A Mother's Dedication
EDEN PHILLPOTTS: To a Mother
SARA TEASDALE: Spring In War-Time
OCCASIONAL NOTES
INDEXES
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The Editor desires to express his cordial appreciation of the assistance
rendered him in his undertaking by the officials of the British Museum
(Mr. F.D. Sladen, in particular); Professor W. Macneile Dixon, of the
University of Glasgow; Professor Kemp Smith, of Princeton University;
Miss Esther C. Johnson, of Needham, Massachusetts; and Mr. Francis
Bickley, of London. He wishes also to acknowledge the courtesies
generously extended by the following authors, periodicals, and
publishers in granting permission for the use of the poems indicated,
rights in which are in each case reserved by the owner of the
copyright:--
Mr. Francis Bickley and the _Westminster Gazette_:--"The Players."
Mr. F.W. Bourdillon and the _Spectator_:--"The Debt Unpayable."
Dr. Robert Bridges and the London _Times_:--"Lord Kitchener," and "To
the United States of America."
Mr. Dana Burnet and the New York _Evening Sun_:--"The Battle of Liège."
Mr. Wilfred Campbell and the Ottawa _Evening Journal_:--"Langemarck at
Ypres."
Mr. Patrick R. Chalmers and _Punch_:--"Guns of Verdun."
Mr. Cecil Chesterton and _The New Witness_:--"France."
Mr. Oscar C.A. Child and _Harper's Magazine_:--"To a Hero."
Mr. Reginald McIntosh Cleveland and the _New York Times_:--"Destroyers
off Jutland."
Miss Charlotte Holmes Crawford and _Scribner's Magazine_:--"_Vive la
France!_"
Mr. Moray Dalton and the _Spectator_:--"Rupert Brooke."
Lord Desborough and the London _Times_:--"Into Battle," by the late
Captain Julian Grenfell.
Professor W. Macneile Dixon and the London _Times_:--"To Fellow
Travellers in Greece,"
Mr. Austin, Dobson and the _Spectator_:--"'When There Is Peace;'"
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and the London _Times_:--"The Guards Came
Through."
Mr. John Finley and the _Atlantic Monthly_:--"The Road to Dieppe"; Mr.
Finley, the American Red Cross, and the _Red Cross Magazine_:--"The Red
Cross Spirit Speaks."
Mr. John Freeman and the _Westminster Gazette_:--"The Return."
Mr. Robert Frost and the _Yale Review_:--"Not to Keep."
Mr. John Galsworthy and the _Westminster Gazette_:--"England to Free
Men"; Mr. Galsworthy and the London _Chronicle_:--"Russia--America."
Mrs. Theodosia Garrison and _Scribner's Magazine_:--"The Soul of Jeanne
d'Arc."
Lady Glenconner and the London _Times_:--"Home Thoughts from Laventie,"
by the late Lieutenant E. Wyndham Tennant.
Mr. Robert Grant and the _Nation_ (New York):--"The Superman."
Mr. Hermann Hagedorn and the _Century Magazine_:--"Resurrection."
Mr. James Norman Hall and the _Spectator_:--"The Cricketers of
Flanders."
Mr. Thomas Hardy and the London _Times_:--"Men Who March Away," and
"Then and Now."
Mr. John Helston and the _English Review_:--"Kitchener."
Mr. Maurice Hewlett:--"In the Trenches," from _Sing-Songs of the War_
(The Poetry Bookshop).
Dr. A. E. Hillard:--"The Dawn Patrol," by Lieutenant Paul Bewsher.
Mrs. Katharine Tynan Hinkson:--"To the Others" and "The Old Soldier."
Mrs. Florence T. Holt and the _Atlantic Monthly_:--"England and
America."
Mr. William Dean Howells and the _North American Review_:--"The
Passengers of a Retarded Submersible."
Lady Hutchinson:--"Sonnets," by the late Lieutenant Henry William
Hutchinson.
Mr. Robert Underwood Johnson:--"To Russia New and Free," from _Poems of
War and Peace_, published by the author.
Mr. Rudyard Kipling:--"The Choice"; "'For All we Have and Are'"; and
"The Mine-Sweepers." (Copyright, 1914, 1915, 1917, by Rudyard Kipling.)
Captain James H. Knight-Adkin and the _Spectator_;--"No Man's Land" and
"_On Les Aura!_"
Sergeant Joseph Lee and the _Spectator_:--"German Prisoners."
Mr. E. V. Lucas and the _Sphere_:--"The Debt."
Mr. Walter de la Mare and the London _Times_:--"'How Sleep the Brave!'";
Mr. de la Mare and the _Westminster Gazette_:--"The Fool Rings his
Bells."
Mr. Edward Marsh, literary executor of the late Rupert Brooke:--"The
Soldier" and "The Dead."
Mr. Thomas L. Masson:--"The Red Cross Nurses," from the _Red Cross
Magazine_.
Lieutenant Charles Langbridge Morgan and the _Westminster Gazette_:--"To
America."
Sir Henry Newbolt:--"The Vigil"; "The War Films"; "The Toy Band," and "A
Letter from the Front."
Mr. Alfred Noyes:--"Princeton, May, 1917"; "The Searchlights" (London
_Times_), "A Prayer in Time of War" (London _Daily Mail_), and
"Kilmeny."
Mr. Will H. Ogilvie:--"Canadians."
Mr. Barry Pain and the London _Times_:--"The Kaiser and God."
Miss Marjorie Pickthall and the London _Times_:--"Canada to England."
Canon H.D. Dawnsley and the _Westminster Gazette_:--"At St. Paul's,
April 20, 1917."
Dr. Charles Alexander Richmond:--"A Song."
Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Ronald Ross and the _Poetry Review_:--"The Death
of Peace."
Mr. Robert Haven Schauffler:--"The White Comrade."
Mr. W. Snow and the _Spectator_:--"Oxford in War-Time."
Mrs. Grace Ellery Channing Stetson and the New York _Tribune_:--"_Qui
Vive_?"
Mr. Rowland Thirlmere and the _Poetry Review_:--"Jimmy Doane."
Mrs. Ada Turrell and the _Saturday Review_:--"My Son."
Dr. Henry van Dyke and the London _Times_:--"Liberty Enlightening the
World," and "_Mare Liberum_"; Dr. van Dyke and the _Art World_: "The
Name of France."
Mr. Tertius van Dyke and the _Spectator_:--"Oxford Revisited in
War-Time."
Mrs. Edith Wharton:--"Belgium," from _King Albert's Book_ (Hearst's
International Library Company).
Mr. George Edward Woodberry and the _Boston Herald_:--"On the Italian
Front, MCMXVI"; Mr. Woodberry, the _New York Times_ and the _North
American Review_:--"Sonnets Written in the Fall of 1914."
_The Athenaeum_:--"A Cross in Flanders," by G. Rostrevor Hamilton.
_The Poetry Review_:--"The Messines Road," by Captain J.E. Stewart; "--
But a Short Time to Live," by the late Sergeant Leslie Coulson.
_The Spectator_:--"The Challenge of the Guns," by Private A.N. Field.
The London _Times_:--"To Our Fallen" and "A Petition," by the late
Lieutenant Robert Ernest Vernède.
The _Westminster Gazette_:--"Lines Written in Surrey, 1917," by George
Herbert Clarke.
Messrs. Barse & Hopkins:--"Fleurette," by Robert W. Service.
The Cambridge University Press and Professor William R. Sorley:--
"_Expectans Expectavi_"; "'All the Hills and Vales Along,'" and "Two
Sonnets," by the late Captain Charles Hamilton Sorley, from _Marlborough
and Other Poems_.
Messrs. Chatto & Windus:--"Fulfilment" and "The Day's March," by Robert
Nichols.
Messrs. Constable & Company:--"Pro Patria," "Thomas of the Light Heart,"
and "To Belgium in Exile," by Sir Owen Seaman, from _War-Time_; "To
France" and "_Requiescant_," by Canon and Major Frederick George Scott,
from _In the Battle Silences_.
Messrs. E. P. Dutton & Company:--"To a Soldier in Hospital" (the
_Spectator_); "Chaplain to the Forces" and "The Spires of Oxford"
(_Westminster Gazette_), by Winifred M. Letts, from _Hallowe'en, and
Poems of the War_; "A Chant of Love for England," by Helen Gray Cone,
from _A Chant of Love for England, and Other Poems_ (published also by
J.M. Dent & Sons, Limited, London).
Lawrence J. Gomme:--"Italy in Arms," by Clinton Scollard, from _Italy in
Arms, and Other Poems_.
Messrs. Houghton Mifflin Company:--"To the Belgians"; "Men of Verdun";
"The Anvil"; "Edith Cavell"; "The Healers" and "For the Fallen," by
Laurence Binyon, from _The Cause_ (published also by Elkin Mathews,
London, in _The Anvil_ and _The Winnowing Fan_); "Headquarters," by
Captain Gilbert Frankau, from _A Song of the Guns_; "Place de la
Concorde" and "In War-Time," by Florence Earle Coates, from _The
Collected Poems of Florence Earle Coates_; "Harvest Moon" and "Harvest
Moon, 1915," by Josephine Preston Peabody, from _Harvest Moon_; "The
Mobilization in Brittany" and "The Journey," by Grace Fallow Norton,
from _Roads_, and "Rheims Cathedral--1914," by Grace Hazard Conkling,
from _Afternoons of April_.
John Lane:--"The Kaiser and Belgium," by the late Stephen Phillips.
The John Lane Company:--"The Wife of Flanders," by Gilbert K.
Chesterton, from _Poems_ (published also by Messrs. Burns and Gates,
London); "The Soldier," and "The Dead," by the late Lieutenant Rupert
Brooke, from _The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke_ (published also by
Messrs. Sidgwick & Jackson, London, in _19l4, and Other Poems_).
Erskine Macdonald:--The following poems from _Soldier Poets_:--"The
Beach Road by the Wood," by Lieutenant Geoffrey Howard; "Before Action,"
by the late Lieutenant W.N. Hodgson ("Edward Melbourne"); "Courage," by
Lieutenant Dyneley Hussey; "Optimism," by Lieutenant A. Victor
Ratcliffe; "The Battlefield," by Major Sidney Oswald; "To an Old Lady
Seen at a Guest-House for Soldiers," by Corporal Alexander Robertson;
"The Casualty Clearing Station," by Lieutenant Gilbert Waterhouse; and
"Hills of Home," by Lance-Corporal Malcolm Hemphrey.
The Macmillan Company:--"To Belgium"; "Verdun"; "To a Mother," and "Song
of the Red Cross," by Eden Phillpotts, from _Plain Song, 1914-1916_
(published also by William Heinemann, London); "The Island of Skyros,"
by John Masefield; "Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight," from _The Congo
and Other Poems_, by Vachel Lindsay; "O Glorious France," by Edgar Lee
Masters, from _Songs and Satires_; "Christmas, 1915," from _Poems and
Plays_, by Percy MacKaye; "The Hellgate of Soissons," by Herbert
Kaufman, from _The Hellgate of Soissons_; "Spring in War-Time," by Sara
Teasdale, from _Rivers to the Sea_; and "Retreat," "The Messages," and
"Between the Lines," by Wilfrid Wilson Gibson.
Messrs. Macmillan & Company:--"Australia to England," by Archibald T.
Strong, from _Sonnets of the Empire_, and "Men Who March Away," by
Thomas Hardy, from _Satires of Circumstance_.
Elkin Mathews:--"The British Merchant Service" (the _Spectator_), by C.
Fox Smith, from _The Naval Crown_.
John Murray:--"The Sign," and "The Trenches," by Lieutenant Frederic
Manning.
The Princeton University Press:--"To France," by Herbert Jones, from _A
Book of Princeton Verse_.
Messrs. Charles Scribner's Sons:--"I Have a Rendezvous with Death," and
"Champagne, 1914-1915," by the late Alan Seeger, from _Poems_.
Messrs. Sherman, French & Company:--"The _William P. Frye_" (_New York
Times_), by Jeanne Robert Foster, from _Wild Apples_.
Messrs. Sidgwick & Jackson:--"We Willed It Not" (_The Sphere_), by John
Drinkwater; "Three Hills" (London _Times_), by Everard Owen, from _Three
Hills, and Other Poems_; "The Volunteer," and "The Fallen Subaltern," by
Lieutenant Herbert Asquith, from _The Volunteer, and Other Poems_.
Messrs. Truslove and Hanson:--"A Mother's Dedication," by Margaret
Peterson, from _The Women's Message_.
INTRODUCTION
Because man is both militant and pacific, he has expressed in
literature, as indeed in the other forms of art, his pacific and
militant moods. Nor are these moods, of necessity, incompatible. War may
become the price of peace, and peace may so decay as inevitably to bring
about war. Of the dully unresponsive pacificist and the jingo patriot,
quick to anger, the latter no doubt is the more dangerous to the cause
of true freedom, yet both are "undesirable citizens." He who believes
that peace is illusory and spurious, unless it be based upon justice and
liberty, will be proud to battle, if battle he must, for the sake of
those foundations.
For the most part, the poetry of war, undertaken in this spirit, has
touched and exalted such special qualities as patriotism, courage, self-
sacrifice, enterprise, and endurance. Where it has tended to glorify war
in itself, it is chiefly because war has released those qualities, so to
speak, in stirring and spectacular ways; and where it has chosen to
round upon war and to upbraid it, it is because war has slain ardent and
lovable youths and has brought misery and despair to women and old
people. But the war poet has left the mere arguments to others. For
himself, he has seen and felt. Envisaging war from various angles, now
romantically, now realistically, now as the celebrating chronicler, now
as the contemplative interpreter, but always in a spirit of catholic
curiosity, he has sung, the fall of Troy, the Roman adventures, the
mediaeval battles and crusades, the fields of Agincourt and Waterloo,
and the more modern revolutions. Since Homer, he has spoken with martial
eloquence through, the voices of Drayton, Spenser, Marlowe, Webster,
Shakespeare, Milton, Byron, Scott, Burns, Campbell, Tennyson, Browning,
the New England group, and Walt Whitman,--to mention only a few of the
British and American names,--and he speaks sincerely and powerfully
to-day in the writings of Kipling. Hardy, Masefield, Binyon, Newbolt,
Watson, Rupert Brooke, and the two young soldiers--the one English, the
other American--who have lately lost their lives while on active
service: Captain Charles Hamilton Sorley, who was killed at Hulluch,
October 18, 1915; and Alan Seeger, who fell, mortally wounded, during
the charge on Belloy-en-Santerre, July 4, 1916.
There can be little doubt that these several minds and spirits, stirred
by the passion and energy of war, and reacting sensitively both to its
cruelties and to its pities, have experienced the kinship of quickened
insight and finer unselfishness in the face of wide-ranging death. They
have silently compared, perhaps, the normal materialistic conventions in
business, politics, education, and religion, with the relief from those
conventions that nearly all soldiers and many civilians experience in
time of war; for although war has its too gross and ugly side, it has
not dared to learn that inflexibility of custom and conduct that deadens
the spirit into a tame submission. This strange rebound and exaltation
would seem to be due less to the physical realities of war--which must
in many ways cramp and constrain the individual--than to the relative
spiritual freedom engendered by the needs of war, if they are to be
successfully met. The man of war has an altogether unusual opportunity
to realize himself, to cleanse and heal himself through the mastering of
his physical fears; through the facing of his moral doubts; through the
reëxamination of whatever thoughts he may have possessed, theretofore,
about life and death and the universe; and through the quietly unselfish
devotion he owes to the welfare of his fellows and to the cause of his
native land.
Into the stuff of his thought and utterance, whether he be on active
service or not, the poet-interpreter of war weaves these intentions, and
coöperates with his fellows in building up a little higher and better,
from time to time, that edifice of truth for whose completion can be
spared no human experience, no human hope.
As already suggested, English and American literatures have both
received genuine accessions, even thus early, arising out of the present
great conflict, and we may be sure that other equally notable
contributions will be made. The present Anthology contains a number of
representative poems produced by English-speaking men and women. The
editorial policy has been humanly hospitable, rather than academically
critical, especially in the case of some of the verses written by
soldiers at the Front, which, however slight in certain instances their
technical merit may be, are yet psychologically interesting as sincere
transcripts of personal experience, and will, it is thought, for that
very reason, peculiarly attract and interest the reader. It goes without
saying that there are several poems in this group which conspicuously
succeed also as works of art. For the rest, the attempt has been made,
within such limitations as have been experienced, to present pretty
freely the best of what has been found available in contemporary British
and American war verse. It must speak for itself, and the reader will
find that in not a few instances it does so with sensitive sympathy and
with living power; sometimes, too, with that quietly intimate
companionableness which we find in Gray's _Elegy_, and which John
Masefield, while lecturing in America in 1916, so often indicated as a
prime quality in English poetry. But if this quality appears in Chaucer
and the pre-Romantics and Wordsworth, it appears also in Longfellow and
Lowell, in Emerson and Lanier, and in William Vaughn Moody; for American
poetry is, after all, as English poetry,--"with a difference,"--sprung
from the same sources, and coursing along similar channels.
The new fellowship of the two great Anglo-Saxon nations which a book of
this character may, to a degree, illustrate, is filled with such high
promise for both of them, and for all civilization, that it is perhaps
hardly too much to say, with Ambassador Walter H. Page, in his address
at the Pilgrims' Dinner in London, April 12, 1917: "We shall get out of
this association an indissoluble companionship, and we shall henceforth
have indissoluble mutual duties for mankind. I doubt if there could be
another international event comparable in large value and in long
consequences to this closer association." Mr. Balfour struck the same
note when, during his mission to the United States, he expressed himself
in these words: "That this great people should throw themselves whole-
heartedly into this mighty struggle, prepared for all efforts and
sacrifices that may be required to win success for this most righteous
cause, is an event at once so happy and so momentous that only the
historian of the future will be able, as I believe, to measure its true
proportions."
The words of these eminent men ratify in the field of international
politics the hopeful anticipation which Tennyson expressed in his poem,
_Hands all Round_, as it appeared in the London _Examiner_, February 7,
1852:--
"Gigantic daughter of the West,
We drink to thee across the flood,
We know thee most, we love thee best,
For art thou not of British blood?
Should war's mad blast again be blown,
Permit not thou the tyrant powers
To fight thy mother here alone,
But let thy broadsides roar with ours.
Hands all round!
God the tyrant's cause confound!
To our great kinsmen of the West, my friends,
And the great name of England, round and round.
"O rise, our strong Atlantic sons,
When war against our freedom springs!
O speak to Europe through your guns!
They can be understood by kings.
You must not mix our Queen with those
That wish to keep their people fools;
Our freedom's foemen are her foes,
She comprehends the race she rules.
Hands all round!
God the tyrant's cause confound!
To our dear kinsmen of the West, my friends,
And the great cause of Freedom, round and round."
They ratify also the spirit of those poems in the present volume which
seek to interpret to Britons and Americans their deepening friendship.
"Poets," said Shelley, "are the unacknowledged legislators of the
world," and he meant by legislation the guidance and determination of
the verdicts of the human soul.
G. H. C.
_August, 1917_
THE CHOICE
THE AMERICAN SPIRIT SPEAKS:
To the Judge of Right and Wrong
With Whom fulfillment lies
Our purpose and our power belong,
Our faith and sacrifice.
Let Freedom's land rejoice!
Our ancient bonds are riven;
Once more to us the eternal choice
Of good or ill is given.
Not at a little cost,
Hardly by prayer or tears,
Shall we recover the road we lost
In the drugged and doubting years,
But after the fires and the wrath,
But after searching and pain,
His Mercy opens us a path
To live with ourselves again.
In the Gates of Death rejoice!
We see and hold the good--
Bear witness, Earth, we have made our choice
For Freedom's brotherhood.
Then praise the Lord Most High
Whose Strength hath saved us whole,
Who bade us choose that the Flesh should die
And not the living Soul!
_Rudyard Kipling_
"LIBERTY ENLIGHTENING THE WORLD"
Thou warden of the western gate, above Manhattan Bay,
The fogs of doubt that hid thy face are driven clean away:
Thine eyes at last look far and clear, thou liftest high thy hand
To spread the light of liberty world-wide for every land.
No more thou dreamest of a peace reserved alone for thee,
While friends are fighting for thy cause beyond the guardian sea:
The battle that they wage is thine; thou fallest if they fall;
The swollen flood of Prussian pride will sweep unchecked o'er all.
O cruel is the conquer-lust in Hohenzollern brains:
The paths they plot to gain their goal are dark with shameful stains:
No faith they keep, no law revere, no god but naked Might;--
They are the foemen of mankind. Up, Liberty, and smite!
Britain, and France, and Italy, and Russia newly born,
Have waited for thee in the night. Oh, come as comes the morn.
Serene and strong and full of faith, America, arise,
With steady hope and mighty help to join thy brave Allies.
O dearest country of my heart, home of the high desire,
Make clean thy soul for sacrifice on Freedom's altar-fire:
For thou must suffer, thou must fight, until the warlords cease,
And all the peoples lift their heads in liberty and peace.
_Henry van Dyke_
_April 10, 1917_
TO THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Brothers in blood! They who this wrong began
To wreck our commonwealth, will rue the day
When first they challenged freemen to the fray,
And with the Briton dared the American.
Now are we pledged to win the Rights of man;
Labour and Justice now shall have their way,
And in a League of Peace--God grant we may--
Transform the earth, not patch up the old plan.
Sure is our hope since he who led your nation
Spake for mankind, and ye arose in awe
Of that high call to work the world's salvation;
Clearing your minds of all estranging blindness
In the vision of Beauty and the Spirit's law,
Freedom and Honour and sweet Lovingkindness.
_Robert Bridges_
_April 30, 1917_
ABRAHAM LINCOLN WALKS AT MIDNIGHT
(IN SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS)
It is portentous, and a thing of state
That here at midnight, in our little town,
A mourning figure walks, and will not rest,
Near the old court-house pacing up and down,
Or by his homestead, or in shadowed yards
He lingers where his children used to play;
Or through the market, on the well-worn stones
He stalks until the dawn-stars burn away.
A bronzed, lank man! His suit of ancient black,
A famous high top-hat and plain worn shawl
Make him the quaint great figure that men love,
The prairie-lawyer, master of us all.
He cannot sleep upon his hillside now.
He is among us:--as in times before!
And we who toss and lie awake for long
Breathe deep, and start, to see him pass the door.
His head is bowed. He thinks on men and kings.
Yea, when the sick world cries, how can he sleep?
Too many peasants fight, they know not why,
Too many homesteads in black terror weep.
The sins of all the war-lords burn his heart.
He sees the dreadnaughts scouring every main.
He carries on his shawl-wrapped shoulders now
The bitterness, the folly, and the pain.
He cannot rest until a spirit-dawn
Shall come;--the shining hope of Europe free:
The league of sober folk, the Workers' Earth
Bringing long peace to Cornland, Alp, and Sea.
It breaks his heart that kings must murder still,
That all his hours of travail here for men
Seem yet in vain. And who will bring white peace
That he may sleep upon his hill again?
_Vachel Lindsay_
THE "WILLIAM P. FRYE"
I saw her first abreast the Boston Light
At anchor; she had just come in, turned head,
And sent her hawsers creaking, clattering down.
I was so near to where the hawse-pipes fed
The cable out from her careening bow,
I moved up on the swell, shut steam and lay
Hove to in my old launch to look at her.
She'd come in light, a-skimming up the Bay
Like a white ghost with topsails bellying full;
And all her noble lines from bow to stern
Made music in the wind; it seemed she rode
The morning air like those thin clouds that turn
Into tall ships when sunrise lifts the clouds
From calm sea-courses.
There, in smoke-smudged coats,
Lay funnelled liners, dirty fishing-craft,
Blunt cargo-luggers, tugs, and ferry-boats.
Oh, it was good in that black-scuttled lot
To see the _Frye_ come lording on her way
Like some old queen that we had half forgot
Come to her own. A little up the Bay
The Fort lay green, for it was springtime then;
The wind was fresh, rich with the spicy bloom
Of the New England coast that tardily
Escapes, late April, from an icy tomb.
The State-house glittered on old Beacon Hill,
Gold in the sun.... 'T was all so fair awhile;
But she was fairest--this great square-rigged ship
That had blown in from some far happy isle
On from the shores of the Hesperides.
They caught her in a South Atlantic road
Becalmed, and found her hold brimmed up with wheat;
"Wheat's contraband," they said, and blew her hull
To pieces, murdered one of our staunch fleet,
Fast dwindling, of the big old sailing ships
That carry trade for us on the high sea
And warped out of each harbor in the States.
It wasn't law, so it seems strange to me--
A big mistake. Her keel's struck bottom now
And her four masts sunk fathoms, fathoms deep
To Davy Jones. The dank seaweed will root
On her oozed decks, and the cross-surges sweep
Through the set sails; but never, never more
Her crew will stand away to brace and trim,
Nor sea-blown petrels meet her thrashing up
To windward on the Gulf Stream's stormy rim;
Never again she'll head a no'theast gale
Or like a spirit loom up, sliding dumb,
And ride in safe beyond the Boston Light,
To make the harbor glad because she's come.
_Jeanne Robert Foster_
ENGLAND AND AMERICA
Mother and child! Though the dividing sea
Shall roll its tide between us, we are one,
Knit by immortal memories, and none
But feels the throb of ancient fealty.
A century has passed since at thy knee
We learnt the speech of freemen, caught the fire
That would not brook thy menaces, when sire
And grandsire hurled injustice back to thee.
But the full years have wrought equality:
The past outworn, shall not the future bring
A deeper union, from whose life shall spring
Mankind's best hope? In the dark night of strife
Men perished for their dream of Liberty
Whose lives were given for this larger life.
_Florence T. Holt_
TO AMERICA
When the fire sinks in the grate, and night has bent
Close wings about the room, and winter stands
Hard-eyed before the window, when the hands
Have turned the book's last page and friends are sleeping,
Thought, as it were an old stringed instrument
Drawn to remembered music, oft does set
The lips moving in prayer, for us fresh keeping
Knowledge of springtime and the violet.
And, as the eyes grow dim with many years,
The spirit runs more swiftly than the feet,
Perceives its comfort, knows that it will meet
God at the end of troubles, that the dreary
Last reaches of old age lead beyond tears
To happy youth unending. There is peace
In homeward waters, where at last the weary
Shall find rebirth, and their long struggle cease.
So, at this hour, when the Old World lies sick,
Beyond the pain, the agony of breath
Hard drawn, beyond the menaces of death,
O'er graves and years leans out the eager spirit.
First must the ancient die; then shall be quick
New fires within us. Brother, we shall make
Incredible discoveries and inherit
The fruits of hope, and love shall be awake.
_Charles Langbridge Morgan_
A CHANT OF LOVE FOR ENGLAND
A song of hate is a song of Hell;
Some there be that sing it well.
Let them sing it loud and long,
We lift our hearts in a loftier song:
We lift our hearts to Heaven above,
Singing the glory of her we love,--
_England!_
Glory of thought and glory of deed,
Glory of Hampden and Runnymede;
Glory of ships that sought far goals,
Glory of swords and glory of souls!
Glory of songs mounting as birds,
Glory immortal of magical words;
Glory of Milton, glory of Nelson,
Tragical glory of Gordon and Scott;
Glory of Shelley, glory of Sidney,
Glory transcendent that perishes not,--
Hers is the story, hers be the glory,
_England!_
Shatter her beauteous breast ye may;
The spirit of England none can slay!
Dash the bomb on the dome of Paul's--
Deem ye the fame of the Admiral falls?
Pry the stone from the chancel floor,--
Dream ye that Shakespeare shall live no more?
Where is the giant shot that kills
Wordsworth walking the old green hills?
Trample the red rose on the ground,--
Keats is Beauty while earth spins round!
Bind her, grind her, burn her with fire,
Cast her ashes into the sea,--
She shall escape, she shall aspire,
She shall arise to make men free:
She shall arise in a sacred scorn,
Lighting the lives that are yet unborn;
Spirit supernal, Splendour eternal,
ENGLAND!
_Helen Gray Cone_
AT ST. PAUL'S
APRIL 20, 1917
Not since Wren's Dome has whispered with man's prayer
Have angels leaned to wonder out of Heaven
At such uprush of intercession given,
Here where to-day one soul two nations share,
And with accord send up thro' trembling air
Their vows to strive as Honour ne'er has striven
Till back to hell the Lords of hell are driven,
And Life and Peace again shall flourish fair.
This is the day of conscience high-enthroned,
The day when East is West and West is East
To strike for human Love and Freedom's word
Against foul wrong that cannot be atoned;
To-day is hope of brotherhood's bond increased,
And Christ, not Odin, is acclaimed the Lord.
_Hardwicke Drummond Rawnsley_
JIMMY DOANE
Often I think of you, Jimmy Doane,--
You who, light-heartedly, came to my house
Three autumns, to shoot and to eat a grouse!
As I sat apart in this quiet room,
My mind was full of the horror of war
And not with the hope of a visitor.
I had dined on food that had lost its taste;
My soul was cold and I wished you were here,--
When, all in a moment, I knew you were near.
Placing that chair where you used to sit,
I looked at my book:--Three years to-day
Since you laughed in that seat and I heard you say--
"My country is with you, whatever befall:
America--Britain--these two are akin
In courage and honour; they underpin
"The rights of Mankind!" Then you grasped my hand
With a brotherly grip, and you made me feel
Something that Time would surely reveal.
You were comely and tall; you had corded arms,
And sympathy's grace with your strength was blent;
You were generous, clever, and confident.
There was that in your hopes which uncountable lives
Have perished to make; your heart was fulfilled
With the breath of God that can never be stilled.
A living symbol of power, you talked
Of the work to do in the world to make
Life beautiful: yes, and my heartstrings ache
To think how you, at the stroke of War,
Chose that your steadfast soul should fly
With the eagles of France as their proud ally.
You were America's self, dear lad--
The first swift son of your bright, free land
To heed the call of the Inner Command--
To image its spirit in such rare deeds
As braced the valour of France, who knows
That the heart of America thrills with her woes.
For a little leaven leavens the whole!
Mostly we find, when we trouble to seek
The soul of a people, that some unique,
Brave man is its flower and symbol, who
Makes bold to utter the words that choke
The throats of feebler, timider folk.
You flew for the western eagle--and fell
Doing great things for your country's pride:
For the beauty and peace of life you died.
Britain and France have shrined in their souls
Your memory; yes, and for ever you share
Their love with their perished lords of the air.
Invisible now, in that empty seat,
You sit, who came through the clouds to me,
Swift as a message from over the sea.
My house is always open to you:
Dear spirit, come often and you will find
Welcome, where mind can foregather with mind!
And may we sit together one day
Quietly here, when a word is said
To bring new gladness unto our dead,
Knowing your dream is a dream no more;
And seeing on some momentous pact
Your vision upbuilt as a deathless fact.
_Rowland Thirlmere_
PRINCETON, MAY, 1917
_Here Freedom stood by slaughtered friend and foe,
And, ere the wrath paled or that sunset died,
Looked through the ages; then, with eyes aglow,
Laid them to wait that future, side by side._
(Lines for a monument to the American and British soldiers
of the Revolutionary War who fell on the Princeton
battlefield and were buried in one grave.)
Now lamp-lit gardens in the blue dusk shine
Through dogwood, red and white;
And round the gray quadrangles, line by line,
The windows fill with light,
Where Princeton calls to Magdalen, tower to tower,
Twin lanthorns of the law;
And those cream-white magnolia boughs embower
The halls of "Old Nassau."
The dark bronze tigers crouch on either side
Where redcoats used to pass;
And round the bird-loved house where Mercer died,
And violets dusk the grass,
By Stony Brook that ran so red of old,
But sings of friendship now,
To feed the old enemy's harvest fifty-fold
The green earth takes the plow.
Through this May night, if one great ghost should stray
With deep remembering eyes,
Where that old meadow of battle smiles away
Its blood-stained memories,
If Washington should walk, where friend and foe
Sleep and forget the past,
Be sure his unquenched heart would leap to know
Their souls are linked at last.
Be sure he waits, in shadowy buff and blue,
Where those dim lilacs wave.
He bends his head to bless, as dreams come true,
The promise of that grave;
Then, with a vaster hope than thought can scan,
Touching his ancient sword,
Prays for that mightier realm of God in man:
"Hasten thy kingdom, Lord.
"Land of our hope, land of the singing stars,
Type of the world to be,
The vision of a world set free from wars
Takes life, takes form from thee;
Where all the jarring nations of this earth,
Beneath the all-blessing sun,
Bring the new music of mankind to birth,
And make the whole world one."
And those old comrades rise around him there,
Old foemen, side by side,
With eyes like stars upon the brave night air,
And young as when they died,
To hear your bells, O beautiful Princeton towers,
Ring for the world's release.
They see you piercing like gray swords through flowers,
And smile, from souls at peace.
_Alfred Noyes_
THE VIGIL
England! where the sacred flame
Burns before the inmost shrine,
Where the lips that love thy name
Consecrate their hopes and thine,
Where the banners of thy dead
Weave their shadows overhead,
Watch beside thine arms to-night,
Pray that God defend the Right.
Think that when to-morrow comes
War shall claim command of all,
Thou must hear the roll of drums,
Thou must hear the trumpet's call.
Now, before thy silence ruth,
Commune with the voice of truth;
England! on thy knees to-night
Pray that God defend the Right.
Single-hearted, unafraid,
Hither all thy heroes came,
On this altar's steps were laid
Gordon's life and Outram's fame.
England! if thy will be yet
By their great example set,
Here beside thine arms to-night
Pray that God defend the Right.
So shalt thou when morning comes
Rise to conquer or to fall,
Joyful hear the rolling drums,
Joyful tear the trumpets call,
Then let Memory tell thy heart:
"England! what thou wert, thou art!"
Gird thee with thine ancient might,
Forth! and God defend the Right!
_Henry Newbolt_
"FOR ALL WE HAVE AND ARE"
For all we have and are,
For all our children's fate,
Stand up and meet the war.
The Hun is at the gate!
Our world has passed away
In wantonness o'erthrown.
There is nothing left to-day
But steel and fire and stone.
Though all we knew depart,
The old commandments stand:
"In courage keep your heart,
In strength lift up your hand,"
Once more we hear the word
That sickened earth of old:
"No law except the sword
Unsheathed and uncontrolled,"
Once more it knits mankind.
Once more the nations go
To meet and break and bind
A crazed and driven foe.
Comfort, content, delight--
The ages' slow-bought gain--
They shrivelled in a night,
Only ourselves remain
To face the naked days
In silent fortitude,
Through perils and dismays
Renewed and re-renewed.
Though all we made depart,
The old commandments stand:
"In patience keep your heart,
In strength lift up your hand."
No easy hopes or lies
Shall bring us to our goal,
But iron sacrifice
Of body, will, and soul
There is but one task for all--
For each one life to give.
Who stands if freedom fall?
Who dies if England live?
_Rudyard Kipling_
ENGLAND TO FREE MEN
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 stones
That keep the names, that keep the bones,
Of none but English men who came
Free of their lives, to guard my fame.
I am your native land who bred
No driven heart, no driven head;
I fly a flag in every sea
Round 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 wears
A hundred leaves--a hundred years
I 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_
_PRO PATRIA_
England, in this great fight to which you go
Because, where Honour calls you, go you must,
Be glad, whatever comes, at least to know
You have your quarrel just.
Peace was your care; before the nations' bar
Her 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 which _you_ set your hand,
Thank God, you still stand fast!
Forth, then, to front that peril of the deep
With smiling lips and in your eyes the light,
Steadfast and confident, of those who keep
Their 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 strain
Of 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 test
Our fortunes we confide.
_Owen Seaman_
_August 12, 1914_
LINES WRITTEN IN SURREY, 1917
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 waterfly
Wrinkles the pool; and flowers, gay and dun,
Rose, bluebell, rhododendron, one by one,
The buccaneering bees prove busily.
Ah, who may trace this tranquil loveliness
In verse felicitous?--no measure tells;
But gazing on her bosom we can guess
Why 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_
FRANCE
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 land
The tyrants walked abroad with naked face.
The waters turned to blood, as rose the Star
Of 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 sold
Her 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 surprise
Take hold upon the battlements of Hell.
_Cecil Chesterton_
THE NAME OF FRANCE
Give us a name to fill the mind
With the shining thoughts that lead mankind,
The glory of learning, the joy of art,--
A name that tells of a splendid part
In the long, long toil and the strenuous fight
Of the human race to win its way
From the feudal darkness into the day
Of Freedom, Brotherhood, Equal Right,--
A name like a star, a name of light--
I give you _France!_
Give us a name to stir the blood
With 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 meet
The foes who threaten that name with wrong,--
A name that rings like a battle-song.
I give you _France!_
Give us a name to move the heart
With the strength that noble griefs impart,
A name that speaks of the blood outpoured
To save mankind from the sway of the sword,--
A name that calls on the world to share
In the burden of sacrificial strife
Where the cause at stake is the world's free life
And the rule of the people everywhere,--
A name like a vow, a name like a prayer.
I give you _France!_
_Henry van Dyke_
VIVE LA FRANCE!
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, crucified
Christ--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.'