recemented under the fire of German guns. In France they celebrated
our Fourth of July; in this country, we celebrated the Fourteenth
of July, the anniversary of the fall of the Bastile. Yank and Poilu
are brothers in war, don’t mind the languages. The inextinguishable
humor of France never showed more quaintly than in that word,
“Poilu.” It means “unshaven.” More freely, “a man who needs a
shave.” A whimsical comment upon the French soldier’s way of
letting his beard grow while he is in the field. Those boys were
like the English and our own. They smiled at misery. They were good
old sports, bless ’em!
You’re a funny fellow, poilu, in your dinky little cap
And your war worn, faded uniform of blue,
With your multitude of haversacks abulge from heel to flap
And your rifle that is most as big as you.
You were made for love and laughter, for good wine and merry song,
Now your sunlit world has sadly gone astray,
And the road today you travel stretches rough and red and long,
Yet you make it, petit soldat, brave and gay.
Though you live within the shadow, fagged and hungry half the while,
And your days and nights are racking in the line,
There is nothing under heaven that can take away your smile,
Oh, so wistful, and so patient and so fine.
You are tender as a woman with the tiny ones who crowd
To upraise their lips and for your kisses pout,
Still, we’d hate to have to face you when the bugle’s sounding loud
And your slim, steel sweetheart Rosalie is out.
You’re devoted to mustaches which you twirl with such an air
O’er a cigarette with nigh an inch to run,
And quite often you are noticed in a beard that’s full of hair,
But that heart of yours is always twenty-one.
No, you do not “parlee English,” and you find it very hard,
For you want to chum with us and words you lack;
So you pat us on the shoulder and say, “Nous sommes camarades.”
We are that, my poilu pal, to hell and back!
AUSTRALIA’S MEN
DOROTHEA MACKELLAR
Miss Mackellar is the daughter of Sir Charles Mackellar, Chairman
of the Bank of New South Wales. Acknowledgment is due Dr. George
Cooke-Adams, formerly an officer in the Australian naval forces,
through whose courtesy her verses are presented here.
There are some that go for love of a fight
And some for love of a land,
And some for a dream of the world set free
Which they barely understand.
A dream of the world set free from Hate--
But splendidly, one and all,
Danger they drink as ’twere wine of Life
And jest as they reel and fall.
Clean aims, rare faculties, strength and youth,
They have poured them freely forth
For the sake of the sun-steeped land they left
And the far green isle in the north.
What can we do to be worthy of them,
Now hearts are breaking for pride?
Give comfort at least to the wounded men
And the kin of the man that died.
TANKS
O. C. A. CHILD
Yes, back at home I used to drive a tram;
And Sammy, there, he was a driver, too--
He used to ride his racer--did Sir Sam;
While pokey London streets was all I knew.
But now, His Nibs and I, of equal rank,
Are chummy as the paper and the wall,
Each tooling of a caterpillar tank,
Each waiting on the blest old bugle call.
Say! Tanks are sport--when you get used to them,
They’re like a blooming railroad, self-contained;
They lay their tracks, as you might say--pro tem,
And pick ’em up, and there’s good distance gained.
They roar across rough country like a gale,
They lean against a house and push it down,
They’re like a baby fortress under sail,
And antic as a three-ring circus clown.
Sam says they’re slow. They may seem so to him--
They can’t show fancy mile-a-minute stuff,
But when they charge, in armored fighting trim,
You bet the Germans find ’em fast enough!
Now Sam and I are waiting, side by side,
To steam across yon farm-land in the night;
We’ll take their blamed barbed wire in our strides
And stamp a German trench line out of sight.
A HYMN OF FREEDOM
MARY PERRY KING
IN COLLIER’S WEEKLY
Permission to reproduce in this book
“Unfurl the flag of Freedom,
Fling far the bugle blast!
There comes a sound of marching
From out the mighty past.
Let every peak and valley
Take up the valiant cry:
Where, beautiful as morning,
Our banner cuts the sky.
Free born to peace and justice,
We stand to guard and save
The liberty of manhood,
The faith our fathers gave.
Then soar aloft, Old Glory,
And tell the waiting breeze
No law but Right and Mercy
Shall rule the Seven Seas.
No hate is in our anger,
No vengeance in our wrath,
We hold the line of freedom
Across the tyrant’s path.
Where’er oppression vaunteth
We loose the sword once more
To stay the feet of conquest,
And pray an end of war.
SWAN SONGS
More than all the others put together, the war poems of Alan Seeger,
Lieutenant Colonel McCrae, and Lieut. Rupert Brooke, have touched and
thrilled the heart of America. They are quiet, earnest, yet more
powerful than trumpet blasts, for they rise triumphant from great
depths, and as they sing, exalt.
Most familiar is our own Alan Seeger’s “I Have a Rendezvous with Death.”
He was studying in Paris when the war broke out. In the third week he
enlisted in the Foreign Legion. Two arduous years later he was called on
higher service. July 4, 1916, his squad was caught in an assault on the
village of Belloy-en-Santerre, where the Germans received them with the
fire of six machine guns. Seeger was severely wounded, but went forward
with the others, and helped take the place. Next morning he died. He had
kept the tryst.
* * * * *
Alan Seeger was a New York boy. He was born in that city June 22, 1888.
In his short life he had written some twenty poems. This was his last.
It was written in camp, shortly before his call came:
I HAVE A RENDEZVOUS WITH DEATH[1]
I have a rendezvous with Death
At some disputed barricade
When Spring comes back with rustling shade
And apple blossoms fill the air.
I have a rendezvous with Death
When Spring brings back blue days and fair
It may be he shall take my hand
And lead me into his dark land
And close my eyes and quench my breath;
It may be I shall pass him, still,
I have a rendezvous with Death
On some scarred slope of battered hill,
When Spring comes round again this year
And the first meadow flowers appear.
God knows ’twere better to be deep
Pillowed in silk and scented down,
Where love throbs out in blissful sleep,
Pulse nigh to pulse, and breath to breath,
Where hushed awakenings are dear.
But I’ve a rendezvous with Death
At 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.
Lieut. Col. John McCrae was a Canadian physician who served in the South
African war as an artilleryman. He was on his way to Canada when the war
began in 1914, and immediately upon landing he entered the Val Cartier
training camp and was commissioned a Captain. Later he joined the McGill
Hospital corps and went with it to France, where he rose to the rank of
Lieutenant Colonel, and died in service, January 28, 1918.
His poem, “In Flanders’ Fields,” was written on the Flanders front in
the Spring of 1915. Its inspiration is thus explained by Sergeant
Charles E. Bisset, of the 19th Battalion, 1st Brigade, Canadian
Infantry:
“On the Flanders front in the early Spring of 1915, when the war had
settled down to trench fighting, two of the most noticeable features of
the field were, first, the luxuriant growth of red poppies appearing
among the graves of the fallen soldiers, and second, that only one
species of bird--the larks--remained on the field during the fighting.
As soon as the cannonading ceased, they would rise in the air, singing.”
IN FLANDERS’ FIELDS
In Flanders’ fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place, and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead! Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders’ fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe!
To you from failing hands we throw
The Torch. Be yours to hold it high!
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow,
In Flanders’ fields.
Rupert Brooke, a brilliant, impassioned young Englishman, was one of the
first to take arms when Great Britain went to war. He died in the
Dardanelles expedition, April 23, 1915. A few days before, he had sent
from the Ægean Sea to the English-speaking peoples the poem by which he
is best known:
THE SOLDIER[2]
If I should die, think only this of me:
That there’s some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
In 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 less
Gives 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.
Lieutenant Brooke was a rare poet, having a serene faith, a knowledge of
life as continuous. His bent of thought, the manner of his feeling,
shine most clearly in this sonnet:
NOT WITH VAIN TEARS
Not with vain tears, when we’re beyond the sun,
We’ll beat on the substantial doors, nor tread
Those dusty highroads of the aimless dead,
Plaintive for Earth; but rather turn and run
Down some close-covered byway of the air,
Some low, sweet alley between wind and wind,
Stoop under faint gleams, thread the shadows, find
Some whispering, ghost-forgotten nook, and there
Spend in pure converse our eternal day;
Think each in each, immediately wise;
Learn all we lacked before; hear, know and say
What this tumultuous body now denies;
And feel, who have laid our groping hands away;
And see, no longer blinded by our eyes.
All of Rupert Brooke’s work has been collected and issued, a rich though
slender sheaf. The book is fervently commended to people whose own souls
are in the key that responds to notes so spiritually fine and clear as
those he sounds in all his lines.
* * * * *
“But a Short Time to Live” was written by Serg’t Leslie Coulson, whose
“little hour” came to an end at Arras, in France, October 7, 1916:
BUT A SHORT TIME TO LIVE
Our little hour--how swift it flies--
When poppies flare and lilies smile;
How soon the fleeting minute dies,
Leaving us but a little while
To dream our dreams, to sing our song,
To pick the fruit, to pluck the flower.
The gods--they do not give us long--
One little hour.
* * * * *
Our little hour--how soon it dies;
How short a time to tell our beads,
To chant our feeble litanies,
To think sweet thoughts, to do good deeds.
The altar lights grow pale and dim,
The bells hang silent in the tower--
So passes with the dying hymn
Our little hour.
These songs, with others that have lilted so bravely, so gravely,
through the world’s most bitter years of travail, will live long in
literature, with many more as strong or as sweet. Had all the writers
lived, we would have had a wealth of splendid gifts from them,
especially, maybe, from that “poor bird-hearted singer of a day,”
Francis Ledwidge, who fell in battle in Flanders, July 31, 1917.
Ledwidge was discovered by Lord Dunsany, himself a soldier-poet and a
patron of poets. He was lance corporal in Lord Dunsany’s company in the
5th Battalion of the Royal Inniskillen Fusileers. He wrote quite
touchingly to a friend shortly before the end, “I mean to do something
great if I am spared, but out here one may at any moment be hurled out
of life.” There is no doubt he would have done “something great,” for
here is a swan song not unworthy to bear his name to later times:
THE LOST ONES
Somewhere is music from the linnets’ bills,
And through the sunny flowers the bee wings drone,
And white bells of convolvulus on hills
Of quiet May make silent ringing blown
Hither and thither by the wind of showers,
And somewhere all the wandering birds have flown;
And the brown breath of Autumn chills the flowers.
But where are all the loves of long ago?
O little twilight ship blown up the tide,
Where are the faces laughing in the glow
Of morning years, the lost ones scattered wide?
Give me your hand, O brother; let us go
Crying about the dark for those who died.
THE FLAG SPEAKS
WALTER E. PECK
IN THE HAMILTON LITERARY MAGAZINE
Ribbons of white in the flag of our land,
Say, shall we live in fear?
Speak! For I wait for the word from your lips
Wet with the brine of the sea-going ships;
Speak! Shall we cringe ’neath an Attila’s whips?
Speak! For I wait to hear!
“This is our word,” said the ribbons of white;
“This is the course to steer--
Peace is our haven for foul or for fair--
Won as a maiden and kept as an heir,
Peace with the sunlight of God on her hair,
Peace, with an honor clear!”
Ribbons of red in the flag of our land,
Bought for a price full dear,
Speak! For ’tis Man that is asking Man,
Churl in the centuries’ caravan,
Speak! For he waits for your bold “I can!”
Speak! For he waits to hear!
“This is our word,” said the ribbons of red,
Slowly, with gaze austere,
“War if we must in humanity’s name,
Shielding a sister from sorrow and shame;
War upon beasts with the sword and with flame!
War--till the Judge appear!”
Stars in a field of the sky’s own blue,
Light of a midnight year,
Speak! For the spirit of Man awakes,
Shoulders the cross, and his couch forsakes,
Whispers a prayer, and the long way takes,
Speak! For he waits to hear!
“This is our word,” said a star of white,
Set in the silken mere,
“Right against Might on the land, on the sea!
Little and Great are the same to me!
Only for Truth and for Liberty
Strike! For the hour is here!”
THE CALL
(FRANCE, AUGUST 1ST, 1914)
ROBERT W. SERVICE
From “Rhymes of a Red Cross Man,” a book of fine poems by Mr.
Service. Published and copyright, 1916, by Barse & Hopkins, New
York. Special permission to insert in this book.
Far and near, high and clear,
Hark to the call of War!
Over the gorse and the golden dells,
Ringing and swinging of clamorous bells,
Praying and saying of wild farewells:
War! War! War!
High and low, all must go:
Hark to the shout of War!
Leave to the women the harvest yield;
Gird ye, men, for the sinister field;
A sabre instead of a scythe to wield.
War! Red war!
Rich and poor, lord and boor,
Hark to the blast of War!
Tinker and tailor and millionaire,
Actor in triumph and priest in prayer,
Comrades now in the hell out there,
Sweep to the fire of War!
Prince and page, sot and sage,
Hark to the roar of War!
Poet, professor and circus clown,
Chimney-sweeper and fop o’ the town,
Into the pot and be melted down
Into the pot of War!
Women all, hear the call,
The pitiless call of War!
Look your last on your dearest ones,
Brothers and husbands, fathers, sons:
Swift they go to the ravenous guns,
The gluttonous guns of War!
Everywhere thrill the air
The maniac bells of War!
There will be little of sleeping tonight;
There will be wailing and weeping tonight;
Death’s red sickle is reaping tonight:
War! War! War!
THE CRUTCHES’ TUNE
ELIZABETH R. STONER
IN EVERYBODY’S MAGAZINE
Down the street, with a lilting swing,
Each so bright that never a thing
Seemed to harass, so proud were they;
One leg gone, but their hearts were gay.
Clickety clack, went the crutches’ tune.
God! How can they be brave so soon!
Brave, when I can not keep back the tears,
Thinking ahead of the crippled years.
With a rhythmic swing they passed me by,
And although, at first, I wanted to cry,
I didn’t, because on each smiling face
Was the peace of God and the pride of race.
And the splendid pair, each with one leg gone,
Swung out of sight to the crutches’ song.
And I thought I would give all my future joys
To feel just like those Canadian boys.
All night long, like an ancient rune,
Rang through my dreams the crutches’ tune.
I shall never forget, though I’m old and gray,
The song that the crutches sang that day.
THE ANXIOUS DEAD
LIEUT. COL. JOHN McCRAE
IN THE LONDON SPECTATOR
O guns, fall silent till the dead men hear
Above their heads the legions pressing on!
(These fought their fight in time of bitter fear
And died not knowing how the day had gone.)
O flashing muzzles, pause and let them see
The coming dawn that streaks the sky afar!
Then let your mighty chorus witness be
To them, and Cæsar, that we still make war.
Tell them, O guns, that we have heard their call;
That we have sworn and will not turn aside;
That we will onward till we win or fall;
That we will keep the faith for which they died.
Bid them be patient, and some day, anon,
They shall feel earth enwrapt in silence deep--
Shall greet in wonderment the quiet dawn,
And in content may turn them to their sleep.
HOME
REGINALD WRIGHT KAUFFMAN
From Mr. Kauffman’s book of poems, “Little Old Belgium.” Henry
Altemus Company, Publishers, Philadelphia. Copyright, 1914.
Reproduced in this book by special permission.
At a pillaged hamlet near Termonde, I asked a dying peasant woman into
which of the houses still standing I should assist her--which was her
home? She pressed a withered hand to her bayonet-pierced side and
answered: “The Germans have taken one home from me; but, without knowing
it, they have given me another. I am going there now.”
My house that I so soon shall own
Is builded in a silent place,
Not uncompanioned or alone,
But shared by almost all my race;
No landscape from its windows rolls
A picture of the earth’s increase;
But, oh, for all our stricken souls,
Within its sturdy walls is--Peace.
The other house I used to love
Before they burnt it overhead;
My slaughtered man; the memory of
Our daughter screaming in the red
Embrace of Uhlans at my door,
Her shrieks all silenced by their shout
Of drunken fury--that was war,
And my new home will shut it out.
I shall not see the German hands
That tear the baby from the breast;
I shall not hear the plundering bands
Laughing at murder: I shall rest.
There Joy shall never riot in
Nor robber sorrow find his way;
Those shutters bar the call of Sin,
And Duty has no debt to pay.
So much I shall be heedless of,
Serene, secure, dispassionate;
_There_ is not anything to love;
_There_ is not anything to hate.
So in my house I shall forget
All of the orgies and the strife,
And find, past memory and regret,
The Resurrection and the Life.
TO HAPPIER DAYS
MABEL McELLIOTT
IN THE CHICAGO SUNDAY TRIBUNE
Against the shabby house I pass each day
(The town is strange, and all so new to see)
Pink hollyhocks made friendly sport of me,
With nod and smile and endless courtesy
Enlive the lonely sameness of my way.
Slim little maids in rosy morning frocks,
They make a splash of color on the gray--
The sun so bright--a pity not to play,
But this old world is sadly work-a-day,
And I must hasten on, my hollyhocks!
I like to think that somewhere, overseas,
Perhaps in some neglected garden place,
Shy flowers from home lean out with wayward grace--
Blue iris and the valley lilies’ lace--
Reminding them of happier times than these, ...
Of happy times that are so soon to be,
When they come marching home to us--our men--
The world’s work done, the land made clean again!
YOUR LAD, AND MY LAD
RANDALL PARRISH
IN THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE
Down toward the deep-blue water, marching to throb of drum,
From city street and country lane the lines of khaki come;
The rumbling guns, the sturdy tread, are full of grim appeal,
While rays of western sunshine flash back from burnished steel.
With eager eyes and cheeks aflame the serried ranks advance;
And your dear lad, and my dear lad, are on their way to France.
A sob clings choking in the throat, as file on file sweep by,
Between those cheering multitudes, to where the great ships lie;
The batteries halt, the columns wheel, to clear-toned bugle-call.
With shoulders squared and faces front they stand a khaki wall.
Tears shine on every watcher’s cheek, love speaks in every glance;
For your dear lad, and my dear lad, are on their way to France.
Before them, through a mist of years, in soldier buff or blue,
Brave comrades from a thousand fields watch now in proud review;
The same old Flag, the same old Faith,--the Freedom of the World--
Spells Duty in those flapping folds above long ranks unfurled.
Strong are the hearts which bear along Democracy’s advance,
As your dear lad, and my dear lad, go on their way to France.
The word rings out; a million feet tramp forward on the road,
Along that path of sacrifice o’er which their fathers strode.
With eager eyes and cheeks aflame, with cheers on smiling lips,
These fighting men of ’17 move onward to their ships.
Nor even love may hold them back, nor halt that stern advance,
As your dear lad, and my dear lad, go on their way to France.
“AS SHE IS SPOKE”
BOSTON TRANSCRIPT
I’ve heard a half a dozen times
Folks call it Reims.
That isn’t right, though, so it seems,
Perhaps it’s Reims.
Poor city ruined now by flames--
Can it be Reims?--
That once was one of France’s gems--
More likely Reims.
I’ll get it right sometime, perchance;
I’m told it’s Reims.
THE SPIRES OF OXFORD
(SEEN FROM THE TRAIN)
WINIFRED M. LETTS
From “The Spires of Oxford and Other Poems,” by Winifred M. Letts,
published and copyright, 1917, by E. P. Dutton & Company, New York.
Special permission to reproduce in this book.
I saw the spires of Oxford
As I was passing by,
The gray spires of Oxford
Against a pearl-gray sky.
My heart was with the Oxford men
Who went abroad to die.
The years go fast in Oxford,
The golden years and gay,
The hoary colleges look down
On careless boys at play.
But when the bugles sounded--War!
They put their games away.
They left the peaceful river,
The cricket field, the quad,
The shaven lawns of Oxford
To seek a bloody sod--
They gave their merry youth away
For country and for God.
God rest you, happy gentlemen,
Who laid your good lives down,
Who took the khaki and the gun
Instead of cap and gown.
God bring you to a fairer place
Than even Oxford town.
THE GENTLEMEN OF OXFORD
NORAH M. HOLLAND
IN EVERYWOMAN’S WORLD
The sunny streets of Oxford
Are lying still and bare.
No sound of voice or laughter
Rings through the golden air;
And, chiming from her belfry,
No longer Christchurch calls
The eager, boyish faces
To gather in her halls.
The colleges are empty.
Only the sun and wind
Make merry in the places
The lads have left behind.
But, when the trooping shadows
Have put the day to flight,
The Gentlemen of Oxford
Come homing through the night.
From France they come, and Flanders,
From Mons, and Marne and Aisne.
From Greece and from Gallipoli
They come to her again;
From the North Sea’s grey waters,
From many a grave unknown,
The Gentlemen of Oxford
Come back to claim their own.
The dark is full of laughter,
Boy laughter, glad and young.
They tell the old-time stories,
The old-time songs are sung;
They linger in her cloisters,
They throng her dewy meads,
Till Isis hears their calling
And laughs among her reeds.
But, when the east is whitening
To greet the rising sun,
And slowly, over Carfax,
The stars fade, one by one,
Then, when the dawn-wind whispers
Along the Isis shore,
The Gentlemen of Oxford
Must seek their graves once more.
WITH THE SAME PRIDE
THEODOSIA GARRISON
IN EVERYBODY’S MAGAZINE
Permission to reproduce in this book
One star for all she had,
And in her heart
One wound--yet is she glad
For all its smart
As they are glad who bear
The pangs of birth
That a new soul and fair
May come to earth,
Seeing she, too, was one
Who from Death’s strife
Granted her first-born son
Proudly to Life.
Now with that very faith
Life justified,
She grants a son to Death
With the same pride.
ACELDAMA
DR. GEORGE F. BUTLER
IN THE SCOOP, THE CHICAGO PRESS CLUB’S MAGAZINE
Still breaks the Holy morn, to soothe the care
And labor of the world; hushed is the grove,
And overhead the vireo’s note of love
Floats like a joyful utterance of prayer.
Soft insect murmurs fill the enchanted air.
Into a fairer day earth seems to move,
And statelier thoughts lift mortal sense above
Life’s sin and pain; the sorrow and despair.
But hark! where now the noonday beams are shed
In sorrowing Europe, trembles a sound
Of thunder, and the land with dews of blood
Is drenched; while o’er the dying and the dead
Fate turns to weep o’er every pleading wound--
Can earth o’ercome the evil with the good?
But yesterday two monarchs, held in check
Like bloodhounds in the leash, broke forth before
The eyes of Christendom, and in the roar
Of lurid conflict heard not the wild shriek
Of outraged millions--now again the wreck
Of crushed humanity must strew death’s shore
With ghastly ruin crying evermore,
“Shame! Wretch of mortal form and vulture’s beak--
To ask God’s aid and Christ’s! O, hour of woe!
Cover, O night of ages, the dread birth
Of man’s Imperial hate! Let kings go down
That peoples may aspire and live and own
A holier stature, and this crimsoned earth
Drink the pure light of Freedom’s afterglow!”
Sunday in August, 1914
THE LONELY GARDEN
EDGAR A. GUEST