Chapter 5

We had grown proud because the nations stood Hoping together against the calumny That, 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 throw To 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_

THE DEATH OF PEACE

Now slowly sinks the day-long labouring Sun Behind 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 thou Art 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 sun Across 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 repose A 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 born There 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 told And 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 grieve And wander restless from the lighted rooms.

For through the world to-night a murmur thrills As 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-born O 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 streams To 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 bore To please us, but that she can bring no more; And dying yet she smiles--as Christ on him Who slew Him slain. Her eyes so beauteous Are 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 solitudes Where she dwelleth; and joyous Spirits that roam To 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 sleep And will awake. Bring wine, and new-wound wreaths Wherewith 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 obscene With lavish tongues; and Trolls; and treacherous Things Like loose-lipp'd Councillors and cruel Kings Who 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 time The direst deed e'er done, the most accursed crime.

_Ronald Ross_

IN WAR-TIME

(AN AMERICAN HOMEWARD-BOUND)

Further and further we leave the scene Of 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 wrong My 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 sign The 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 fly In the wilful sea-bird's track, Would I hurry on, with a homesick cry-- Or hasten back?

_Florence Earle Coates_

THE ANVIL

Burned from the ore's rejected dross, The iron whitens in the heat. With plangent strokes of pain and loss The hammers on the iron beat. Searched by the fire, through death and dole We feel the iron in our soul.

O dreadful Forge! if torn and bruised The heart, more urgent comes our cry Not 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_

THE FOOL RINGS HIS BELLS

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 star To chaunted songs of woe, Dragging cold cannon through a mud Of rain and blood; The new moon glinting hard on eyes Wide with insanities!

Hush!... I use words I hardly know the meaning of; And the mute birds Are glancing at Love! From out their shade of leaf and flower, Trembling at treacheries

Which even in noonday cower, Heed, heed not what I said Of 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 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 shining 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 passed, And where the Kaiser's Uhlans yet would pass 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 Liège!--

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 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 sleep Beside 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 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, God 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 shore.

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 passions dead, and men Battl'd with ledger and with pen.

So seem'd it, but to them alone The wisdom of the gods 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 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 excel And, like men waking from a spell, Grow stronger, nobler, 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_

THEN AND NOW

When battles were fought With 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 deign To profit by a stain On the honourable rules, Knowing that practise perfidy no man durst Who in the heroic schools Was nurst.

But now, behold, what Is war with those where honour is not! Rama laments Its dead innocents; Herod howls: "Sly slaughter Rules now! Let us, by modes once called accurst, Overhead, under water, Stab first."

_Thomas Hardy_

THE KAISER AND GOD

["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 nod Show 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 look Who read further in that book, Where you did in time of war All 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 press On the God of Righteousness!

Kaiser, when you'd decorate Sons or friends who serve your State, Not that Iron Cross bestow, But a cross of wood, and so-- So remind the world that you Have made Calvary anew.

Kaiser, when you'd kneel in prayer Look upon your hands, and there Let that deep and awful stain From the Wood of children slain Burn your very soul with shame, Till you dare not breathe that Name That 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 amaze That His ways are not your ways, That the mire through which you trod Is 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 SUPERMAN

The horror-haunted Belgian plains riven by shot and shell Are 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 incarnadine Attest the carnival of strife, the madman's battle scene.

Relentless, savage, hot, and grim the infuriate columns press Where 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 unfurled And prayer on lip he runs amuck, imperilling the world.

The impious creed that might is right in him personified Bids 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 tire To 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_

THREE HILLS

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 noontide And the ghosts that died in vain,-- A little hill, a hard hill To the souls that died in pain.

There is a hill in Jewry, Three crosses pierce the sky, On the midmost He is dying To save all those who die,-- A little hill, a kind hill To souls in jeopardy.

_Everard Owen_

_Harrow, December, 1915_

THE RETURN

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_

THE MOBILIZATION IN BRITTANY

I

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 square And 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 street Came the hurrying stumbling feet. O I have heard the drums beat For war! I have heard the townsfolk come, I have heard the roll and thunder of the nearest drum As 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 street And down to another square, And the drummer above took up the beat And sent it onward where Huddled, we stood and heard the drums roll, And then a bell began to toll.

O I have heard the thunder of drums Crashing 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 beat For war!

II

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 know It 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, the _Marseillaise!_

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_

THE TOY BAND

(A SONG OF THE GREAT RETREAT)