Chapter 4

The flitting bullets flow and flock; They twitter as they pass; They're picking at the solid rock, They're rooting in the grass. A tiny ballet swiftly throws Its gossamer of rust, Brown fairies on their little toes A-dancing in the dust.

You cower down when first they come With snaky whispers at your ear; And when like swarming bees they hum You know the tinkling chill of fear. A whining thing will pluck your heel, A whirring insect sting your shin; You shrink to half your size, and feel The ripples o'er your body seal- 'Tis terror walking in your skin!

The bullets pelt like winter hail, The whistle and they sigh, They shrill like cordage in a gale, Like mewing kittens cry; They hiss and spit, they purring come; Or, silent all a span, They rap, as on a slackened drum, The dab that kills a man.

Rage takes you next. All hot your face The bitter void, and curses leap From pincered teeth. The wide, still space Whence all these leaden devil's sweep Is Tophet. Fiends by day and night Are groping for your heart to sate In blood their diabolic spite. You shoot in idiot delight, Each winging slug a hymn of hate.

The futile bullets scratch and go, They chortle and the coo. I laugh my scorn, for now I know The thing they cannot do. They flit like midges in the sun, But howso thick they be What matter, since there is not one That God has marked for me!

An Eastern old philosophy Come home at length and passion stills- The thing will be that is to be, And all must come as Heaven wills. Where in the swelter and the flame The new, hot, shining bullets drip; One in the many has an aim, Inwove a visage and a name- No man may give his fate the slip!

The bullets thrill along the breeze, They drum upon the bags, They tweak your ear, your hair they tease, And peck your sleeve to rags. Their voices may no more annoy- I chortle at the call: The bullet that is mine, my boy, I shall not hear at all!

The war's a flutter very like The tickets that we took from Tatt. Quite possibly I'll make a strike; The odds are all opposed to that. Behind the dawn the Furies sway The mighty globe from which to get Those bullets which throughout the day Will winners be to break or slay. I have not struck a starter yet

The busy bullets rise and flock; They whistle as they pass; They're chipping at the solid rock, They're skipping in the grass. Out there the tiny dancers throw Their sober skirts of rust, Brown flitting figures tipping toe Along the golden dust.

UNREDEEMED.

I SAW the Christ down from His cross, A tragic man lean-limbed and tall, But weighed with suffering and loss. His back was to a broken wall, And out upon the tameless world Was fixed His gaze His piercing eye Beheld the towns to ruin hurled, And saw the storm of death pass by.

Two thousand years it was since first He offered to the race of men His sovran boon, As one accurst They nailed Him to the jibbet then, And while they mocked Him for their mirth He smiled, and from the hill of pain To all the hating tribes of earth Held forth His wondrous gift again.

To-day the thorns were on His brow, His grief was deeper than before. From ravaged field and city now Arose the screams and reek of war. The black smoke parted. Through the rift God's sun fell on the b1oody lands. Christ wept, for still His priceless gift He held within His wounded hands.

THE LIVING PICTURE

HE rode along one splendid noon, When all the hills were lit with Spring, And through the bushland throbbed a croon Of every living, hopeful thing.

Between his teeth a rose he bore As white as milk, and passing there He tossed it with a laugh. I wore It as it fell among my hair.

No day a-drip with golden rain, No heat with drench of wattle scent Can touch the heart of me again But with that young, sweet wonder blent.

We wed upon a gusty day, When baffled fury whipped the sea; And now I love the swift, wet play Of wind and rain besetting me.

I took white roses in my hand, A white rose on my forehead shone, For we had come to understand White roses bloomed for us alone.

When scarce a year had gone he sped To fight the wars. With eyes grown grim He kissed my lips, and whispering said: "The world we must keep sweet for him!"

He wrote of war, the soldier's life. "'Tis hard, my dearest, but be brave. I did not make my love my wife To be the mother of a slave!"

My babe was born a boy. He had His father's eyes, his smile, his hair, And, oh, my soul was brimming glad-- It seemed his father's self was there!

But now came one who bade me still In holy Heaven put my trust. They'd laid my love beneath the hill, And sealed his eyes with timeless dust.

Against my breast the babe I drew, With strength from him to stay my fears. I fought my fight the long days through; He laughed and dabbled in my tears.

From my poor heart, at which it fed With tiger teeth, I thrust despair, And faced a world with shadow spread And only echoes in the air.

The winter waned. One eve I went, Led by a kindly hand to see In moving scenes the churches rent, The tumbled hill, the blasted lee.

Of soldiers resting by the road, Who smoked and drowsed, a muddy rout, One sprang alert, and forward strode, With eager eyes to seek us out.

His fingers held a rose. He threw The flower, and waved his cap. In me A frenzy of assurance grew, For, O dear God, 'twas he! 'twas he!

I called aloud. Aloft my child I held, and nearer yet he came; And when he understood and smiled, My baby lisped his father's name.

They say I fell like something dead, But when I woke to morning's glow My boy sat by me on the bed, And in his hand a rose of snow!

THE IMMORTAL STRAIN.

"Late Midshipman John Travers (Chester), aged 16 years. He was mortally wounded early in the action, yet he remained alone in a most exposed post awaiting orders, with his gun's crew dead all round him."

WE told old stories one by one, Brave tales of men who toyed with death, Of wondrous deeds of valor done In days of bold Elizabeth. "Alas! our British stock," said we, "Is not now what it used to be."

We read of Drake's great sailors, or Of fighting men that Nelson led, Who steered the walls of oak to war. "These were our finest souls," we said. "Their fame is on the ocean writ, Nor time, nor storm may cancel it.

"The mariners of England then Were lords of battle and of breeze. The were, indeed the wondrous men Who won for us the shoreless seas, Who took old Neptune's ruling brand And set it in Britannia's hand.

"But now," we sighed, "the blood is pale, We're little people of the street, And dare not front the shrilling gale. The sons of England are effete, Of shorter limb and smaller mould, Mere pigmies by the men of old."

Then came the vibrant bugle note. None cowered at the high alarm, The steady fleets were still afloat, And England saw her soldiers arm, And readily, with sober grace. The close-set ranks swung into place.

On sea and shore they fought again, And storied heroes came to life, Once more were added to the slain. Once more found glory in the strife; Again her yeoman sons arose; A wall 'tween Britain and her foes.

The eager lads, with laughing lips And souls elate, where oceans roar, Or planes the eagle's flight eclipse, Give all for her, and come no more; Or where death thunders down the sky Beside their silent guns they lie;

This boy who, while the iron rains With seething riot whip the flood, Fights on, till in his heart remains No single drop of English blood, Avers the British strain sublime, Outliving Death, outlasting Time!

THE UNBORN

I SEE grim War, a bestial thing, with swinish tusks to tear; Upon his back the vampires cling, Thin vipers twine among his hair, The tiger's greed is in his jowl, His eye is red with bloody tears, And every obscene beast and fowl From out his leprous visage leers. In glowing pride fell fiends arise, And, trampled, God the Father lies.

Not God alone the Demon slays; The hills that swell to Heaven drip With ooze of murdered men; for days The dead drift with the drifting ship, And far as eye may see the plain Is cumbered deep with slaughtered ones, Contorted to the shape of pain, Dissolving 'neath the callous suns, And driven in his foetid breath Still ply the harvesters of Death.

He sits astride an engine dread, And at his touch the awful ball Across the quaking world is sped, I see a million creatures fall. Beyond the soldiers on the hill, The mother by her basinet. The bolt its mission must fulfil, And in the years that are not yet Creation by the blow is shorn Of dimpled hosts of babes unborn!

THE COMMON MEN.

THE great men framed the fierce decrees Embroiling State with State; They bit their thumbs across the seas In diplomatic hate; They lit the pyre whose glare and heat Make Hell itself seem cold; The flames bloomed red above the wheat, Their wild profusion wreathed the street- Then in the smoke and fiery sleet The common men took hold.

Where Babel was with Bedlam freed, And wide the gates were flung; To chaos, while the anarch breed In all the world gave tongue, The common men in close array, By mountain, plain and sea, Went outward girded for the fray, On one dear quest, whate'er they pay In blood and pain--the open way To keep for Liberty.

The common men who never tire, Unsightly in the mirk Of caking blood and smoke and mire, Push forward with their work; A while in foulest pits entombed, Resistless, still and slow, Burnt, broken, stifled, seeming doomed, Past where the flowers of Satan bloomed, Up gutted hills with shell-breath plumed, The stubborn armies go.

Contending in the shattered sky In empyrean wars, The sons of simple men out-vie God's splendid meteors; Where'er the mills of Vulcan roared And blinked against the night, Swart shapes with sweat-washed eyes have stored The clean, lean lightnings of the Lord To be a league-long, leaping sword In this our holy fight.

The small men know the burden well, The dreadful paths they know, With fear and death and torture dwell. And sup and sleep with, woe. They're riven in the shrapnel gust, But; blind and reeling, plan Another blow, a final thrust To subjugate the tyrant's lust. So, bleeding, blundering in the dust, Men fight and die for MAN.

THE CHURCH BELLS.

The Viennese authorities have melted down the great bell in St. Stephen's to supply metal for guns or muntions. Every poor village has made a similar gift.--Lokal Anzeiger.

THE great bell booms across the town, Reverberant and slow, And drifting from their houses down The calm-eyed people go. Their feet fall on the portal stones Their fathers' fathers trod; And still the bell, with reverent tones, From cottage nooks and purple thrones Is calling souls to God.

The chapel bells with ardor spake Above the poplars tall, And perfumed Sabbath seemed to wake. Responsive to their call From dappled vale and green hillside And nestling village hives The peasants came in simple pride To hear how their Lord Jesus died To sweeten all their lives.

. . .

They boom beyond the battered town; The hills are belching smoke; And valleys charred and ranges brown Are quaking 'neath the stroke. The iron roar to Heaven swells, And domes and steeples nod; Through cities vast and ferny dells And village streets the clamant bells Are calling souls to God!

THE YOUNG LIEUTENANT.

THE young lieutenant's face was grey. As came the day. The watchers saw it lifting white And ghostlike from the pool of night. His eyes were wide and strangely lit. Each thought in that unhallowed pit: "I, too, may seem like one who dies With wide, set eyes."

He stood so still we thought it death, For through the breath Of reeking shell we came, and fire, To hell, unlit, of blood and mire. Tianced in a chill delirium We wondered, though our lips were dumb What precious thing his fingers pressed Against his breast.

His left hand clutched so lovingly What none might see. All bloodless were his lips beneath The straight, white, rigid clip of teeth. His eyes turned to the distance dim; Our sleepless eyes were all on him. He stirred; we aped a phantom cheer. The hour was here!

The young lieutenant blew his call. "God keep us all!" He whispered softly. Out he led; And over the vale of twisted dead, Close holding that dear thing, he went. On through the storm we followed, bent To pelt of iron and the rain Of flame and pain.

His wan face like a lodestar glowed Down that black road, And deep among the torn and slain We drove, and twenty times again He squared us to the charging hordes. His word was like a hundred swords. And still a hand the treasure pressed Against his breast.

Our gain we held. Up flamed the sun. "The ridge is won," He calmly said, and, with a sigh, "Thank God, a man is free to die!" He smiled at this, and so he passed. His secret prize we knew at last, For through his hand the jewel's red, Fierce lustre bled.

THE ONE AT HOME.

DON told me that he loved me dear Where down the range Whioola pours; And when I laughed and would not hear He flung away to fight the wars. He flung away--how should he know My foolish heart was dancin' so? How should he know that at his word My soul was trillin' like a bird?

He went out in the cannon smoke. He did not seek to ask me why. Again each day my poor heart broke To see the careless post go by. I cared not for their Emperors-- For me there was this in the wars; My brown boy in the shell-clouds dim, And savage devils killin' him!

They told me on the field he fell, And far they bore him from the fight, But he is whole--he will be well Now in a ward by day and night A fair, tall nurse with slim, neat hands By his white bedside smilin' stands; His brow with trailin fingertips She soothes, and damps his fevered lips!

I know her not, but I can see How blue her great eyes are, and hear The cooin' of her voice as she Speaks gentle comfort to my dear; With love as sweet as mother's care She heals his wounds, she strokes his hair... O God, could I but let him see The hate of her consumin' me!

THE HAPLESS ARMY

"A soldier braving disease and death on the battlefield has a seven times better chance of life than a new-born baby."--Secretary of War, U.S.A.

THE Hapless Army from the dark That lies beyond creation, All blinded by the solar spark, And leaderless in lands forlorn, Come stumbling through the mists of morn; And foes in close formation, With taloned fingers dripping red, Bestrew the sodden world with dead.

The Hapless Army bears no sword; Fell destiny fulfilling, It marches where the murder horde, Amid the fair new urge of life, With poison stream, and shot, and knife, Make carnival of killing. No war above black Hell's abyss Knows evil grim and foul as this.

In pallid hillocks lie the slain The callous heaven under; Like twisted hieroglyphs of pain They fleck earth to oblivion's brink, As far as human mind may think, Accusing God with thunder Of dreadful silence. Nought it serves-- Fate ever calls the doomed reserves!

Still with Death's own monotony The innocents are falling, Like dead leaves in a forest dree; And still the conscript armies come. No banners theirs, no beat of drum, No merry bugles calling! Mad ally in the Slayers' train, Man slaps and sorrows for the slain!

THE END