Part 4

PERCY HASELDEN _Reprinted by special permission of London "Punch"_

CHALK AND FLINT

Comes there now a mighty rally From the weald and from the coast, Down from cliff and up from valley, Spirits of an ancient host; Castle gray and village mellow, Coastguard's track and shepherd's fold, Crumbling church and cracked martello Echo to this chant of old-- Chant of knight and chant of bowman: _Kent and Sussex feared no foeman In the valiant days of old_!

Screaming gull and lark a-singing, Bubbling brook and booming sea, Church and cattle bells a-ringing Swell the ghostly melody; "Chalk and flint, Sirs, lie beneath ye, Mingling with our dust below! Chalk and flint, Sirs, they bequeath ye This our chant of long ago!" Chant of knight and chant of bowman, Chant of squire and chant of yeoman: _Kent and Sussex feared no foeman In the days of long ago_!

Hills that heed not Time or weather, Sussex down and Kentish lane, Roads that wind through marsh and heather Feel the mail-shod feet again; Chalk and flint their dead are giving-- Spectres grim and spectres bold-- Marching on to cheer the living With their battle-chant of old-- Chant of knight and chant of bowman, Chant of squire and chant of yeoman: _Witness Norman! Witness Roman! Kent and Sussex feared no foeman In the valiant days of old!_

_Reprinted by special permission of London "Punch"_

A GRAVE IN FLANDERS

All night the tall trees overhead Are whispering to the stars; Their roots are wrapped about the dead And hide the hideous scars.

The tide of war goes rolling by, The legions sweep along; And daily in the summer sky The birds will sing their song.

No place is this for human tears, The time for tears is done; Transfigured in these awful years, The two worlds blend in one.

This boy had visions while in life Of stars on distant skies; So death came in the midst of strife A sudden, glad surprise.

He found the songs for which he yearned, Hopes that had mocked desire; His heart is resting now which burned With such consuming fire.

So down the ringing road we pass, And leave him where he fell, The guardian trees, the waving grass, The birds will love him well.

FREDERICK GEORGE SCOTT _From "In the Battle Silences"--By permission of the Author and The Musson Book Company, Limited, Toronto_

INTO BATTLE

(_May, 1915_)

The naked earth is warm with Spring, And with green grass and bursting trees Leans to the sun's gaze glorying, And quivers in the sunny breeze; And Life is Colour and Warmth and Light, And a striving evermore for these; And he is dead who will not fight; And who dies fighting has increase.

The fighting man shall from the sun Take warmth, and life from the glowing earth; Speed with the light-foot winds to run, And with the trees to newer birth; And find, when fighting shall be done, Great rest, and fulness after dearth.

All the bright company of Heaven Hold him in their high comradeship, The Dog-Star and the Sisters Seven, Orion's Belt and sworded hip.

The woodland trees that stand together, They stand to him each one a friend; They gently speak in the windy weather; They guide to valley and ridges' end.

The kestrel hovering by day, And the little owls that call by night, Bid him be swift and keen as they, As keen of ear, as swift of sight.

The blackbird sings to him, "Brother, brother, If this be the last song you shall sing, Sing well, for you may not sing another; Brother, sing".

In dreary doubtful waiting hours Before the brazen frenzy starts, The horses show him nobler powers; O patient eyes, courageous hearts!

And when the burning moment breaks, And all things else are out of mind, And only Joy-of-Battle takes Him by the throat, and makes him blind,

Through joy and blindness, he shall know, Not caring much to know, that still Nor lead nor steel shall reach him, so That it be not the Destined Will:

The thundering line of battle stands, And in the air Death moans and sings; But Day shall clasp him with strong hands, And Night shall fold him in soft wings.

[B]JULIAN GRENFELL _By permission of Lord Desborough, K.C.V.O._

FOOTNOTE:

[B] Captain the Hon. Julian H. F. Grenfell, D.S.O., was wounded in the trenches in front of Ypres on May 13 and died in hospital on May 26, 1915.

CHRIST IN FLANDERS

We had forgotten You, or very nearly-- You did not seem to touch us very nearly-- Of course we thought about You now and then; Especially in any time of trouble-- We knew that You were good in time of trouble-- But we are very ordinary men.

And there were always other things to think of-- There's lots of things a man has got to think of-- His work, his home, his pleasure, and his wife; And so we only thought of You on Sunday-- Sometimes, perhaps, not even on a Sunday-- Because there's always lots to fill one's life.

And, all the while, in street or lane or byway-- In country lane, in city street, or byway-- You walked among us, and we did not see. Your feet were bleeding as You walked our pavements-- How _did_ we miss Your Footprints on our pavements?-- Can there be other folk as blind as we?

_Now_ we remember; over here in Flanders-- (It isn't strange to think of You in Flanders)-- This hideous warfare seems to make things clear. We never thought about You much in England-- But now that we are far away from England-- We have no doubts, we know that You are here.

You helped us pass the jest along the trenches-- Where, in cold blood, we waited in the trenches-- You touched its ribaldry and made it fine. You stood beside us in our pain and weakness-- We're glad to think You understand our weakness-- Somehow it seems to help us not to whine.

We think about You kneeling in the Garden-- Ah! God! the agony of that dread Garden-- We know You prayed for us upon the Cross. If anything could make us glad to bear it-- 'Twould be the knowledge that You willed to bear it-- Pain--death--the uttermost of human loss.

Though we forgot You--You will not forget us-- We feel so sure that You will not forget us-- But stay with us until this dream is past. And so we ask for courage, strength, and pardon-- Especially, I think, we ask for pardon-- And that You'll stand beside us to the last.

L. W. _By permission of "The Spectator"_

THE BLIND MAN AND HIS SON

(_1915_)

"The distant boom of angry guns No longer fills my ear. Oh! whither have we fled, my son? Tell me, that I may hear." "Father, we are in England!"

"No more I hear the stormy wind Amid the rigging roar. I feel beneath my tottering feet The firm ground of the shore. Is this the end of all our woes? Shall we not suffer more?" "Father, we are in England!"

"I hear the sound of kindly speech, But do not understand; I feel I've wandered very far, Far from the fatherland; How comes it that these tones are not Those of an unknown land?" "Father, we are in England!"

"I feel in all the air around Freedom's sweet breath respire. I feel celestial fingers creep Along my quivering lyre; The birds, the trees, the babbling streams Speak to me of our home, Why does my grief less bitter grow And rest so dear become?" "Father, we are in England!"

"Bend down upon thy knees, my son, And take into thy hand, Thy wounded hand, and mine, somewhat Of the earth of this good land, That dreaming of our home, we two May kiss the soil of England!"

EMILE CAMMAERTS _From "War Poems and Other Translations"--By Lord Curzon. By permission of John Lane, The Bodley Head, London_

EXTRACT FROM "THE WAR AND THE SOUL"

I do not for one moment believe that the world is less Christian than it was before the war, or less intent on spiritual things. The exact contrary is the case as far as my experience goes. I have more than once stated that, if any man wants to be cured of religious pessimism, or any other kind of pessimism, he had better go to the front. If I had been an unbeliever before I went there, I should speedily have been cured. There one sees things every day, almost every hour, to make one marvel at the greatness of the human soul. You will see hell wide open, it is true, but you will see heaven likewise. Such heroism, patience, self-devotion, cheerfulness under affliction, readiness to fling life away to save a comrade or a position--surely these mean more, and are worth more, than the immediate object of their exercise.

. . . . . . . . . .

As humanity has been constituted up to the present, war has been the means, more than any other agency, of bringing out on the grand scale that truth of sacrifice without which flesh can never be made to serve the ends of spirit, and the kingdom of the soul be won. This could be realized without war if only the race as a whole could be lifted to the requisite level. It often has been realized without war in individual cases, but never for long on the wider basis of the communal life.

. . . . . . . . . .

What men are learning on the battle-fields of Europe of the glory of sacrifice and its mystical potencies is drawing them back to God by way of the cross of Christ; our vulgar, blatant, worldly, commercial, pleasure-loving age is seeing meanings in that cross it never saw before, and getting rid of many delusions in the process. We are being saved as by fire. Let us recover the simplicities of life, and we recover faith. We are re-learning the old, old lesson that man cannot live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. We are realizing almost with the surprise of a new discovery, that not what we have but what we are, is the secret of blessedness or wretchedness, that there is nothing to mourn over but the evil in our own hearts, and that death, however sad and dreadful in its accompaniments, is but the prelude to vaster ventures of the soul and unimaginable joys. Nothing can be killed that is worthy to be kept alive or essential to our highest well-being here or hereafter.

REV. R. J. CAMPBELL _By permission of Chapman & Hall, Ltd., Publishers, London, England_

THE GUARDS CAME THROUGH

Men of the 21st Up by the Chalk Pit Wood, Weak with our wounds and our thirst, Wanting our sleep and our food, After a day and a night-- God, shall we ever forget! Beaten and broke in the fight, But sticking it--sticking it yet. Trying to hold the line, Fainting and spent and done, Always the thud and the whine, Always the yell of the Hun! Northumberland, Lancaster, York, Durham and Somerset, Fighting alone, worn to the bone, But sticking it--sticking it yet.

Never a message of hope! Never a word of cheer! Fronting Hill 70's shell-swept slope, With the dull dead plain in our rear. Always the whine of the shell, Always the roar of its burst, Always the tortures of hell, As waiting and wincing we cursed Our luck and the guns and the Boche, When our Corporal shouted "Stand to!" And I heard someone cry, "Clear the front for the Guards!" And the Guards came through.

Our throats they were parched and hot, But Lord, if you'd heard the cheers! Irish and Welsh and Scot, Coldstream and Grenadiers. Two brigades, if you please, Dressing as straight as a hem, We--we were down on our knees, Praying for us and for them! Praying with tear-wet cheek, Praying with outstretched hand, Lord, I could speak for a week, But how could you understand! How should _your_ cheeks be wet, Such feelin's don't come to _you_. But when can me or my mates forget, When the Guards came through!

"Five yards left extend!" It passed from rank to rank. Line after line with never a bend, And a touch of the London swank. A trifle of swank and dash, Cool as a home parade, Twinkle and glitter and flash, Flinching never a shade, With the shrapnel right in their face Doing their Hyde Park stunt, Keeping their swing at an easy pace, Arms at the trail, eyes front! Man, it was great to see! Man, it was fine to do! It's a cot and a hospital ward for me, But I'll tell 'em in Blighty, wherever I be, How the Guards came through.

SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE _By permission of the Author_

RED POPPIES IN THE CORN

I've seen them in the morning light, When white mists drifted by: I've seen them in the dusk o' night Glow 'gainst the starry sky. The slender waving blossoms red, Mid yellow fields forlorn: A glory on the scene they shed, Red Poppies in the Corn.

I've seen them, too, those blossoms red, Show 'gainst the trench lines' screen, A crimson stream that waved and spread Thro' all the brown and green: I've seen them dyed a deeper hue Than ever nature gave, Shell-torn from slopes on which they grew, To cover many a grave.

Bright blossoms fair by nature set Along the dusty ways, You cheered us, in the battle's fret, Thro' long and weary days: You gave us hope: if fate be kind, We'll see that longed-for morn, When home again we march and find Red Poppies in the Corn.

W. CAMPBELL GALBRAITH _By permission of the Author_

EXTRACT FROM LECTURE

"HOW WE STAND NOW"

For my own part I am more proud of Great Britain than ever in my life before, and that largely because, in spite of this froth or scum that sometimes floats on the surface, she is fundamentally true to her great traditions, and treads steadily underfoot those elements which, if they had control, would depose us from being a nation of "white men", of rulers, of gentlemen, and bring us to the level of the enemy whom we denounce, or of the "lesser breeds without the law".

Probably many of us have learned only through this war how much we loved our country. That love depends, of course, not mainly on pride, but on old habit and familiarity, on neighbourliness, and memories of childhood. Yet, mingling with that love for our old country, I do feel a profound pride. I am proud of the response to the Empire's call--a response absolutely unexampled in history, five million men and more gathering from the ends of the earth; subjects of the British Empire coming to offer life and limb for the Empire, not because they were subjects, but because they were free and willing to come. I am proud of our soldiers and our sailors, our invincible sailors!

I am proud of our men in the workshop and the factory; proud of our men, and almost more proud of our women--working one and all, day after day, with constant overtime, and practically no holidays, for the most part demanding no trade safeguards, and insisting on no conditions, but giving freely to the common cause all that they have to give.

I am proud of our political leaders and civil administrators, proud of their resource, their devotion, their unshaken coolness, their magnanimity in the face of intrigue and detraction, their magnificent interpretation of the nation's will.

A few days ago I was in France in the fire-zone. I had been at a field dressing-station, which had just evacuated its wounded and dead, and was expecting more; and, as evening was falling, full of the uncanny strain of the whole place and slightly deafened with the shells, I saw a body of men in full kit plodding their way up the communication trenches to take their place in the firing trench. I was just going back myself, well out of the range of the guns, to a comfortable tea and a peaceful evening; and there, in trench after trench, along all the hundred miles of our front, day after day, night after night, were men moving heavily up to the firing-line, to pay their regular toll of so many killed and so many wounded, while the war drags on its weary length. I suddenly wondered in my heart whether we or our cause or our country is worth that sacrifice; and, with my mind full of its awfulness, I answered clearly, Yes. Because, while I am proud of all the things I have mentioned about Great Britain, I am most proud of the clean hands with which we came into this contest; proud of the Cause for which with clear vision we unsheathed our sword, and which we mean to maintain unshaken to the bitter or the triumphant end.

GILBERT MURRAY _By permission of the Author_

LUSITANIA

(_May 7, 1915_)

Who that can strike a blow Now will refrain? Who with the right to go Now will remain? Never was blood so spilt Under God's vault, Shame and eternal guilt Now if you halt.

Who that has prayed for peace Now will forgive? Who can have any ease Now while they live? Into their land we'll break, Onward we'll thrust, Yea, for our children's sake Beat them to dust.

"Wait, in a little time," (Mark how they live)! "Men will forget this crime, Soon will forgive; England will heed our plea: When the war ends We shall shake hands and be Traders and friends."

Look, on a crimson tide Drifts the great host, Mother and babe collide, Ghost upon ghost: See how they make, those tears, Pillars of spray, Never in all God's years Dying away.

Who that can strike a blow Now will refrain? Who with the right to go Now will remain? Ah, to be young again! Ah, to be strong! One, one with England's men Marching along!

Rise like a fire and go Fierce to this strife, On, give them blow for blow, Life against life: Theirs to be infamous Dust of the sod, Yours to be glorious Victors of God.

HAROLD BEGBIE _By permission of the Author_

THE WHITE SHIPS AND THE RED

(_May 7, 1915_)

With drooping sail and pennant That never a wind may reach, They float in sunless waters Beside a sunless beach. Their mighty masts and funnels Are white as driven snow, And with a pallid radiance Their ghostly bulwarks glow.

Here is a Spanish galleon That once with gold was gay, Here is a Roman trireme Whose hues outshone the day. But Tyrian dyes have faded, And prows that once were bright With rainbow stains wear only Death's livid, dreadful white.

White as the ice that clove her That unforgotten day, Among her pallid sisters The grim _Titanic_ lay. And through the leagues above her She looked, aghast, and said: "What is this living ship that comes Where every ship is dead?"

The ghostly vessels trembled From ruined stern to prow; What was this thing of terror That broke their vigil now? Down through the startled ocean A mighty vessel came, Not white, as all dead ships must be, But red, like living flame.

The pale green waves about her Were swiftly, strangely dyed, By the great scarlet stream that flowed From out her wounded side. And all her decks were scarlet And all her shattered crew. She sank among the white ghost ships And stained them through and through.

The grim _Titanic_ greeted her-- "And who art thou?" she said; "Why dost thou join our ghostly fleet Arrayed in living red? We are the ships of sorrow Who spend the weary night, Until the dawn of Judgment Day, Obscure and still and white".

"Nay", said the scarlet visitor, "Though I sink through the sea A ruined thing that was a ship, I sink not as did ye. For ye met with your destiny By storm or rock or fight, So through the lagging centuries Ye wear your robes of white.

"But never crashing iceberg Nor honest shot of foe, Nor hidden reef has sent me The way that I must go. My wound that stains the waters, My blood that is like flame, Bear witness to a loathly deed, A deed without a name.

"I went not forth to battle, I carried friendly men, The children played about my decks, The women sang--and then-- And then--the sun blushed scarlet And Heaven hid its face, The world that God created Became a shameful place!

"My wrong cries out for vengeance, The blow that sent me here Was aimed in Hell. My dying scream Has reached Jehovah's ear. Not all the seven oceans Shall wash away the stain; Upon a brow that wears a crown I am the brand of Cain".

When God's great voice assembles The fleet on Judgment Day, The ghosts of ruined ships will rise In sea and strait and bay. Though they have lain for ages Beneath the changeless flood, They shall be white as silver, But one--shall be like blood.

[C]JOYCE KILMER _By permission of George E. Doran Company_

FOOTNOTE:

[C] Killed in action, August 18, 1918

EXTRACT FROM SPEECH AT THE GUILDHALL, LONDON, ENGLAND

(_July 29, 1915_)

In the Dominions beyond the seas the same ideals have led inevitably to the establishment of self-governing institutions. That principle, which in the eyes of the short-sighted seemed destined to drive the far-flung nations of our empire asunder, has but united them by ties stronger than could be dreamed of under any system of autocratic government. Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Canada--all these great free nations possessing full rights of self-government, enjoying parliamentary institutions, living by the voice of the people--why have they joined in this conflict, and why are their citizens from the remotest corners of the earth fighting under a common banner and making common cause with the men of these islands in the greatest war the world has ever known? And why are the descendants in Canada of those who fought under Wolfe, and of those who fought under Montcalm, when contending for the northern half of the American continent, why are they now standing together in the empire's battle line? To speak of later events, why do we find beyond the Channel, in France or in Belgium, the grandson of a Durham and the grandson of a Papineau standing side by side in this struggle? When the historian of the future comes to analyse the events of this war, he will realize that some great overmastering impulse contributed mainly to this wonderful result. One such impulse is to be found in the love of liberty, the ideals of democracy, and the spirit of unity founded thereon, which make the whole empire one in aim and purpose. But there was also the intense conviction that this war was forced upon our empire; for in honour we could not stand aside and see trampled in the dust a weak and unoffending people whose independence and liberties we had guaranteed. Beyond and above all this we realized the supreme truth that the issue forced upon us by this conflict transcends even the destinies of our own empire and involves the future of civilization and of the world.

RT. HON. SIR ROBERT BORDEN