Part 5

THE RED CROSS NURSE

Against the Dark Destroyer Their loyal legions moved, To stand by our defenders With succour tried and proved. To stay the hosts of horror With neither sword nor shield, To hold the line of mercy The Red Cross took the field.

BLISS CARMAN

I go wherever men may dare, I go wherever woman's care And love can live, Wherever strength and skill can bring Surcease to human suffering, Or solace give.

JOHN FINLEY

And yonder where the battle's waves Broke yesterday o'erhead, Where now the swift and shallow graves Cover our English dead, Think how your sisters play their part, Who serve as in a holy shrine, Tender of hand and brave of heart, Under the Red Cross sign.

SIR OWEN SEAMAN

EDITH CAVELL

(_October 12, 1915_)

Dead? Who? Not you--for whom the assassin's hand But opened wide the door to larger life And Immortality! You are not dead!-- You live forever in our hearts and minds, A perfect woman, brave, and sweet, and true, Passed, in the gracious fulness of your time, To nobler work for Him you served so well.

And you still work among us as before,-- And more.-- No sister-nurse in all the world to-day But bears upon her heart and face The impress of your soul's high martyrdom; And we pay each the homage due to you. All nursing-hands are gentler still--for you! All nursing-feet are swifter still--for you! All nursing-hearts are braver still--for you! And all our souls more loftily attuned By our sweet memory of you.

But dead--ay, dead, in grimmest truth, The soul of that poor land That gave you victim to its savage spleen. Dead to all sense of right,-- Dead to all sense of shame,-- Dead to mere decency,-- And dead--dead--dead to God And His Fair Christ. The pity!--oh, the pity!--that a land Which once bore men Should fall so low!

_Punishment?_ What punishment could fit so foul a crime? No punishment devisable of man were adequate. As thou forgavest, we can do no less. God saw it all. In His just balances it lies, The crowning weight of their vast infamies. In His own time, in His own way, For this--and all--we wait His Reckoning-Day.

JOHN OXENHAM _By permission of the Author_

THE SOLDIER

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.

[D]RUPERT BROOKE _From "Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke". Reprinted by permission of McClelland & Stewart, Ltd., Publishers, Toronto, and of the Executor of the Author, and Sidgwick & Jackson, Ltd., London, England_

FOOTNOTE:

[D] Rupert Brooke died from sunstroke on his way to the Dardanelles, April 23, 1915, and was buried in the Island of Scyros.

EXTRACT FROM "THE MEANING OF WAR"

The moral energy of nations, as of individuals, is only sustained by an ideal higher than themselves, and stronger than themselves, to which they cling firmly when they feel their courage waver. Where is the ideal of the Germany of to-day? The time when her philosophers proclaimed the inviolability of right, the eminent dignity of the person, the duty of mutual respect among nations, is no more. Germany, militarized by Prussia, has cast aside those noble ideas, ideas she received for the most part from the France of the eighteenth century and of the Revolution. She has made for herself a new soul, or rather she has meekly accepted the soul Bismarck has given her. To him has been attributed the famous maxim "Might is Right". But in truth Bismarck never pronounced it, for he had well guarded himself against a distinction of right from might. Right was simply in his view what is willed by the strongest, what is consigned by the conqueror in the law he imposes on the conquered. In that is summed up his whole morality. Germany to-day knows no other. She, too, worships brute force. And because she believes herself the strongest, she is altogether absorbed in self-adoration. Her energy comes from her pride. Her moral force is only the confidence which her material force inspires in her. And this means that in this respect she is living on reserves without means of replenishment. Even before England had commenced to blockade her coasts, she had blockaded herself morally, in isolating herself from every ideal capable of giving her new life.

So she will see her forces waste and her courage at the same time. But the energy of our soldiers is drawn from something which does not waste, from an ideal of justice and freedom. Time has no hold on us. To the force which feeds only on its own brutality we are opposing that which seeks outside and above itself a principle of life and renovation. Whilst the one is gradually spending itself, the other is continually re-making itself. The one is already wavering, the other abides unshaken. Have no fear, our force will slay theirs.

HENRI LOUIS BERGSON _By permission of the Publishers, T. Fisher Unwin, Ltd., London, England_

TO OUR DEAD

The flame of summer droops and fades and closes, While autumn thins the embers of the copse, And evermore the violent life of roses Grows keener as the roseate foliage drops: O strong young hearts within whose veins was leaping Love like a fount, hate like a dart shot high, My heart o'er yours, its dolorous vigil keeping, Is pierced with sorrow, while in joy you die!

Your ashes o'er the flats of France are scattered, But hold a fire more hot than flesh of ours; The stainless flag that flutters, frayed and tattered, Shall wave and wave like spring's immortal flowers. You die, but in your death life glows intenser; You shall not know the shame of growing old: In endless joy you swing the holy censer, And blow the trumpet tho' your lips are cold.

Life was to us a mist of intimations, Death is a flash that shows us where we trod; You, falling nobly for the righteous nations, Reveal the unknown, the unhoped-for face of God. After long toil your labours shall not perish; Through grateful generations yet to come Your ardent gesture, dying, Love shall cherish, And like a beacon you shall guide us home.

EDMUND GOSSE _By permission of the Author_

THE DEAD

Blow out, you bugles, over the rich Dead! There's none of these so lonely and poor of old, But, dying, has made us rarer gifts than gold. These laid the world away; poured out the red Sweet wine of youth; gave up the years to be Of work and joy, and that unhoped serene, That men call age; and those who would have been, Their sons, they gave, their immortality.

Blow, bugles, blow! They brought us, for our dearth, Holiness, lacked so long, and Love, and Pain. Honour has come back, as a king, to earth, And paid his subjects with a royal wage; And Nobleness walks in our ways again; And we have come into our heritage.

RUPERT BROOKE _From "Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke". Reprinted by permission of McClelland & Stewart, Ltd., Publishers, Toronto, and of the Executor of the Author, and Sidgwick & Jackson, Ltd., London, England_

IN A BELGIAN GARDEN

Once in a Belgian garden, (Ah, many months ago!) I saw, like pale Madonnas, The tall, white lilies blow.

Great poplars swayed and trembled Afar against the sky, And green with flags and rushes, The river wandered by.

Amid the waving wheat-fields Glowed poppies blazing red, And showering strange wild music A lark rose overhead.

. . . . . .

The lark has ceased his singing, The wheat is trodden low, And in the blood-stained garden No more the lilies blow.

And where green poplars trembled Stand shattered trunks instead, And lines of small white crosses Keep guard above the dead.

For here brave lads and noble, From lands beyond the deep, Beneath the small white crosses Have laid them down to sleep.

They laid them down with gladness Upon the alien plain, That this same Belgian garden Might bud and bloom again.

F. O. CALL _By permission of the Author_

". . . . . THAT HAVE NO DOUBTS"

--_Rudyard Kipling_

_The last resort of Kings are we, but the voice of peoples too_-- Ask the guns of Valmy Ridge-- Lost at the Beresina Bridge, When the Russian guns were roaring death and the Guard was charging through.

_Ultima Ratio Regis, we--but he who has may hold,_ Se curantes Dei curant, Hear the gunners that strain and pant, As when before the rising gale the Great Armada rolled.

_Guns of fifty--sixty tons that roared at Jutland fight,_ Clatter and clang of hoisting shell; See the flame where the salvo fell Amidst the flash of German guns against the wall of white.

_The sons of English carronade or Spanish culverin--_ The Danish windows shivered and broke When over the sea the children spoke, And groaning turrets rocked again as we went out and in.

_We have no passions to call our own, we work for serf or lord,_ Load us well and sponge us clean-- Be your woman a slave or queen-- And we will clear the road for you who hold us by the sword.

_We come into our own again and wake to life anew--_ Put your paper and pens away, For the whole of the world is ours to-day, And it's we who'll do the talking now to smooth the way for you.

_Howitzer gun or Seventy-five, the game is ours to play,_ And hills may quiver and mountains shake, But the line in front shall bend or break. What is it to us if the world is mad? For we are the kings to-day.

KLAXON _By permission of Wm. Blackwood & Sons, Edinburgh_

ON THE RUE DU BOIS

(_Written at Sailly, France, 1915_)

O pallid Christ within this broken shrine, Not those torn Hands and not that Heart of Thine Have given the nations blood to drink like wine.

Through weary years and 'neath the changing skies Men turned their back on those appealing Eyes And scorned as vain Thine awful Sacrifice.

Kings with their armies, children in their play, Have passed unheeding down this shell-ploughed way: The great world knew not where its true strength lay.

In pomp and luxury, in lust of gold, In selfish ease, in pleasures manifold, "Evil is good, good evil", we were told.

Yet here, where nightly the great flare-lights gleam, And murder stalks triumphant in their beam, The world has wakened from its empty dream.

At last, O Christ, in this strange, darkened land, Where ruined homes lie round on every hand, Life's deeper truths men come to understand.

For lonely graves along the countryside, Where sleep those brave hearts who for others died, Tell of life's union with the Crucified.

And new light kindles in the mourner's eyes, Like day-dawn breaking through the rifted skies, For Life is born through life's self-sacrifice.

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

EXTRACT FROM "FEAR GOD AND TAKE YOUR OWN PART"

(_February, 1916_)

The English navy was mobilized with a rapidity and efficiency as great as that of the German army. It has driven every warship except an occasional submarine, and every merchant ship of Germany off the seas, and has kept the ocean as a highway of life not only for England, but for France, and largely also for Russia. In all history there has been no such gigantic and successful naval feat accomplished as that which the seamen and shipwrights of England have to their credit during the last eighteen months. It was not originally expected that England would have much to do on the continent; and although her wisest sons emphatically desired that she should be ready to do more, yet this desire represented only a recognition of the duty owed by England to herself. To her Allies she has more than kept the promise she has made. She has given Russia the financial assistance that none but she could give; her money effort has been unparalleled in all previous history. Eighteen months ago no Frenchman would have expected that in the event of war England would do more than put a couple of hundred thousand men in France. She has already put in a million, and is training and arming more than double that number. Her soldiers have done their duty fearlessly and well; they have won high honour on the fields of horror and glory; they have shown the same gallantry and stubborn valour that have been so evident in the armies of France and Russia. Her women are working with all the steadfast courage and self-sacrifice that the women of France have shown. Her men from every class have thronged into the army. Her fisher folk, and her seafarers generally, have come forward in such numbers that her fleet is nearly double as strong as it was at the outset of the war. Her mines and war factories have steadily enlarged their output, and it is now enormous, although many of the factories had literally to build from the ground up, and the very plant itself had to be created.

Coal, food, guns, munitions, are being supplied with sustained energy. From across the sea the free Commonwealths of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, and the Indian Empire, have responded with splendid loyalty, and have sent their sons from the ends of the earth to do battle for liberty and civilization. Of Canada I can speak from personal knowledge. Canada has faced the time that tries men's souls, and with gallant heroism she has risen level to the time's need. Mighty days have come to her, and she has been equal to the mighty days. Greatness comes only through labour and courage, through the iron willingness to face sorrow and death, the tears of women and the blood of men, if only thereby it is possible to serve a lofty ideal. Canada has won that honourable place among the nations of the past and the present which can only come to the people whose sons are willing and able to dare and do and die at need. The spirit shown by her sister-commonwealths is the same. High of heart and undaunted of soul the men and women of the British Islands and of the whole British Empire now front the crisis that is upon them.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT _From "Fear God and Take Your Own Part"--Copyright, 1916. By permission of George II. Doran Company_

TO THE MEMORY OF FIELD-MARSHAL EARL KITCHENER

BORN, JUNE 24TH, 1850

DIED ON SERVICE, JUNE 5TH, 1916

Soldier of England, you who served her well And in that service, silent and apart, Achieved a name that never lost its spell Over your country's heart;--

Who saw your work accomplished ere at length Shadows of evening fell, and creeping Time Had bent your stature or resolved the strength That kept its manhood prime;--

Great was your life, and great the end you made, As through the plunging seas that whelmed your head Your spirit passed, unconquered, unafraid, To join the gallant dead.

But not by death that spell could pass away That fixed our gaze upon the far-off goal, Who, by your magic, stand in arms to-day A nation one and whole,

Now doubly pledged to bring your vision true Of darkness vanquished and the dawn set free In that full triumph which your faith foreknew But might not live to see.

SIR OWEN SEAMAN _Reprinted by permission of London "Punch"_

KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM

Weep, waves of England! Nobler clay Was ne'er to nobler grave consigned; The wild waves weep with us to-day Who mourn a nation's master mind.

We hoped an honoured age for him, And ashes laid with England's great; And rapturous music, and the dim Deep hush that veils our Tomb of State.

But this is better. Let him sleep Where sleep the men who made us free, For England's heart is in the deep, And England's glory is the sea.

One only vow above his bier, One only oath beside his bed: We swear our flag shall shield him here Until the sea gives up its dead!

Leap, waves of England! Boastful be, And fling defiance in the blast, For Earth is envious of the Sea Which shelters England's dead at last.

ROBERT J. C. STEAD _From "Kitchener and Other Poems"--By permission of The Musson Book Company, Limited, Toronto_

KITCHENER'S MARCH

Not the muffled drum for him Nor the wailing of the fife-- Trumpets blaring to the charge Were the music of his life. Let the music of his death Be the feet of marching men, Let his heart a thousandfold Take the field again.

Of his patience, of his calm, Of his quiet faithfulness, England, build your hero's cairn! He was worthy of no less. Stone by stone, in silence laid, Singly, surely, let it grow. He whose living was to serve Would have had it so.

There's a body drifting down For the mighty sea to keep. There's a spirit cannot die While one heart is left to leap In the land he gave his all, Steel alike to praise and hate. He has saved the life he spent-- Death has struck too late.

Not the muffled drums for him Nor the wailing of the fife-- Trumpets blaring to the charge Were the music of his life. Let the music of his death Be the feet of marching men! Let his heart a thousandfold Take the field again!

AMELIA JOSEPHINE BURR _From "Life and Living"--Copyright, 1916. By permission of the Publishers, George H. Doran Company_

THE CROWN OF EMPIRE

O England of our Fathers And England of our Sons, Along the dark horizon line The day-dawn glory runs, For Empire has been ours of old And Empire ours shall be-- His grip is on the world to-day Whose grip is on the sea.

O England of our Fathers And England of our Sons, Above the roar of battling hosts, The thunder of the guns, A Mother's voice was calling us, We heard it over-sea, The blood which thou didst give us Is the blood we spill for thee.

O England of our Fathers And England of our Sons, Along the dark horizon-line The day-dawn glory runs, For golden Peace is drawing near, Her paths are on the sea,-- He grips the hearts of all mankind Who stands for Liberty.

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

I HAVE A RENDEZVOUS WITH DEATH

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 on 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.

[E]ALAN SEEGER _From "Poems by Alan Seeger"--Copyright, 1916, by Charles Scribner's Sons. By permission of the Publishers_

FOOTNOTE:

[E] Killed in action at Belloy-en-Santerre, July, 1916

IN MEMORIAM

Let pride with grief go hand in hand: They join the hallowed hosts who died In battle for their lovely land: With light about their brows they ride.

Young hearts and hot, grey heads and wise, Good knights of all the years foregone, Faith in their England in their eyes, Still ride they on, still ride they on!

By altars old their banners fade Beneath dear spires; their names are set In minster aisle, in yew-tree shade: Their memories fight for England yet.

Let pride with grief go hand in hand, Sad Love with Patience side by side; In battle for their lovely land Not vainly England's sons have died!

And well may pride this hour befit; For not since England's days began More fiery clear the word was writ: Who dies for England dies for Man!

HELEN GRAY CONE _From "The Post of Honour"--By permission of J. M. Dent & Sons, Ltd., Toronto_

GUNS OF VERDUN

Guns of Verdun point to Metz From the plated parapets; Guns of Metz grin back again O'er the fields of fair Lorraine.

Guns of Metz are long and gray, Growling through a summer day; Guns of Verdun, gray and long, Boom an echo of their song.

Guns of Metz to Verdun roar, "Sisters, you shall foot the score;" Guns of Verdun say to Metz, "Fear not, for we pay our debts."

Guns of Metz they grumble, "When?" Guns of Verdun answer then, "Sisters, when to guard Lorraine Gunners lay you East again!"

PATRICK R. CHALMERS _By permission of the Author_

VERDUN

(_Spoken in the vault of the citadel of Verdun, September, 1916_)

I wish to tell you how glad I am that you asked me to sit at table with your officers in the heart of Verdun's citadel. I am glad to see around me those who have come back from battle, those who will be fighting to-morrow, and those who, with you, General, are sentries on these impregnable walls. The name of Verdun alone will be enough to rouse imperishable memories throughout the centuries to come. There is not one of the great feats of arms which make the history of France which better shows the high qualities of the Army and the people of France; and that bravery and devotion to country, to which the world has ever paid homage, have been strengthened by a sang-froid and tenacity which yield nothing to British phlegm.