Part 6

The memory of the victorious resistance of Verdun will be immortal because Verdun saved not only France, but the whole of the great cause which is common to ourselves and humanity. The evil-working force of the enemy has broken itself against the heights around this old citadel as an angry sea breaks upon a granite rock. These heights have conquered the storm which threatened the world.

I am deeply moved when I tread this sacred soil, and I do not speak for myself alone. I bring you a tribute of the admiration of my country, of the great Empire which I represent here. They bow with me before your sacrifice and before your glory. Once again, for the defence of the great causes with which its very future is bound up, mankind turns to France. "À la France! Aux hommes tombés sous Verdun!"

RT. HON. DAVID LLOYD GEORGE

FOR THE FALLEN

With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children, England mourns for her dead across the sea. Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit, Fallen in the cause of the free.

Solemn the drums thrill: Death august and royal Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres. There is music in the midst of desolation And a glory that shines upon our tears.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young, Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow. They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted, They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old: Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning We will remember them.

They mingle not with their laughing comrades again; They sit no more at familiar tables of home; They have no lot in our labour of the day-time; They sleep beyond England's foam.

But where our desires are and our hopes profound, Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight, To the innermost heart of their own land they are known As the stars are known to the Night.

As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust, Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain; As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness, To the end, to the end, they remain.

LAURENCE BINYON _By permission of the Author and "The Times", London_

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.

[F]JOHN MCCRAE _Reprinted by special permission of London "Punch"_

FOOTNOTE:

[F] Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae died of pneumonia in France, January, 1918.

THE ANXIOUS DEAD

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.

JOHN MCCRAE _By permission of "The Spectator"_

EXTRACT FROM SPEECH OF RT. HON. DAVID LLOYD GEORGE ON BECOMING PREMIER

(_December 19, 1916_)

. . . . . . . . . .

I should like to say one word about the lesson of the fighting on the western front--not about the military strategy, but about the significance of the whole of that great struggle, one of the greatest struggles ever waged in the history of the world. It is full of encouragement and of hope. Just look at it! An absolutely new Army! The old had done its duty and spent itself in the achievement of that great task. This is a new Army. But a year ago it was ore in the earth of Britain, yea, and of Ireland. It became iron. It has passed through a fiery furnace, and the enemy knows that it is now fine steel. An absolutely new Army, new men, new officers taken from schools, from colleges, from counting-houses, never trained to war, never thought of war, many of them perhaps never handled a weapon of war, generals never given the opportunity of handling great masses of men. Some of us had seen the manoeuvres. A division which is now set to attack a small village is more than our generals ever had the opportunity of handling before the war. Compared with the great manoeuvres on the Continent, they were toy manoeuvres. And yet this new Army, new men, new officers, generals new to this kind of work, they have faced the greatest army in the world, the greatest army the world has ever seen, the best equipped and the best trained, and they have beaten them, beaten them, beaten them! Battle after battle, day after day, week after week! From the strongest entrenchments ever devised by human skill they have driven them out by valour, by valour which is incredible when you read the story of it.

SUBALTERNS

(_A Song of Oxford_)

They had so much to lose; their radiant laughter Shook my old walls--how short a time ago. I hold the echoes of their song hereafter Among the precious things I used to know.

Their cup of life was full to overflowing, All earth had laid its tribute at their feet. What harvest might we hope from such a sowing? What noonday from a dawning so complete?

And I--I watched them working, dreaming, playing, Saw their young bodies fit the mind's desire, Felt them reach outward, upward, still obeying The passionate dictates of their hidden fire.

Yet here and there some graybeard breathed derision, "Too much of luxury, too soft an age! Your careless Galahads will see no vision, Your knights will make no mark on honour's page."

No mark?--Go ask the broken fields in Flanders, Ask the great dead who watched in ancient Troy, Ask the old moon as round the world she wanders What of the men who were my hope and joy!

They are but fragments of Imperial splendour, Handfuls of might amid a mighty host, Yet I, who saw them go with proud surrender, May surely claim to love them first and most.

They who had all, gave all. Their half-writ story Lies in the empty halls they knew so well, But they, the knights of God, shall see His glory, And find the Grail ev'n in the fire of hell.

MILDRED HUXLEY _By permission of the Author_

THE SEARCHLIGHTS

(_Political morality differs from individual morality, because there is no power above the State.--General von Bernhardi_)

Shadow by shadow, stripped for fight The lean black cruisers search the sea. Night-long their level shafts of light Revolve, and find no enemy. Only they know each leaping wave May hide the lightning, and their grave.

And in the land they guard so well Is there no silent watch to keep? An age is dying, and the bell Rings midnight on a vaster deep. But over all its waves, once more, The searchlights move, from shore to shore.

And captains that we thought were dead, And dreamers that we thought were dumb, And voices that we thought were fled, Arise, and call us, and we come: And "search in thine own soul", they cry; "For there, too, lurks thine enemy".

Search for the foe in thine own soul, The sloth, the intellectual pride; The trivial jest that veils the goal For which our fathers lived and died; The lawless dreams, the cynic Art, That rend thy nobler self apart.

Not far, not far into the night, These level swords of light can pierce; Yet for her faith does England fight, Her faith in this our universe, Believing Truth and Justice draw From founts of everlasting law:

The law that rules the stars, our stay, Our compass through the world's wide sea, The one sure light, the one sure way, The one firm base of Liberty; The one firm road that men have trod Through Chaos to the throne of God.

Therefore a Power above the State, The unconquerable Power returns. The fire, the fire that made her great Once more upon her altar burns. Once more, redeemed, and healed and whole, She moves to the Eternal Goal.

ALFRED NOYES _Reprinted by permission from the "Lord of Misrule", by Alfred Noyes. Copyright, 1915, by Frederick A. Stokes Company_

THE SEA IS HIS

The Sea is His: He made it, Black gulf and sunlit shoal, From battered bight to where the long Leagues of Atlantic roll: Small strait and ceaseless ocean He bade each one to be: The Sea is His: He made it-- And England keeps it free.

By pain and stress and striving Beyond the nations' ken, By vigils stern when others slept, By many lives of men; Through nights of storm, through dawnings Blacker than midnights be-- This Sea that God created, England has kept it free.

Count me the splendid captains Who sailed with courage high To chart the perilous ways unknown-- Tell me where these men lie! To light a path for ships to come They moored at Dead Man's quay; The Sea is God's--He made it, And these men made it free.

Oh, little land of England, Oh, Mother of hearts too brave, Men say this trust shall pass from thee Who guardest Nelson's grave. Aye, but these braggarts yet shall learn, Who'd hold the world in fee, The Sea is God's--and England, England shall keep it free.

[G]R. E. VERNÈDE _From "War Poems", by R. E. Vernède. By permission of the Publishers, Wm. Heinemann, London_

FOOTNOTE:

[G] Died of wounds, April, 1917

VOLUNTEER

Here lies a clerk who half his life had spent Toiling at ledgers in a city gray, Thinking that so his days would drift away With no lance broken in life's tournament: Yet ever 'twixt the books and his bright eyes The gleaming eagles of the legions came, And horsemen, charging under phantom skies, Went thundering past beneath the oriflamme.

And now those waiting dreams are satisfied; From twilight into spacious dawn he went; His lance is broken; but he lies content With that high hour, in which he lived and died. And falling thus he wants no recompense, Who found his battle in the last resort; Nor needs he any hearse to bear him hence, Who goes to join the men of Agincourt.

HERBERT ASQUITH _By permission of Rt. Hon. H. H. Asquith_

EXTRACT FROM PRESIDENT WILSON'S MESSAGE TO CONGRESS

(_April 2, 1917_)

We are now about to accept the gage of battle with this natural foe to liberty, and shall, if necessary, spend the whole force of the nation to check and nullify its pretensions and powers. We are glad, now that we see the facts with no veil of false pretence about them, to fight thus for the ultimate peace of the world and for the liberation of its peoples, the German people included; for the rights of nations great and small, and the privilege of men everywhere to choose their way of life and of obedience. The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted upon the trusted foundations of political liberty.

We have no selfish ends to serve. We desire no conquest, no dominion. We seek no indemnities for ourselves, no material compensation for the sacrifices we shall freely make. We are but one of the champions of the rights of mankind. We shall be satisfied when those have been made as secure as the faith and freedom of the nation can make them.

Just because we fight without rancour and without selfish objects, seeking nothing for ourselves but what we shall wish to share with all free peoples, we shall, I feel confident, conduct our operations as belligerents without passion and ourselves observe with proud punctilio the principles of right and of fair play we profess to be fighting for.... We enter this war only where we are clearly forced into it because there are no other means of defending our rights.

It will be all the easier for us to conduct ourselves as belligerents in a high spirit of right and fairness because we act without animus, not in enmity toward a people or with the desire to bring any injury or disadvantage upon them, but only in armed opposition to an irresponsible Government which has thrown aside all considerations of humanity and of right and is running amuck.... There are, it may be, many months of fiery trial and sacrifice ahead of us.

It is a fearful thing to lead this great, peaceful people into war, into the most terrible and disastrous of all wars, civilization itself seeming to be in the balance. But right is more precious than peace, and we shall fight for the things which we have always carried nearest to our hearts--for democracy, for the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their own governments, for the rights and liberties of small nations, for a universal dominion of right by such a concert of free peoples as shall bring peace and safety to all nations and make the world itself at last free.

To such a task we can dedicate our lives and our fortunes, everything that we are and everything that we have, with the pride of those who know that the day has come when America is privileged to spend her blood and her might for the principles that gave her birth and happiness and the peace which she has treasured. God helping her, she can do no other.

FROM "VIMY RIDGE"

(_April, 1917_)

. . . . . . . . . .

England, our mother, we, thy sons, are young; Our exultation this day cannot be Bounded as thine: but thou wilt pardon us, Thou wilt forgive us if we cry, "Now see! See now, our mother, these are they that clung Once to thy breasts, and are they not well sung?"

. . . . . . . . . .

Aye, not since France herself first stood at bay, To conquer or to die on Marne's green banks, Driving at last across its crimsoned flood The flower of Germany in shattered ranks, Has there been crowded in a single day More breathless glory for heroic lay. England, our mother, once our boasting hear! And in thy streets let flags and banners fly! To drums and bugles let the people march While Vimy Ridge is shouted to the sky!

. . . . . . . . . .

Thereafter of our pride let naught be said, Saving on stone, inscribed with but one line: CANADA--VIMY RIDGE--1917 Our hearts the tablets of a secret shrine: Though henceforth we shall lift a higher head Because of Vimy and its glorious dead.

ALFRED GORDON _From "Vimy Ridge and New Poems"-- By permission of the Author and of J. M. Dent & Sons, Ltd., Toronto_

THE SILENT TOAST

(_Vimy Ridge, April, 1917_)

They stand with reverent faces, And their merriment give o'er, As they drink the toast to the unseen host, Who have fought and gone before.

It is only a passing moment In the midst of the feast and song, But it grips the breath, as the wind of death In a vision sweeps along.

No more they see the banquet And the brilliant lights around: But they charge again on the hideous plain When the shell-bursts rip the ground.

Or they creep at night, like panthers, Through the waste of No Man's Land, Their hearts afire with a wild desire And death on every hand.

And out of the roar and tumult, Or the black night loud with rain, Some face comes back on the fiery track And looks in their eyes again.

And the love that is passing woman's, And the bonds that are forged by death, Now grip the soul with a strange control And speak what no man saith.

The vision dies off in the stillness, Once more the tables shine, But the eyes of all in the banquet hall Are lit with a light divine.

FREDERICK GEORGE SCOTT _By permission of the Author and The Musson Book Company, Limited, Toronto_

PROSPICE

The ancient and the lovely land Is sown with death; across the plain Ungarnered now the orchards stand, The Maxim nestles in the grain, The shrapnel spreads a stinging flail Where pallid nuns the cloister trod, The airship spills her leaden hail; But--after all the battles--God.

Athwart the vineyard's ordered banks, Silent the red rent forms recline, And from their stark and speechless ranks There flows a richer, ruddier wine; While down the lane and through the wall The victors writhe upon the sod, Nor heed the onward bugle call; But--after all the bugles--God.

By night the blazing cities flare Like mushroom torches in the sky; The rocking ramparts tremble ere The sullen cannon boom reply. And shattered is the temple spire, The vestment trampled on the clod, And every altar black with fire; But--after all the altars--God.

And all the prizes we have won Are buried in a deadly dust; The things we set our hearts upon Beneath the stricken earth are thrust; Again the Savage greets the sun, Again his feet, with fury shod, Across a world in anguish run; But--after all the anguish--God.

The grim campaign, the gun, the sword, The quick volcano from the sea, The honour that reveres the word, The sacrifice, the agony-- These be our heritage and pride, Till the last despot kiss the rod, And, with man's freedom purified, We mark--behind our triumph--God.

ALAN SULLIVAN _By permission of the Author_

THE OUTER GUARD

Bold Watchers of the deeps, Guards of the Greater Ways, How shall our swelling hearts express Our heights and depths of thankfulness For these safe-guarded days!

Grim is your vigil there, Black day and blacker night,-- Watching for life, while knavish death Lurks all around, above, beneath, Waiting his chance to smite.

Your hearts are stouter than The worst that Death can do. Our thoughts for you!--our prayers for you! There's One aloft that cares for you, And He will see you through.

Don't think we e'er forget The debt we owe to you! Never a night but we pray for you! Never a day but we say for you,-- "God bless the gallant lads in blue! With mighty strength their hearts renew! Bless every ship and every crew! Give every man his rightful due! And bring them all safe through!"

JOHN OXENHAM _By permission of the Author_

SMALL CRAFT

When Drake sailed out from Devon to break King Philip's pride, He had great ships at his bidding and little ones beside; _Revenge_ was there, and _Lion_, and others known to fame, And likewise he had small craft, which hadn't any name.

Small craft--small craft, to harry and to flout 'em! Small craft--small craft, you cannot do without 'em! Their deeds are unrecorded, their names are never seen, But we know that there were small craft, because there must have been.

When Nelson was blockading for three long years and more, With many a bluff first-rater and oaken seventy-four To share the fun and fighting, the good chance and the bad, Oh, he had also small craft, because he must have had.

Upon the skirts of battle, from Sluys to Trafalgar, We know that there were small craft, because there always are; Yacht, sweeper, sloop, and drifter, to-day as yesterday, The big ships fight the battles, but the small craft clear the way.

They scout before the squadrons when mighty fleets engage; They glean War's dreadful harvest when the fight has ceased to rage; Too great they count no hazard, no task beyond their power, And merchantmen bless small craft a hundred times an hour.

In Admirals' dispatches their names are seldom heard; They justify their being by more than written word; In battle, toil, and tempest, and dangers manifold The doughty deeds of small craft will never all be told.

Scant ease, and scantier leisure--they take no heed of these, For men lie hard in small craft when storm is on the seas; A long watch and a weary, from dawn to set of sun-- The men who serve in small craft, their work is never done.

And if, as chance may have it, some bitter day they lie Out-classed, out-gunned, out-numbered, with naught to do but die, When the last gun's out of action, good-bye to ship and crew, But men die hard in small craft, as they will always do.

Oh, death comes once to each man, and the game it pays for all, And duty is but duty in great ship and in small, And it will not vex their slumbers or make less sweet their rest, Though there's never a big black headline for small craft going west.

Great ships and mighty captains--to these their meed of praise For patience, skill, and daring, and loud victorious days; To every man his portion, as is both right and fair, But oh! forget not small craft, for they have done their share.

Small craft--small craft, from Scapa Flow to Dover, Small craft--small craft, all the wide world over, At risk of war and shipwreck, torpedo, mine, and shell, All honour be to small craft, for oh, they've earned it well!

C. FOX-SMITH _Reprinted by special permission of London "Punch"_

EXTRACT FROM SPEECH OF RT. HON. A. J. BALFOUR IN TORONTO

(_May, 1917_)

I come into Canada to a great free country, composed not only of friends, but of countrymen. We think the same thoughts, we live in the same civilization, we belong to the same Empire, and if anything could have cemented more closely the bonds of Empire, if anything could have made us feel that we were indeed of one flesh and one blood, with one common history behind us, if anything could have cemented these feelings, it is the consciousness that now for two years and a half we have been engaged in this great struggle, in which, I thank God, all North America is now at one. We have been engaged in this great struggle through these two years and a half, fighting together, when necessary making all our sacrifices in common, working together toward a common and victorious end, which I doubt not will crown our efforts.

May I, as a countryman of yours, though not a citizen of Toronto, may I say how profoundly the whole Empire feels the magnitude of the effort you have made, and how we value it for itself and for an example to all posterity, an evidence to the whole world of what the British Empire really means, not only for the whole of that civilized body of nations of which we form no inconsiderable part.