Part 2

Here a pile of derelict rifles, there a couple of

horses lay--

Like rockerless rocking-horses, as wooden of leg

as they,

And not much redder of nostril--not anything

like so grim

As the slinking ghoul of a lean live cat creeping

over the crater's rim!

And behind and beyond and about us were the

long black Dogs of War,

With pigmies pulling their tails for them, and

making the monsters roar

As they slithered back on their haunches, as they

put out their flaming tongues,

And spat a murderous message long leagues from

their iron lungs!

They were kennelled in every corner, and some

were in gay disguise,

But all kept twitching their muzzles and baying

the silvery skies!

A howitzer like a hyena guffawed point-blank at

the car--

But only the sixty - pounder leaves an absolute

aural scar!

(Could a giant but crack a cable as a stockman

cracks his whip,

Or tear up a mile of calico with one unthinkable

r-r-r-r-rip!

Could he only squeak a slate-pencil about the

size of this gun,

You might get some faint idea of its sound, which

is those three sounds in one.)

But certain noises were absent, we looked for

some sights in vain,

And I cannot tell you if shrapnel does really

descend like rain--

Or Big Stuff burst like a bonfire, or bullets

whistle or moan;

But the other figures I'll swear to--if some of

'em _are_ my own!

Livid and moist the twilight, heavy with snow

the trees,

And a road as of pleated velvet the colour of new

cream-cheese...

Then we overtook a Battalion... and I'm

hunting still for the word

For that gaunt, undaunted, haunted, whitening,

frightening herd!

They had done their tour of the trenches, they

were coated and caked with mud,

And some of them wore a bandage, and some of

them wore their blood!

The gaps in their ranks were many, and none of

them looked at me...

And I thought of no more vain phrases for the

things I was there to see,

But I felt like a man in a prison van where the

rest of the world goes Free.

SHELL-SHOCK IN ARRAS

All night they crooned high overhead

As the skies are over men:

I lay and smiled in my cellar bed,

And went to sleep again.

All day they whistled like a lash

That cracked in the trembling town:

I stood and listened for the crash

Of houses thundering down.

In, in they came, three nights and days,

All night and all day long;

It made us learned in their ways

And experts on their song.

Like a noisy clock, or a steamer's screw,

Their beat debauched the ear,

And left it dead to a deafening few

That burst who cared how near?

We only laughed when the flimsy floor

Heaved on the shuddering sod:

But when some idiot slammed a door--

My God!

THE BIG THING

(1918)

It was a British Linesman. His face was like a

fist,

His sleeve all stripes and chevrons from the

elbow to the wrist.

Said he to an American (with other words of his):

"It's a big thing you are doing--do you know

how big it is?"

"I guess, Sir," that American inevitably drawled,

"Big Bill's our proposition an' we're goin' for him

bald.

You guys may have him rattled, but I figure it's

for us

To slaughter, quarter, grill or bile, an' masticate

the cuss."

"I hope your teeth," the Linesman said, "are

equal to your tongue--

But that's the sort of carrion that's better when

it's hung.

Yet--the big thing you're doing I should like to

make you see!"

"Our stunt," said that young Yankee, "is to set

the whole world free!"

The Linesman used a venial verb (and other parts

of speech):

"That's just the way the papers talk and

politicians preach!

But apart from gastronomical designs upon the

Hun--

And the rather taller order--there's a big thing

that you've _done_."

"Why, say! The biggest thing on earth, to any

cute onlooker,

Is Old Man Bull and Uncle Sam aboard the

same blamed hooker!

One crew, one port, one speed ahead, steel-true

twin-hearts within her:

One ding-dong English-singin' race--a race

without a winner!"

The boy's a boyish mixture--half high-brow and

half droll:

So brave and naïve and cock-a-hoop--so sure

yet pure of soul!

Behold him bright and beaming as the bride-

groom after church--

The Linesman looking wistful as a rival in the

lurch!

"I'd love to be as young as you--" he doesn't

even swear--

"Love to be joining up anew and spoiling for my

share!

But when your blood runs cold and old, and brain

and bowels squirm,

The only thing to ease you is some fresh blood in

the firm.

"When the war was young, and _we_ were young,

we felt the same as you:

A few short months of glory--and we didn't care

how few!

French, British and Dominions, it took us all the

same--

Who knows but what the Hun himself enjoyed

his dirty game!

"We tumbled out of tradesmen's carts, we fell off

office stools;

Fathers forsook their families, boys ran away from

schools;

Mothers untied their apron-strings, lovers un-

loosed their arms--

All Europe was a wedding and the bells were

war's alarms!

"The chime had changed--You took a pull--the

old wild peal rings on

With the clamour and the glamour of a Genera-

tion gone.

Their fun--their fire--their hearts' desire--are

born again in You!"

"_That_ the big thing we're doin'?"

"It's as big as Man can do!"

FORERUNNERS *

(1900)

When I lie dying in my bed,

A grief to wife, and child, and friend,--

How I shall grudge you gallant dead

Your sudden, swift, heroic end!

Dear hands will minister to me,

Dear eyes deplore each shallower breath:

You had your battle-cries, you three,

To cheer and charm you to your death.

You did not wane from worse to worst,

Under coarse drug or futile knife,

But in one grand mad moment burst

From glorious life to glorious Life....

These twenty years ago and more,

'Mid purple heather and brown crag,

Our whole school numbered scarce a score,

And three have fallen for the Flag.

* H. P. P.--F. M. J. W. A. C. St. Ninian's, Moffat, 1879- 1880; South Africa, 1899-1900.

You two have finished on one side,

You who were friend and foe at play;

Together you have done and died;

But that was where you learnt the way.

And the third face! I see it now,

So delicate and pale and brave.

The clear grey eye, the unruffled brow,

Were ripening for a soldier's grave.

Ah! gallant three, too young to die!

The pity of it all endures.

Yet, in my own poor passing, I

Shall lie and long for such as yours.

UPPINGHAM SONG

(1913)

Ages ago (as to-day they are reckoned)

I was a lone little, blown little fag:

Panting to heel when Authority beckoned,

Spoiling to write for the _Uppingham Mag.!_

Thirty years on seemed a terrible time then--

Thirty years back seems a twelvemonth or so.

Little I saw myself spinning this rhyme then--

Less do I feel that it's ages ago!

Ages ago that was Somebody's study;

Somebody Else had the study next door.

O their long walks in the fields dry or muddy!

O their long talks in the evenings of yore!

Still, when they meet, the old evergreen fellows

Jaw in the jolly old jargon as though

Both were as slender and sound in the bellows

As they were ages and ages ago!

O but the ghosts at each turn I could show

you!--

Ghosts in low collars and little cloth caps--

Each of 'em now quite an elderly O.U.--

Wiser, no doubt, and as pleasant--perhaps!

That's where poor Jack lit the slide up with

tollies,

Once when the quad was a foot deep in snow--

When a live Bishop was one of the Pollies * --

Ages and ages and ages ago!

Things that were Decent and things that were

Rotten,

How I remember them year after year!

Some--it may be--that were better forgotten:

Some that--it may be--should still draw a

tear...

More, many more, that are good to remember:

Yarns that grow richer, the older they grow:

Deeds that would make a man's ultimate ember

Glow with the fervour of ages ago!

Did we play footer in funny long flannels?

Had we no Corps to give zest to our drill?

Never a Gym lined throughout with pine panels?

Half of your best buildings were quarry-stone

still?

* Præpostors.

Ah! but it's not for their looks that you love

them,

Not for the craft of the builder below,

But for the spirit behind and above them--

But for the Spirit of Ages Ago!

Eton may rest on her Field and her River.

Harrow has songs that she knows how to sing.

Winchester slang makes the sensitive shiver.

Rugby had Arnold, but never had Thring!

Repton can put up as good an Eleven.

Marlborough men are the fear of the foe.

All that I wish to remark is--thank Heaven

I was at Uppingham ages ago!

WOODEN CROSSES

(1917)

"Go live the wide world over--but when you

come to die, .

A quiet English churchyard is the only place to

lie!

I held it half a lifetime, until through war's

mischance

I saw the wooden crosses that fret the fields of

France.

A thrush sings in an oak-tree, and from the old

square tower

A chime as sweet and mellow salutes the idle hour:

Stone crosses take no notice--but the little

wooden ones

Are thrilling every minute to the music of the guns!

Upstanding at attention they face the cannonade,

In apple-pie alinement like Guardsmen on parade:

But Tombstones are Civilians who loll or sprawl

or sway

At every crazy angle and stage of slow decay.

For them the Broken Column--in its plot of

unkempt grass;

The tawdry tinsel garland safeguarded under

glass;

And the Squire's emblazoned virtues, that would

overweight a Saint,

On the vault empaled in iron--scaling red for

want of paint!

The men who die for England don't need it

rubbing in;

An automatic stamper and a narrow strip of tin

Record their date and regiment, their number and

their name--

And the Squire who dies for England is treated

just the same.

So stand the still battalions: alert, austere, serene;

Each with his just allowance of brown earth shot

with green;

None better than his neighbour in pomp or

circumstance--

All beads upon the rosary that turned the fate of

France!

Who says their war is over? While others carry

on,

The little wooden crosses spell but the dead and

gone?

Not while they deck a sky-line, not while they

crown a view,

Or a living soldier sees them and sets his teeth

anew!

The tenants of the churchyard where the singing

thrushes build

Were not, perhaps, all paragons of promise well

fulfilled:

Some failed--through Love, or Liquor--while the

parish looked askance.

But--you cannot _die_ a Failure if you win a Cross

in France!

The brightest gems of Valour in the Army's

diadem

Are the V.C. and the D.S.O., M.C. and D.C.M.

But those who live to wear them will tell you

they are dross

Beside the Final Honour of a simple Wooden

Cross.