Part 3

And when we left the charnel place, I dared not look upon his face; For suddenly upon the street Arose the sound of trampling feet, And wheels that rumbled on the ground, _And ground around and ground around_, The din of them that go to slay, The shout of men and horses' neigh, And men and beasts swept on to war A dreadful drumming on before.

It throbbed and throbbed through Nogent Town, Till desolation settled down. The blindman leaned against the door; "And tell me, sir, about the war, What is it they are fighting for?" "Blindman," I cried, "Can you not see? It is to set the whole world free! It is for sweet democracy--"

"I do not know her, sir," he said. "My little Eleanor is dead."

HANDS OFF.

Dedicated to Orators and Others.

I know a glade in Argonne where they lean-- Those crosses--loosened by last winter's snows, Throwing their silent shadows on the green; There I could go this very day--God knows! To hide a sorrow mocked by tears and words, To fall face downward on the catholic grass That sprang this springtime through the shroud of snows And let the little, greenwood birds say mass.

Like sound of taps at twilight from the hill, The solemn thought comes that these lads are gone; At evening when the breathing world grows still And ghostly day steals from the bird-hushed lawn, When over wooded crests the swimming moon Casts ivory spells of beauty they have lost, Across delicious valleys warm with June I count the ghastly price the victory cost.

I count it in moongold and coin of life, The love and beauty that these dead have missed, Who lived to reap no glory from the strife, But are like sleepers by the loved one kissed; Each sleeps and knows not that she is so near, Or at the most sinks deeper in his dream, And life, and all blithe things they once held dear, Are far and faint like voices of a stream.

Hands off our dead! For all they did forbear To drag them from their graves to point some speech; Less sickening was the gas reek over there, Less deadly was the shrapnel's whirring screech; You cannot guess the uttermost they gave; Those martyrs did not die for chattering daws To loot false inspiration from the grave When mouthing fools turn ghouls to gain applause.

SOLDIER-POET.

To Francis Fowler Hogan.

I think at first like us he did not see The goal to which the screaming eagles flew; For romance lured him, France, and chivalry; But Oh! Before the end he knew, he knew! And gave his first full love to Liberty, And met her face to face one lurid night While the guns boomed their shuddering minstrelsy And all the Argonne glowed with demon light. And Liberty herself came through the wood, And with her dear, boy lover kept the tryst; Clasped in her grand, Greek arms he understood Whose were the fatal lips that he had kissed-- Lips that the soul of Youth has loved from old-- Hot lips of Liberty that kiss men cold.

DOOMED.

Connigis from Bois de la Jutte, July, 1918.

Left to its fate, the little village stands Between the armies trenched on either hill, Raising twin spires like supplicating hands From meadow lands where all lies ghastly still.

The lakes of clover ripple to the breeze As from the vineyards glides a rancid breath, Bringing the homelike murmur of the bees, Mixed with a sickening whiff of carrion death.

It is the valley of the shadow there, Where death lies ambushed in the tossing flowers Whose very beauty seems to cry, "_Beware!_" For terror haunts its villages and towers.

That home where peasants led their blameless life, That thatched, stone cottage is a clever trap With painful wounds and fatal danger rife, Noted with two red circles on the map.

Seen through the glass, dead, sleeps the _petite place_. Where white-capped housewives lingered once to chat On market days, or after early mass; Now nothing moves there but the stealthy cat--

The only thing that even dares to stir; It hugs short shadows near the walls at noon, Lashing its tail to hear an airplane purr, Circling about a peering, fat balloon.

The houses gleam too bright, their limelight glare, Pure sunlight though it be, is filled with gloom; They are too white, too garnished and too bare-- They are too much like walls about a tomb.

The windows stare beside each gaping door, Where once in gingham apron and a shawl, In days now passed away forevermore, Some little mother sat and nursed her doll.

Sepulchral silence and a lonely dread And desolation's calm have settled down, Making brief peace there for the rigid dead-- _Tonight the shells will burst upon the town!_

WHITE LIGHT.

How like high mountain air this air in France; The sun is so intense, so clear, so bright, The fields unearthly green, the poplars glance, Shivering their leafy lances in the light. Those drilling troops flash back a steely gleam. Others with distant din of clean delight, Bathe where their bodies flash along the stream And everywhere, the air, a lake of light!

White light, strange light of tense romantic days, You are too rare, too cloudless and too clear, Like a deep crystal where a seer might gaze And see some vast disaster drawing near.

Petite Villiers, July 4th, 1918.

BEAUMONT.

Deep in the mystery of the woodland's gloom, Topping the sea of trees with pointed cone, So that from many hills its towers loom, The old château of Beaumont stands alone. This generation saw its last sons go To spill their noble blood with humbler men; So Madame lives alone at the château And waits for steps that never come again. The sunlight sleeps along the buttressed walls, And on the stagnant moats the midges dance, And in the haunted wood the cuckoo calls, Where hunted once the vanished kings of France. The terraced gardens hum with greedy bees, And Madame walks among the orange trees.

Boxed orange shrubs--they stand in potted row Along the plaisance--Madame takes her ease; But it is lonely at the old château; The milky statues glimmer through the trees, So silent, too! What can make Madame start? Down in the garden where late roses blow, She has heard laughter there that stopt her heart Like echoes from old summers long ago. But no--it cannot be! For hark! the click Of little peasants' sabots; down the walk That winds among the rows of hedges thick, The children's voices die away in talk. Alas! Who knows, who knows, Why Madame bends so long above the rose?

Gently, old heart--there is no recompense For the last uttermost you had to give. Yet there is peace for you to outward sense-- God gives you Beaumont as a place to live. The white herds graze in stately indolence, While you sit knitting on the terrace there, And that your hands still feel no impotence, Witness the poor and _Croix Rouge_ at St. Pierre; And sweet the drive home through the wooded park, When faintly chime the far-off steeple clocks At dusk when village dogs begin to bark, And the long lanes go glimmering white with flocks, When the first, steely stars begin to peep And the young shepherd whistles to his sheep.

St. Pierre-Le Moutier, 1918.

VILLIERS LE BEL GONNESSE.

Here in this garden where the roses bloom, And time is scarcely marked by silent days, The walls and pear trees cast a pleasant gloom, A wavy, weed-grown fountain softly plays. And fate has left us listless for a while Upon the brink of what we do not know; Outside the walls a passing schoolboy calls, And lumbering oxcarts rumble as they go.

Red roofs, a spire, white roads and poplar trees; An aeroplane goes droning through the skies; The petals fall, there is no breath of breeze; The old dog by the sundial snaps at flies. My comrades by the fountain are asleep. Far on the lines I hear a great gun boom; Here in the garden, though, white peace lies deep, And in the limelight heat the roses bloom.

DRAGON'S BREATH.

We held the last stone wall--when day was red-- They crept like morning shadows through the dead, The _flammenwerfer_ with their dragon's breath Compressed in nippled bottle-tanks of death.

They puffed along the wall and one long cry Withered away into the morning sky, And some made crablike gestures where they lay And all our faces turned oil gray, Before the smoke rolled by.

It is beyond belief How men can live All curled up like a leaf.

I saw a man bloom in a flower of flame, Roaring with fire, Three times he called a name; Three times he whirled within a white-hot pod With busy hands and cried, "Oh, God! Oh, God!"

Now when the crumpets lie with blusterous joy And the silk, wind-tweaked colors virgin fresh, Borne by the blithe, boy bodies glitter past, As the old gladiators throw their mesh; The dragon's breath leaps from the bugle blast And Azrael comes pounding with his drum-- _Fe, fe, ... fi, fo, fum--_ I smell the roasting flesh!

WE.

We who have come back from the war, And stand upright and draw full breath, Seek boldly what life holds in store And eat its whole fruit rind and core, Before we enter through the door To keep our rendezvous with death.

We who have walked with death in France, When all the world with death was rife, Who came through all that devils' dance, When life was but a circumstance, A sniper's whim, a bullet's glance, We have a rendezvous with life!

With life that hurtles like a spark From stricken steel where anvils chime, That leaps the space from dark to dark, A blinding, blazing, flaming arc, As clean as fire, and frank and stark-- White life that lives while there is time.

We will not live by musty creeds, Who learned the truth through love and war, Who tipped the scales for right by deeds, When old men's lies were broken reeds, We follow where the cold fact leads And bow our heads no more.

Deliver us from tactless kin, And drooling bores that start "reforms," And unctious folk that prate of sin, And theorists without a chin, And politicians out to win, And generals in uniforms.

We have come back who broke the line The hard Hun held by bomb and knife! All but the blind can read the sign; The time is ours by right divine, Who drank with Death in blood red wine, We have a rendezvous with life!

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