A Treasury of War Poetry Part 21

Sow your gladness for earth's reaping, So you may be glad, though sleeping.

Strew your gladness on earth's bed, So be merry, so be dead.

_Charles Hamilton Sorley_

NO MAN'S LAND

No Man's Land is an eerie sight At early dawn in the pale gray light.

Never a house and never a hedge In No Man's Land from edge to edge, And never a living soul walks there To taste the fresh of the morning air;-- Only some lumps of rotting clay, That were friends or foemen yesterday.

What are the bounds of No Man's Land?

You can see them clearly on either hand, A mound of rag-bags gray in the sun, Or a furrow of brown where the earthworks run From the eastern hills to the western sea, Through field or forest o'er river and lea; No man may pa.s.s them, but aim you well And Death rides across on the bullet or sh.e.l.l.

But No Man's Land is a goblin sight When patrols crawl over at dead o' night; _Boche_ or British, Belgian or French, You dice with death when you cross the trench.

When the "rapid," like fireflies in the dark, Flits down the parapet spark by spark, And you drop for cover to keep your head With your face on the breast of the four months'

dead.

The man who ranges in No Man's Land Is dogged by the shadows on either hand When the star-sh.e.l.l's flare, as it bursts o'erhead, Scares the gray rats that feed on the dead, And the bursting bomb or the bayonet-s.n.a.t.c.h May answer the click of your safety-catch, For the lone patrol, with his life in his hand, Is hunting for blood in No Man's Land.

_James H. Knight-Adkin_

CHAMPAGNE, 1914-15

In the glad revels, in the happy fetes, When cheeks are flushed, and gla.s.ses gilt and pearled With the sweet wine of France that concentrates The suns.h.i.+ne and the beauty of the world,

Drink sometimes, you whose footsteps yet may tread The undisturbed, delightful paths of Earth, To those whose blood, in pious duty shed, Hallows the soil where that same wine had birth.

Here, by devoted comrades laid away, Along our lines they slumber where they fell, Beside the crater at the Ferme d'Alger And up the b.l.o.o.d.y slopes of La Pompelle,

And round the city whose cathedral towers The enemies of Beauty dared profane, And in the mat of multicolored flowers That clothe the sunny chalk-fields of Champagne,

Under the little crosses where they rise The soldier rests. Now round him undismayed The cannon thunders, and at night he lies At peace beneath the eternal fusillade....

That other generations might possess-- From shame and menace free in years to come-- A richer heritage of happiness, He marched to that heroic martyrdom.

Esteeming less the forfeit that he paid Than undishonored that his flag might float Over the towers of liberty, he made His breast the bulwark and his blood the moat.

Obscurely sacrificed, his nameless tomb, Bare of the sculptor's art, the poet's lines, Summer shall flush with poppy-fields in bloom, And Autumn yellow with maturing vines.

There the grape-pickers at their harvesting Shall lightly tread and load their wicker trays, Blessing his memory as they toil and sing In the slant suns.h.i.+ne of October days....

I love to think that if my blood should be So privileged to sink where his has sunk, I shall not pa.s.s from Earth entirely, But when the banquet rings, when healths are drunk,

And faces that the joys of living fill Glow radiant with laughter and good cheer, In beaming cups some spark of me shall still Brim toward the lips that once I held so dear.

So shall one coveting no higher plane Than nature clothes in color and flesh and tone, Even from the grave put upward to attain The dreams youth cherished and missed and might have known;

And that strong need that strove unsatisfied Toward earthly beauty in all forms it wore, Not death itself shall utterly divide From the beloved shapes it thirsted for.

Alas, how many an adept for whose arms Life held delicious offerings perished here, How many in the prime of all that charms, Crowned with all gifts that conquer and endear!

Honor them not so much with tears and flowers, But you with whom the sweet fulfilment lies, Where in the anguish of atrocious hours Turned their last thoughts and closed their dying eyes,

Rather when music on bright gatherings lays Its tender spell, and joy is uppermost, Be mindful of the men they were, and raise Your gla.s.ses to them in one silent toast.

Drink to them--amorous of dear Earth as well, They asked no tribute lovelier than this-- And in the wine that ripened where they fell, Oh, frame your lips as though it were a kiss.

_Alan Seeger_

_Champagne, France_,

_July, 1915_

HEADQUARTERS

A league and a league from the trenches--from the traversed maze of the lines, Where daylong the sniper watches and daylong the bullet whines, And the cratered earth is in travail with mines and with countermines-- Here, where haply some woman dreamed (are those her roses that bloom In the garden beyond the windows of my littered working room?) We have decked the map for our masters as a bride is decked for the groom.

Fair, on each lettered numbered square--crossroad and mound and wire, Loophole, redoubt, and emplacement--lie the targets their mouths desire; Gay with purples and browns and blues, have we traced them their arcs of fire.

And ever the type-keys chatter; and ever our keen wires bring Word from the watchers a-crouch below, word from the watchers a-wing: And ever we hear the distant growl of our hid 'guns thundering.

Hear it hardly, and turn again to our maps, where the trench lines crawl, Red on the gray and each with a sign for the ranging shrapnel's fall-- Snakes that our masters shall scotch at dawn, as is written here on the wall.

For the weeks of our waiting draw to a close....

There is scarcely a leaf astir In the garden beyond my windows, where the twilight shadows blur The blaze of some woman's roses.... "Bombardment orders, sir."

_Gilbert Frankau_

HOME THOUGHTS FROM LAVENTIE

Green gardens in Laventie!

Soldiers only know the street Where the mud is churned and splashed about By battle-wending feet; And yet beside one stricken house there is a glimpse of gra.s.s-- Look for it when you pa.s.s.

Beyond the church whose pitted spire Seems balanced on a strand Of swaying stone and tottering brick, Two roofless ruins stand; And here, among the wreckage, where the back-wall should have been, We found a garden green.