The Project Gutenberg eBook of Great Poems of The World War.

Reproduced by special permission of the Proprietors of “Punch”

IT was the high midsummer, and the sun was shining strong,
And the lane was rather flinty, and the lane was rather long,
When—up and down the gentle hills beside the stripling Test—
I chanced to come to Bullington and stayed a while to rest.

It was drowned in peace and quiet, as the river reeds are drowned
In the water clear as crystal, flowing by with scarce a sound,
And the air was like a posy with the sweet haymaking smells,
And the Roses and Sweet Williams and Canterbury Bells.

Far away as some strange planet seemed the old world’s dust and din,
And the trout in sun-warmed shallows hardly seemed to stir a fin;
And there’s never a clock to tell you how the hurrying world goes on
In the little ivied steeple down in drowsy Bullington.

Small and sleepy, there it nestled, seeming far from hastening Time,
As a teeny-tiny village in some quaint old nursery rhyme;
And a teeny-tiny river by a teeny-tiny weir
Sang a teeny-tiny ditty that I stayed a while to hear.

“Oh, the stream runs to the river, and the river to the sea,
But the reedy banks of Bullington are good enough for me;
Oh, the lane runs to the highway, and the highway o’er the down,
But it’s better here in Bullington than there in London town.”

Then high above an aeroplane in humming flight went by,
With the droning of its engines filling all the cloudless sky,
And like the booming of a knell across that perfect day
There came the gun’s dull thunder from the ranges far away.

And while I lay and listened, oh, the river’s sleepy tune
Seemed to change its rippling music, like the cuckoo’s stave in June;
And the cannon’s distant thunder, and the engines’ warlike drone
Seemed to mingle with its burthen in a solemn undertone.

“Oh, the stream runs to the river, and the river to the sea,
And there’s war on land and water, and there’s work for you and me!
And on many a field of glory there are gallant lives laid down
As well for tiny Bullington as mighty London town!”

So I roused me from my daydream, for I knew the song spoke true
That it isn’t time for dreaming while there’s duty still to do;
And I turned into the highway where it meets the flinty lane,
And the world of wars and sorrows was about me once again.

THE PADRE

CAPT. C. W. BLACKALL

’E’S a sportsman is our Padre,
Of that there ain’t a doubt.
’E don’t chuck religion at yer,
An’ preach at yer an’ spout;
An’ if ’e ’ears yer cussin’,
As yer fillin’ up ther bags,
’E jest ses, “Fumigate your throat,”
An’ ’ands yer out some fags.

’E don’t take all fer granted
That yer murderers an’ thieves,
An’ always tell yer, now’s ther time
Fer turnin’ over leaves.
’E’ll wander round ther trenches,
Jest to pass ther time o’ day.
An’ there ain’t a bloke as doesn’t feel
A man ’as passed that way.

I remember once, near Wipers,
When things was pretty ’ot,
An’ yer ’ad ter keep yer nut down
If yer didn’t want it shot;
While they was fairly plasterin’
As fast as they could load,
’E came ridin’—mark yer, ridin—
All down ther Menin Road.

’E was dossin’ in a “staminay,”
Pyjamas all complete,
When a ’igh-explosive carried
’Arf the ’ouse into the street.
While other blokes was runnin’ wild,
An’ kickin’ up a row,
’E calmly arsts, “Pray, what is the
Correct procedure now?”

They tells ’im as ’e’d better
Do a bunk for all ’e’s worth,
As ’is bloomin’ “staminay” is not
Ther safest spot on earth.
But ’e ’as a look around ’im,
An’ wags ’is bally ’ead;
Ses ’e, “It seems quite restful now,”
An’ back ’e goes to bed.

But ’e fairly put ther lid on
When we made ther last attack:
If ’is lads was goin’ ter cop it,
’E weren’t fer ’angin’ back.
So ’e ’ops out of ther trenches
Level with ther foremost ’ound,
An’ natural like ’e stops one
An’ gets a little wound.

’E’s a sportsman is our Padre,
Of that there ain’t a doubt.
’E don’t chuck religion at yer,
An’ preach at yer an’ spout.
Still, ’e’ll show ther way ter ’Eaven—
That’s if anybody can—
But we’d follow ’im to ’ell; ’cos why?
Our Padre ’e’s a man.

CORP’RAL’S CHEVRONS

ANONYMOUS
in The Stars and Stripes, A.E.F., France

OH, the General with his epaulets, leadin’ a parade;
The Colonel and the Adjutant a-sportin’ of their braid;
The Major and the Skipper—none of ’em look so fine
As a newly minted corp’ral, comin’ down the line.

Oh, the Bishop in his miter pacin’ up the aisle;
The Governor, frock-coated, with a votes-for-women smile;
The Congressman, the Mayor—aren’t in it, I opine,
With a newly minted corp’ral comin’ down the line.

THE OLD TOP SERGEANT

BERTON BRALEY

From Mr. Braley’s book, “In Camp and Trench,” published and copyright, 1918, by George H. Doran Company, New York. Special permission to reproduce in this book.

“Shavetail” is a name applied by enlisted men in the regular army to lieutenants fresh from West Point.

TWENTY years of the army, of drawing a sergeant’s pay
And helping the West Point shavetails, fresh from the training school,
To handle a bunch of soldiers and drill ’em the proper way
(Which isn’t always exactly according to book and rule).
I’ve seen ’em rise to Captains and Majors and Colonels, too,
And me still only a sergeant, the same as I used to be,
And I knew that some of them didn’t know as much as a sergeant knew,
But I stuck to my daily duty—there wasn’t a growl from me.

Twenty years of the army,
Serving in peace and war,
Standing the drill of the army mill,
For that’s what they paid me for.

Twenty years with the army, which wasn’t so much for size,
But man for man I’d back it to lick any troops on earth.
’Twas a proud little classy army, as good as the flag it flies,
And it takes an old top sergeant to know what the flag is worth.
Then—a shot at Sarejevo, and hell burst over there
And the kaiser dragged us in it, and the bill for the draft was passed
And—they handed me my commission, and some shoulder straps to wear,
And the crazy dream of my rooky days had changed to a fact at last.

Twenty years with the army,
And it’s great to know they call
On the guys like me for what will be
The mightiest job of all.

Twenty years of the army, of doing what shavetails bid,
And I know I haven’t the polish that fellows like that will show,
And I hold a high opinion of the brains of a West Point kid,
But I think I can make him hustle when it comes to the work I know.
But who cares where we come from, Plattsburg, ranks, or the Guard,
This isn’t a pink tea-party, but a War to be fought and won;
There’s a serious job before us, a job that is huge and hard,
And the social register don’t count until we’ve got it done!

Twenty years in the army,
And now I’ve got my chance.
Have I earned my straps? Well, you watch the chaps
That I’ve trained for the game in France!

FLAG EVERLASTING

A. G. RIDDOCH

FLAG of our Faith: lead on—
Across the sand-blown plain,
The deep and trackless main,
When duty’s trumpets blow,
Where frowns the freeman’s foe,
And right crushed to the sod
Lifts soul to righteous God.
Flag of our Faith: lead on—

Flag of our Hope: lead on—
When stormy clouds hang low
And chilling north-winds blow
And days are long and drear.
When nights breed grief and fear;
A rainbow lights the sky
Whene’er its colors fly.
Flag of our Hope: lead on—

Flag of our Love: lead on—
In loyal hearts supreme,
Fairer than love’s first dream,
Our first choice and our last,
Brightened by every blast.
Oh, emblem pure and sweet,
Thou can’st not know defeat.
Flag of our Love: lead on—

Flag of our Home: lead on—
Beneath thy folds we rest,
We live and love our best,
The fairest roses blow,
The richest harvests grow,
And care-free children play
And gladden every day.
Flag of our Home: lead on—

L’ENVOI—

Flag of our Faith, our Hope, our Love,
Flag of our Home, wave on above.
We’ll live, we’ll fight, we’ll die for you—
Flag Everlasting, Red, White and Blue.

THE BLUE AND THE GRAY IN FRANCE

GEORGE M. MAYO

HERE’s to the Blue of the wind-swept North,
When we meet on the fields of France;
May the spirit of Grant be with you all
As the sons of the North advance.

And here’s to the Gray of the sun-kissed South,
When we meet on the fields of France;
May the spirit of Lee be with you all
As the sons of the South advance.

And here’s to the Blue and the Gray as one,
When we meet on the fields of France;
May the spirit of God be with us all
As the sons of the Flag advance.

A LITTLE TOWN IN SENEGAL

WILL THOMPSON

in Everybody’s Magazine

Permission to reproduce in this book

I HEAR the throbbing music down the lanes of Afric rain:
The Afric spring is breaking, down in Senegal again.
O little town in Senegal, amid the clustered gums,
Where are your sturdy village lads, who one time danced to drums?
At Soissons, by a fountain wall, they sang their melodies;
And some now lie in Flemish fields, beside the northern seas;
And some tonight are camped and still, along the Marne and Aisne;
And some are dreaming of the palms that bend in Afric rain.
The music of the barracks half awakes them from their dream;
They smile and sink back sleepily along the Flemish stream.
They dream the baobab’s white buds have opened over-night;
They dream they see the solemn cranes that bask in morning light:
I hear the great drums beating in the square across the plain.
Where are the tillers of the soil, the gallant, loyal train?
O little town in Senegal, amid the white-bud trees,
At Soissons, in Picardy, went north the last of these!

A LITTLE GRIMY-FINGERED GIRL

LEE WILSON DODD

in The Outlook

Permission to reproduce in this book

In sending his permission to use this sharp flash of the spirit of France, Mr. Dodd wrote: “It may interest you to know that the little grimy-fingered girl is real, and that I bought ‘L’Intrans’ from her every evening for many months during the dark days of last spring in Paris.” The spring referred to being that of 1918, when the Germans were only a few miles from the city.

A LITTLE grimy-fingered girl
In stringy black and broken shoes
Stands where sharp human eddies whirl
And offers—news:
News from the front. “‘L’Intransigeant’,
M’sieu, comme d’ordinaire?” Her smile
Is friendly though her face is gaunt;
There is no guile,
No mere mechanic flash of teeth,
No calculating leer of glance ...
You wear your courage like a wreath,
Daughter of France.
Back of old sorrow in tired eyes
Back of endurance, through the night
That wearies you and makes you wise,
I see a light
Unshaken, proud, that does not pale,
—And you are nobody, my dear;
“Une vraie gamine,” who does not quail,
Who knows not fear.
Rattle your sabers, Lords of Hate,
Ye shall not force them to their knees!
A street-girl scorns your God, your State——
The least of these....

Place du Théâtre Français,
Paris, February, 1918.

SOLDIERS OF THE SOIL

EVERARD JACK APPLETON

By permission of Stewart & Kidd Company, Cincinnati, Publishers of “With the Colors,” by Everard Jack Appleton. Copyright, 1917.

IT’s a high-falutin’ title they have handed us;
It’s very complimentary and grand;
But a year or so ago they called us “hicks,” you know—
An’ joshed the farmer and his hired hand!

Now it’s, “Save the country, Farmer!
Be a soldier of the soil!
Show your patriotism, pardner,
By your never ending toil.”
So we’re croppin’ more than ever,
An’ we’re speedin’ up the farm.
Oh, it’s great to be a soldier—
A sweatin’ sun-burnt soldier,—
A soldier in the furrows—
Away from “war’s alarm!”

While fightin’ blight and blister,
We hardly get a chance
To read about our “comrades”
A-doin’ things in France.
To raise the grub to feed ’em
Is some job, believe me—plus!
And I ain’t so sure a soldier—
A shootin’, scrappin’ soldier,
That’s livin’ close to dyin’—
Ain’t got the best of us!

But we’ll harrer and we’ll harvest,
An’ we’ll meet this new demand
Like the farmers always meet it—
The farmers—and the land.
An’ we hope, when it is over
An’ this war has gone to seed,
You will know us soldiers better—
Th’ sweatin’, reapin’ soldiers,
Th’ soldiers that have hustled
To raise th’ grub you need!

It’s a mighty fine title you have given us,
A name that sounds too fine to really stick;
But maybe you’ll forget (when you figure out your debt)
To call th’ man who works a farm a “hick.”

THE CROSS AND THE FLAG

WILLIAM HENRY, CARDINAL O’CONNELL

in The Catholic School Journal

HAIL, banner of our holy faith,
Redemption’s sacred sign,
Sweet emblem thou of heavenly hope
And of all help divine,
We bare our heads in reverence
As o’er us is unfurled
The standard of the Cross of Christ
Whose blood redeemed the world.

Hail, banner of our native land,
Great ensign of the free,
We love thy glorious Stars and Stripes,
Emblem of liberty;
Lift high the cross, unfurl the flag;
May they forever stand
United in our hearts and hopes,
God and our native land.

THE ROAD TO FRANCE

DANIEL M. HENDERSON

Permission to reproduce in this book

The 1917 prize of the National Arts Club of New York was awarded to Mr. Henderson’s poem. It was chosen out of more than four thousand that were submitted.

THANK God, our liberating lance
Goes flaming on the way to France!
To France—the trail the Gurkhas found;
To France—old England’s rallying-ground!
To France—the path the Russians strode!
To France—the Anzacs’ glory road!
To France—where our Lost Legion ran
To fight and die for God and man!
To France—with every race and breed
That hates Oppression’s brutal creed!

Ah, France, how could our hearts forget
The path by which came Lafayette?
How could the haze of doubt hang low
Upon the road of Rochambeau?
How was it that we missed the way
Brave Joffre leads us along today?
At last, thank God! At last, we see
There is no tribal Liberty!
No beacon lighting just our shores,
No Freedom guarding but our doors.
The flame she kindled for our sires
Burns now in Europe’s battle-fires.
The soul that led our fathers west
Turns back to free the world’s opprest.

Allies, you have not called in vain;
We share your conflict and your pain.
“Old Glory,” through new stains and rents,
Partakes of Freedom’s sacraments.
Into that hell his will creates
We drive the foe—his lusts, his hates.
Last come, we will be last to stay,
Till Right has had her crowning day.
Replenish, comrades, from our veins
The blood the sword of despot drains,
And make our eager sacrifice
Part of the freely rendered price
You pay to lift humanity—
You pay to make our brothers free.
See, with what proud hearts we advance
To France!

NAZARETH
“L”

in the Chicago Tribune

On the capture of the city by the British under General Allenby, September 21, 1918.

ACROSS the sands by Mary’s well
Along the shores of Galilee,
The paths are pitted deep with shell
And drab with marching infantry.

Perhaps upon the self-same spot
Where He first lifted up His head,
In cellar straw and manger cot,
Now Freedom’s hosts are billeted.

Then ’twas a life—now myriad death.
The Allied troops win Nazareth.

THE CRIMSON CROSS

ELIZABETH BROWN DU BRIDGE

in The Daily News, Sault Ste. Marie

OUTSIDE the ancient city’s gate
Upon Golgotha’s crest
Three crosses stretched their empty arms,
Etched dark against the west.
And blood from nail-pierced hands and feet
And tortured thorn-crowned head
And thrust of hatred’s savage spear
Had stained one dark cross red.
Emblem of shame and pain and death
It stood beside the way,
But sign of love and hope and life
We lift it high today.

Where horror grips the stoutest heart,
Where bursting shells shriek high,
Where human bodies shrapnel scourged
By thousands suffering lie;
Threading the shambles of despair,
Mid agony and strife,
Come fleetest messengers who wear
The crimson cross of life.
To friend and foe alike they give
Their strength and healing skill,
For those who wear the crimson cross
Must “do the Master’s will.”

Can we, so safely sheltered here,
Refuse to do our part?
When some who wear the crimson cross
Are giving life and heart
To succor those who bear our flag,
Who die that we may live—
Shall we accept their sacrifice
And then refuse to give?
Ah, no! Our debt to God and man
We can, we will fulfill,
For we, who wear the crimson cross,
Must “do the Master’s will.”

PIERROT GOES

CHARLOTTE BECKER

in Everybody’s Magazine

Permission to reproduce in this book

UP among the chimneys tall
Lay the garret of Pierrot.
Here came trooping to his call
Fancies no one else might know;
Here he bade the spiders spin
Webs to hide his treasure in.

Here he heard the night wind croon
Slumber-songs for sleepyheads;
Here he spied the spendthrift moon
Strew her silver on the leads;
Here he wove a coronet
Of quaint lyrics for Pierrette.

But the bugles blew him down
To the fields with war beset;
Marched him past the quiet town,
Past the window of Pierrette;
Comrade now of sword and lance,
Pierrot gave his dreams to France.

A SERBIAN EPITAPH

V. STANIMIROVIC

After the retreat of the Serbian Army across the mountains of Albania in 1915, the survivors who reached the coast were shipped to Corfu. Here, and in the neighboring island of Vido, many of them died—to begin with, at the rate of hundreds a day. Some of them were buried at sea. Others lie in common graves. In the midst of the mounds which mark their resting-place, and which vary in size, there stands a cross. On it is a Serbian inscription, written by the poet, V. Stanimirovic, and translated for the London Westminster Gazette by Mr. L. F. Waring:

NEVER a Serbian flower shall bloom
In exile on our far-off tomb.
Our little ones shall watch in vain:
Tell them we shall not come again.

Yet greet for us our fatherland,
And kiss for us her sacred strand.
These mounds shall tell the years to be
Of men who died to make her free.

THE NIGHTINGALES OF FLANDERS

GRACE HAZARD CONKLING

in Everybody’s Magazine

Permission to reproduce in this book.

“Le rossignol n’est pas mobilise.”—A French Soldier

THE nightingales of Flanders,
They had not gone to war;
A soldier heard them singing
Where they had sung before.

The earth was torn and quaking,
The sky about to fall;
The nightingales of Flanders,
They minded not at all.

At intervals we heard them
Between the guns, he said,
Making a thrilling music
Above the listening dead.

Of woodland and of orchard
And roadside tree bereft,
The nightingales of Flanders
Were singing “France is left!”

THE WIDOW

MISS C. M. MITCHELL

in Punch

Reproduced by special permission of the Proprietors of “Punch”

MY heart is numb with sorrow;
The long days dawn and wane;
To me no sweet tomorrow
Will bring my man again.

Yet must my grief be hidden—
Life makes insistent claim,
And women, anguish-ridden,
Their rebel hearts must tame.

For while, my vigil keeping,
I face the eternal law,
Here on my breast lies sleeping
The son he never saw.

PERSHING AT THE TOMB OF LAFAYETTE

AMELIA JOSEPHINE BURR

From Amelia Josephine Burr’s book of poems, “The Silver Trumpet.” Published and copyright, 1918, by George H. Doran Company, New York. Special permission to reproduce in this book.

THEY knew they were fighting our war. As the months grew to years
Their men and their women had watched through their blood and their tears
For a sign that we knew, we who could not have come to be free
Without France, long ago. And at last from the threatening sea
The stars of our strength on the eyes of their weariness rose
And he stood among them, the sorrow-strong hero we chose
To carry our flag to the tomb of that Frenchman whose name
A man of our country could once more pronounce without shame.
What crown of rich words would he set for all time on this day?
The past and the future were listening what he would say—
Only this, from the white-flaming heart of a passion austere,
Only this—ah, but France understood! “Lafayette, we are here.”

TRAINS

LIEUT. JOHN PIERRE ROCHE

From Lieutenant Roche’s book of poems, “Rimes in Olive Drab.” Robert M. McBride & Company, Publishers, New York. Copyright, 1918. Special permission to insert in this book.

Lieutenant Roche has deftly caught and preserved in words the strange vision of unannounced trains that flashed now and then past towns and villages bearing American troops from unknown camps to unknown ports of embarkation—the flash of faces of men about whom it was known only that they came from the shops and fields of home and were going across the seas to fight somewhere, for those who stood and gazed as they whirled by. The mystery, the roar of wheels, the eddying dust and the silence that followed infuse these lines with picture and sound that will stay in the minds of any who saw such trains go hurrying away.

OVER thousands of miles
Of shining steel rails,
Past green and red semaphores
And unheeding flagmen,
Trains are running,
Trains, trains, trains.

Rattling through tunnels
And clicking by way stations,
Curving through hills, past timber,
Out into the open places,
Flashing past silos and barns
And whole villages,
Until finally they echo
Against the squat factories
That line the approach to the cities.

Trains, trains, trains
With the fire boxes wide open,
Giant Moguls and old-time Baldwins
And oil-burners on the Southern Pacific,
Fire boxes wide open
Flaring against the night,
Like a tremendous watch fire
Where the sentries cluster at their post.
Trains, trains, trains
Serpentine strings of cars
Loaded with boys and men—
The legion of the ten-year span
To whom has been given the task
Of seeking the Great Adventure.

Swaying through the North and South,
And East and West,
Freighted with the Willing
And the Unwilling;
Packed with the Thinking
And the Unthinking,
Pushing on to the Unknown
Away from the shelter and security
Of the accustomed into the Great Adventure.

Trains, trains, trains
With their coach sides scrawled
With chalked bravado and, sometimes,
With their windows black
With yelling boys,
In open-mouthed exultation
That they do not feel,
Rushing farther and farther
From the known into the unseeable.

Trains, trains, trains
With sky-larking boys in khaki,
Munching sandwiches and drinking pop;
Or, tired and without their depot swagger,
Curled up on the red-plush seats;
Or asleep, with a stranger, in the Pullmans.

They rush past our camp,
Which lies against the railroad,
With the crossing alarm jangling caution,
And fade into the dust or night.
Leaving us to conjecture where,
As they have left others to wonder—
As they must wonder themselves
When they are done
With the shouting and hand-shaking
And kissing and hat-waving and singing.

Trains, trains, trains
Clicking on into unforecast days—
Away from the shelter and security
Of the accustomed into the Great Adventure.

CHRIST IN FLANDERS

L. W.

In The Spectator

WE had forgotten You, or very nearly—
You did not seem to touch us very nearly—
Of course we thought about You now and then;
Especially in any time of trouble—
We knew that You were good in time of trouble—
But we are very ordinary men.

And there were always other things to think of—
There’s lots of things a man has got to think of—
His work, his home, his pleasure, and his wife;
And so we only thought of You on Sunday—
Sometimes, perhaps, not even on a Sunday—
Because there’s always lots to fill one’s life.

And, all the while, in the street or lane or byway—
In country lane, in city street, or byway—
You walked among us, and we did not see.
Your feet were bleeding as You walked our pavements—
How did we miss Your Footprints on our pavements?—
Can there be other folk as blind as we?

Now we remember; over here in Flanders—
(It isn’t strange to think of You in Flanders)—
This hideous warfare seems to make things clear.
We never thought about You much in England—
But now that we are far away from England—
We have no doubts, we know that You are here.

You helped us pass the jest along the trenches—
Where, in cold blood, we waited in the trenches—
You touched its ribaldry and made it fine.
You stood beside us in our pain and weakness—
We’re glad to think You understand our weakness—
Somehow it seems to help us not to whine.

We think about You kneeling in the Garden—
Ah! God! the agony of that dread Garden—
We know You prayed for us upon the Cross.
If anything could make us glad to bear it—
’Twould be the knowledge that You willed to bear it—
Pain—death—the uttermost of human loss.

Though we forgot You—You will not forget us—
We feel so sure that You will not forget us—
But stay with us until this dream is past.
And so we ask for courage, strength, and pardon—
Especially, I think, we ask for pardon—
And that You’ll stand beside us to the last.