HERMANN HAGEDORN

AUTHOR OF "FACES IN THE DAWN," ETC.

New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1914

By HERMANN HAGEDORN

Set up and electrotyped. Published November, 1914.

This play has been copyrighted and published simultaneously in the United States and Great Britain. All acting rights, both professional and amateur, are reserved in the United States, Great Britain, and countries of the Copyright Union, by Hermann Hagedorn. Performances forbidden and right of representation reserved. Application for the right of performing this piece must be made to The Macmillan Company. Any piracy or infringement will be prosecuted in accordance with the penalties provided by the United States Statutes:

"Sec. 4966. Any person publicly performing or representing any dramatic or musical composition, for which copyright has been obtained, without the consent of the proprietor of the said dramatic or musical composition, or his heirs or assigns, shall be liable for damages therefor, such damages in all cases to be assessed at such sum, not less than one hundred dollars for the first and fifty dollars for every subsequent performance, as to the Court shall appear to be just. If the unlawful performance and representation be willful and for profit, such person or persons shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction be imprisoned for a period not exceeding one year." U.S. Revised Statutes, Title 60, Chap. 3.

TO

ADOLF GUNTHER HAGEDORN

Transcriber's Note: Where obvious, I added missing punctuation, and changed the typo "psycholology" to "psychology".

Night! And a black and barren sky
With a wet wind in from the coast.
And only the kites to make reply
To heaving body and pleading cry—
Here where the lost battalions lie,
I walked last night with a ghost.

His face was gray, his hands were red,
And a ghostly mare he rode,
That wearily stepped, with drooping head,
Over the shadowy lines of dead,
And rolled her eyes, and shook with dread
Under her foam-white load.

The ghost turned not to left or right.
But mutely he beckoned me,
And moved like a pillar of livid light
Through the humid dark of the foggy night,
With eyes deep-sunken and greenly bright
As phosphor on the sea.

He led me where in ghostly files
The dead slept with their toys.
Miles, miles, and never-ending miles,
Along the valley's mournful aisles,
The voiceless, vague, misshapen piles
Of men and golden boys!

He led me up the gory hill
By wood and sodden heath.
Ravage! And faces, lone and chill,
In the murmuring wash of the willow-rill!
Slaughter! And voices, begging shrill
The merciful grace of death.

A waning moon broke, sickly pale,
Through the muddy fog's disguising;
And over the breadth of the ghastly vale
The battle-wake like a steamer's trail,
And a heaving as of waves in a gale,
Rising and falling and rising!

And out of the air, and up from the plain,
The ancient battle-story!—
Of stricken love and laughter slain,
And hearts beneath the hoofs of pain—
But not a breath of human gain,
And not a word of glory.