Poems of American History

by Unknown

CHAPTER VII

THE WORLD WAR

For generations Americans had been taught by the provincially minded to glory in their "splendid isolation," but the more discerning perceived that steam and electricity were making the world smaller and smaller, and that economic causes were drawing its nations more and more closely together. They perceived, too, that the democratic theory of government to which America was consecrated had two staunch champions in western Europe, France and England, and two implacable enemies, Germany and Austria; and when, on August 1, 1914, the rulers of these two empires decreed the war which they hoped would lead to world power, many Americans felt most keenly that their country's place was by the side of France and England in their battle for human freedom.

SONNETS WRITTEN IN THE FALL OF 1914

Awake, ye nations, slumbering supine,
Who round enring the European fray!
Heard ye the trumpet sound? "The Day! the Day!
The last that shall on England's empire shine!
The Parliament that broke the Right Divine
Shall see her realm of reason swept away,
And lesser nations shall the sword obey—
The sword o'er all carve the great world's design!"
So on the English Channel boasts the foe
On whose imperial brow death's helmet nods.
Look where his hosts o'er bloody Belgium go,
And mix a nation's past with blazing sods!
A kingdom's waste! a people's homeless woe!
Man's broken Word, and violated gods!

Far fall the day when England's realm shall see
The sunset of dominion! Her increase
Abolishes the man-dividing seas,
And frames the brotherhood on earth to be!
She, in free peoples planting sovereignty,
Orbs half the civil world in British peace;
And though time dispossess her, and she cease,
Rome-like she greatens in man's memory.
Oh, many a crown shall sink in war's turmoil,
And many a new republic light the sky,
Fleets sweep the ocean, nations till the soil,
Genius be born and generations die,
Orient and Occident together toil,
Ere such a mighty work man rears on high!

Hearken, the feet of the Destroyer tread
The wine-press of the nations; fast the blood
Pours from the side of Europe; in full flood
On the Septentrional watershed
The rivers of fair France are running red!
England, the mother-eyrie of our brood,
That on the summit of dominion stood,
Shakes in the blast: heaven battles overhead!
Lift up thy head, O Rheims, of ages heir
That treasured up in thee their glorious sum;
Upon whose brow, prophetically fair,
Flamed the great morrow of the world to come;
Haunt with thy beauty this volcanic air
Ere yet thou close, O Flower of Christendom!

As when the shadow of the sun's eclipse
Sweeps on the earth, and spreads a spectral air,
As if the universe were dying there,
On continent and isle the darkness dips,
Unwonted gloom, and on the Atlantic slips;
So in the night the Belgian cities flare
Horizon-wide; the wandering people fare
Along the roads, and load the fleeing ships.
And westward borne that planetary sweep,
Darkening o'er England and her times to be,
Already steps upon the ocean-deep!
Watch well, my country, that unearthly sea,
Lest when thou thinkest not, and in thy sleep,
Unapt for war, that gloom enshadow thee!

George Edward Woodberry.

American opinion was especially aroused by Germany's cynical disregard of her pledge to preserve the neutrality of Belgium, and by the outrages which crimsoned every step of the invasion of that little kingdom.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN WALKS AT MIDNIGHT

[In Springfield, Illinois]

It is portentous, and a thing of state
That here at midnight, in our little town,
A mourning figure walks, and will not rest,
Near the old court-house pacing up and down.

Or by his homestead, or in shadowed yards
He lingers where his children used to play;
Or through the market, on the well-worn stones
He stalks until the dawn-stars burn away.

A bronzed, lank man! His suit of ancient black,
A famous high top-hat and plain worn shawl
Make him the quaint great figure that men love,
The prairie-lawyer, master of us all.

He cannot sleep upon his hillside now.
He is among us:—as in times before!
And we who toss and lie awake for long
Breathe deep, and start, to see him pass the door.

His head is bowed. He thinks on men and kings.
Yea, when the sick world cries, how can he sleep?
Too many peasants fight, they know not why,
Too many homesteads in black terror weep.

The sins of all the war-lords burn his heart.
He sees the dreadnaughts scouring every main.
He carries on his shawl-wrapped shoulders now
The bitterness, the folly and the pain.

He cannot rest until a spirit-dawn
Shall come;—the shining hope of Europe free:
The league of sober folk, the Workers' Earth
Bringing long peace to Cornland, Alp, and Sea.

It breaks his heart that kings must murder still,
That all his hours of travail here for men
Seem yet in vain. And who will bring white peace
That he may sleep upon his hill again?

Vachel Lindsay.

On sea, as well as on land, the same policy of "frightfulness" was followed, and German submarines and raiders, finding it dangerous to attack British battleships, turned their attention to unarmed merchantmen. On February 28, 1915, an American vessel, the William P. Frye, carrying wheat from Seattle to Queenstown, was sunk by a German raider in the South Atlantic.

THE "WILLIAM P. FRYE"

[February 28, 1915]

I saw her first abreast the Boston Light
At anchor; she had just come in, turned head,
And sent her hawsers creaking, clattering down.
I was so near to where the hawse-pipes fed
The cable out from her careening bow,
I moved up on the swell, shut steam and lay
Hove to in my old launch to look at her.
She'd come in light, a-skimming up the Bay
Like a white ghost with topsails bellying full;
And all her noble lines from bow to stern
Made music in the wind; it seemed she rode
The morning air like those thin clouds that turn
Into tall ships when sunrise lifts the clouds
From calm sea-courses.

There, in smoke-smudged coats,
Lay funnelled liners, dirty fishing craft,
Blunt cargo-luggers, tugs, and ferry-boats.
Oh, it was good in that black-scuttled lot
To see the Frye come lording on her way
Like some old queen that we had half forgot
Come to her own. A little up the Bay
The Fort lay green, for it was springtime then;
The wind was fresh, rich with the spicy bloom
Of the New England coast that tardily
Escapes, late April, from an icy tomb.
The State-House glittered on old Beacon Hill,
Gold in the sun.... 'Twas all so fair awhile;
But she was fairest—this great square-rigged ship
That had blown in from some far happy isle
Or from the shores of the Hesperides.

They caught her in a South Atlantic road
Becalmed, and found her hold brimmed up with wheat;
"Wheat's contraband," they said, and blew her hull
To pieces, murdered one of our staunch fleet,
Fast dwindling, of the big old sailing ships
That carry trade for us on the high sea
And warped out of each harbor in the States.
It wasn't law, so it seems strange to me—
A big mistake. Her keel's struck bottom now
And her four masts sunk fathoms, fathoms deep
To Davy Jones. The dank seaweed will root
On her oozed decks, and the cross-surges sweep
Through the set sails; but never, never more
Her crew will stand away to brace and trim,
Nor sea-blown petrels meet her thrashing up
To windward on the Gulf Stream's stormy rim;
Never again she'll head a no'theast gale,
Or like a spirit loom up, sliding dumb,
And ride in safe beyond the Boston Light,
To make the harbor glad because she's come.

Jeanne Robert Foster.

The crowning outrage came on May 7, 1915, when the great Cunard steamship Lusitania was torpedoed without warning off the coast of Ireland, and 1153 men, women, and children drowned. Of these, 114 were Americans.

THE WHITE SHIPS AND THE RED

[May 7, 1915]

With drooping sail and pennant
That never a wind may reach,
They float in sunless waters
Beside a sunless beach.
Their mighty masts and funnels
Are white as driven snow,
And with a pallid radiance
Their ghostly bulwarks glow.

Here is a Spanish galleon
That once with gold was gay,
Here is a Roman trireme
Whose hues outshone the day.
But Tyrian dyes have faded,
And prows that once were bright
With rainbow stains wear only
Death's livid, dreadful white.

White as the ice that clove her
That unforgotten day,
Among her pallid sisters
The grim Titanic lay.
And through the leagues above her
She looked aghast, and said:
"What is this living ship that comes
Where every ship is dead?"

The ghostly vessels trembled
From ruined stern to prow;
What was this thing of terror
That broke their vigil now?
Down through the startled ocean
A mighty vessel came,
Not white, as all dead ships must be,
But red, like living flame!

The pale green waves about her
Were swiftly, strangely dyed,
By the great scarlet stream that flowed
From out her wounded side.
And all her decks were scarlet
And all her shattered crew.
She sank among the white ghost ships
And stained them through and through.

The grim Titanic greeted her.
"And who art thou?" she said;
"Why dost thou join our ghostly fleet
Arrayed in living red?
We are the ships of sorrow
Who spend the weary night,
Until the dawn of Judgment Day,
Obscure and still and white."

"Nay," said the scarlet visitor,
"Though I sink through the sea,
A ruined thing that was a ship,
I sink not as did ye.
For ye met with your destiny
By storm or rock or fight,
So through the lagging centuries
Ye wear your robes of white.

"But never crashing iceberg
Nor honest shot of foe,
Nor hidden reef has sent me
The way that I must go.
My wound that stains the waters,
My blood that is like flame,
Bear witness to a loathly deed,
A deed without a name.

"I went not forth to battle,
I carried friendly men,
The children played about my decks,
The women sang—and then—
And then—the sun blushed scarlet
And Heaven hid its face,
The world that God created
Became a shameful place!

"My wrong cries out for vengeance,
The blow that sent me here
Was aimed in hell. My dying scream
Has reached Jehovah's ear.
Not all the seven oceans
Shall wash away that stain;
Upon a brow that wears a crown
I am the brand of Cain."

When God's great voice assembles
The fleet on Judgment Day,
The ghosts of ruined ships will rise
In sea and strait and bay.
Though they have lain for ages
Beneath the changeless flood,
They shall be white as silver,
But one—shall be like blood.

Joyce Kilmer.

No event since the sinking of the Maine in Havana Harbor had so stirred the country with rage and horror. The contention of the Germans that they were fighting for the freedom of the seas was indignantly scouted.

MARE LIBERUM

You dare to say with perjured lips,
"We fight to make the ocean free"?
You, whose black trail of butchered ships
Bestrews the bed of every sea
Where German submarines have wrought
Their horrors! Have you never thought,—
What you call freedom, men call piracy!

Unnumbered ghosts that haunt the wave
Where you have murdered, cry you down;
And seamen whom you would not save
Weave now in weed-grown depths a crown
Of shame for your imperious head,—
A dark memorial of the dead,—
Women and children whom you sent to drown.

Nay, not till thieves are set to guard
The gold, and corsairs called to keep
O'er peaceful commerce watch and ward,
And wolves to herd the helpless sheep,
Shall men and women look to thee,
Thou ruthless Old Man of the Sea,
To safeguard law and freedom on the deep!

In nobler breeds we put our trust:
The nations in whose sacred lore
The "Ought" stands out above the "Must,"
And honor rules in peace and war.
With these we hold in soul and heart,
With these we choose our lot and part,
Till liberty is safe on sea and shore.

Henry van Dyke.

President Woodrow Wilson warned Germany that the United States could not stand idly by in the event of further contemptuous disregard of American rights, and Germany promised to restrict her submarine warfare; but a great portion of the country felt there was already more than sufficient cause for war, and many Americans entered the French aviation corps and Foreign Legion, or went to Canada and enlisted there, in order to take their stand at once beside the nations which were battling for human liberty.

ODE IN MEMORY OF THE AMERICAN VOLUNTEERS FALLEN FOR FRANCE

[To have been read before the statue of Lafayette and Washington in Paris, on Decoration Day, May 30, 1916]

I
Ay, it is fitting on this holiday,
Commemorative of our soldier dead,
When—with sweet flowers of our New England May
Hiding the lichened stones by fifty years made gray—
Their graves in every town are garlanded,
That pious tribute should be given too
To our intrepid few
Obscurely fallen here beyond the seas.
Those to preserve their country's greatness died;
But by the death of these
Something that we can look upon with pride
Has been achieved, nor wholly unreplied
Can sneerers triumph in the charge they make
That from a war where Freedom was at stake
America withheld and, daunted, stood aside.

II
Be they remembered here with each reviving spring,
Not only that in May, when life is loveliest,
Around Neuville-Saint-Vaast and the disputed crest
Of Vimy, they, superb, unfaltering,
In that fine onslaught that no fire could halt,
Parted impetuous to their first assault;
But that they brought fresh hearts and springlike too
To that high mission, and 'tis meet to strew
With twigs of lilac and spring's earliest rose
The cenotaph of those
Who in the cause that history most endears
Fell in the sunny morn and flower of their young years.

III
Yet sought they neither recompense nor praise,
Nor to be mentioned in another breath
Than their blue-coated comrades whose great days
It was their pride to share—ay, share even to the death!
Nay, rather, France, to you they rendered thanks
(Seeing they came for honor, not for gain),
Who, opening to them your glorious ranks,
Gave them that grand occasion to excel,
That chance to live the life most free from stain
And that rare privilege of dying well.

IV
O friends! I know not since that war began
From which no people nobly stands aloof
If in all moments we have given proof
Of virtues that were thought American.
I know not if in all things done and said
All has been well and good,
Or if each one of us can hold his head
As proudly as he should,
Or, from the pattern of those mighty dead
Whose shades our country venerates to-day,
If we've not somewhat fallen and somewhat gone astray.
But you to whom our land's good name is dear,
If there be any here
Who wonder if her manhood be decreased,
Relaxed its sinews and its blood less red
Than that at Shiloh and Antietam shed,
Be proud of these, have joy in this at least,
And cry: "Now, heaven be praised
That in that hour that most imperilled her,
Menaced her liberty who foremost raised
Europe's bright flag of freedom, some there were
Who, not unmindful of the antique debt,
Came back the generous path of Lafayette;
And when of a most formidable foe
She checked each onset, arduous to stem—
Foiled and frustrated them—
On these red fields where blow with furious blow
Was countered, whether the gigantic fray
Rolled by the Meuse or at the Bois Sabot,
Accents of ours were in the fierce mêlée;
And on that furthest rim of hallowed ground
Where the forlorn, the gallant charge expires,
When the slain bugler has long ceased to sound,
And on the tangled wires
The last wild rally staggers, crumbles, stops,
Withered beneath the shrapnel's iron showers:—
Now heaven be thanked, we gave a few brave drops;
Now heaven be thanked, a few brave drops were ours."

V
There, holding still, in frozen steadfastness,
Their bayonets toward the beckoning frontiers,
They lie—our comrades—lie among their peers,
Clad in the glory of fallen warriors,
Grim clusters under thorny trellises,
Dry, furthest foam upon disastrous shores,
Leaves that made last year beautiful, still strewn
Even as they fell, unchanged, beneath the changing moon;
And earth in her divine indifference
Rolls on, and many paltry things and mean
Prate to be heard and caper to be seen.
But they are silent, calm; their eloquence
Is that incomparable attitude;
No human presences their witness are,
But summer clouds and sunset crimson-hued,
And showers and night winds and the northern star.
Nay, even our salutations seem profane,
Opposed to their Elysian quietude;
Our salutations coming from afar,
From our ignobler plane
And undistinction of our lesser parts:
Hail, brothers, and farewell; you are twice blest, brave hearts.
Double your glory is who perished thus,
For you have died for France and vindicated us.

Alan Seeger.

Germany lived up to her agreement only in partial and grudging fashion, and the climax came on January 31, 1917, when the German Government announced that an unrestricted submarine warfare against all ships encountered on the seas would begin next day. President Wilson at once handed the German Ambassador his passports, and on April 2, after the sinking of three American ships without warning, appeared before Congress and asked that war be declared. After thirteen hours of debate, the Senate passed the necessary resolution; the House concurred on April 5, and the next day the President issued a proclamation declaring that "a state of war exists between the United States and the Imperial German Government."

REPUBLIC TO REPUBLIC

1776-1917

France!
It is I answering.
America!
And it shall be remembered not only in our lips but in our hearts
And shall awaken forever familiar and new as the morning
That we were the first of all lands
To be lovers,
To run to each other with the incredible cry
Of recognition.
Bound by no ties of nearness or of knowledge
But of the nearness of the heart,
You chose me then—
And so I choose you now
By the same nearness—
And the name you called me then
I call you now—
O Liberty, my Love!

Witter Bynner.

The Entente Powers welcomed their new ally with bursting hearts, for a decisive victory, which was becoming more and more hopeless, now seemed assured.

TO THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Brothers in blood! They who this wrong began
To wreck our commonwealth, will rue the day
When first they challenged freemen to the fray,
And with the Briton dared the American.
Now are we pledged to win the Rights of man;
Labor and Justice now shall have their way,
And in a League of Peace—God grant we may—
Transform the earth, not patch up the old plan.

Sure is our hope since he who led your nation
Spake for mankind, and ye arose in awe
Of that high call to work the world's salvation;
Clearing your minds of all estranging blindness
In the vision of Beauty and the Spirit's law,
Freedom and Honor and sweet Loving-kindness.

Robert Bridges.

One of the first acts of the government was to seize all enemy ships in American ports—which, of course, included Hawaii, Porto Rico and the Philippines. These were at once overhauled and put into service under American command.

THE CAPTIVE SHIPS AT MANILA

Our keels are furred with tropic weed that clogs the crawling tides
And scarred with crust of salt and rust that gnaws our idle sides;
And little junks they come and go, and ships they sail at dawn;
And all the outbound winds that blow they call us to be gone,
As yearning to the lifting seas our gaunt flotilla rides,
Drifting aimless to and fro,
Sport of every wind a-blow,
Swinging to the ebb and flow
Of lazy tropic tides.

And once we knew the clean seaways to sail them pridefully;
And once we met the clean sea winds and gave them greeting free;
And honest craft, they spoke us fair, who'd scorn to speak us now;
And little craft, they'd not beware to cross a German bow
When yet the flag of Germany had honor on the sea.
And now, of all that seaward fare,
What ship of any port is there
But would dip her flag to a black corsair
Ere she'd signal such as we!

Yet we are ribbed with Norseland steel and fleshed with Viking pine,
That's fashioned of the soil which bred the hosts of Charlemagne;
And clad we are with rusting pride of stays and links and plates
That lay within the mountain side where Barbarossa waits—
The mighty Frederick thralled in sleep, held by the ancient sign,
While yet the ravens circle wide
Above that guarded mountain side,
Full fed with carrion from the tide
Of swinish, red rapine!

Oh, we have known the German men when German men were true,
And we have borne the German flag when honor was her due;
But sick we are of honest scorn from honest merchant-men—
The winds they call us to be gone down to the seas again—
Down to the seas where waves lift white and gulls they sheer in the blue,
Shriven clean of our blood-bought scorn
By a foeman's flag—ay, proudly borne!
Cleaving out in the good red dawn—
Out again to the blue!

Dorothy Paul.

Every effort was bent toward getting an army into the field in the shortest possible time. General John J. Pershing was appointed to command the American Expeditionary Forces, and started for France. The National Guard was mobilized, volunteers called for, and the First Division of regulars was loaded on transports and, on June 14, headed out to sea.

THE ROAD TO FRANCE

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 Anzac's 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?
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 oppressed!

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!

Daniel Henderson.

General Pershing, with his staff, reached England early in June, and crossed to France a few days later. On the Fourth of July, a parade of American troops took place in Paris, proceeding to the Picpus cemetery, where General Pershing placed a wreath on the tomb of Lafayette. Legend has it that he said simply, "Lafayette, we are here."

PERSHING AT THE TOMB OF LAFAYETTE

[July 4, 1917]

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!"

Amelia Josephine Burr.

An army of at least 2,000,000 men was needed at once; to secure it with the least possible disturbance of the country's economic life, Congress passed a bill providing for a selective draft of all men between twenty-one and thirty. Great training-camps were built, and by September, the training of the National Army was in full swing, while the National Guard regiments, which had already had some training, were started on their way to France.

YOUR LAD, AND MY LAD

Down toward the deep-blue water, marching to throb of drum,
From city street and country lane the lines of khaki come;
The rumbling guns, the sturdy tread, are full of grim appeal,
While rays of western sunshine flash back from burnished steel.
With eager eyes and cheeks aflame the serried ranks advance;
And your dear lad, and my dear lad, are on their way to France.

A sob clings choking in the throat, as file on file sweep by,
Between those cheering multitudes, to where the great ships lie;
The batteries halt, the columns wheel, to clear-toned bugle-call,
With shoulders squared and faces front they stand a khaki wall.
Tears shine on every watcher's cheek, love speaks in every glance;
For your dear lad, and my dear lad, are on their way to France.

Before them, through a mist of years, in soldier buff or blue,
Brave comrades from a thousand fields watch now in proud review;
The same old Flag, the same old Faith—the Freedom of the World—
Spells Duty in those flapping folds above long ranks unfurled.
Strong are the hearts which bear along Democracy's advance,
As your dear lad, and my dear lad, go on their way to France.

The word rings out; a million feet tramp forward on the road,
Along that path of sacrifice o'er which their fathers strode.
With eager eyes and cheeks aflame, with cheers on smiling lips,
These fighting men of '17 move onward to their ships.
Nor even love may hold them back, or halt that stern advance,
As your dear lad, and my dear lad, go on their way to France.

Randall Parrish.

Germany had boasted that we could never get an army to Europe past her submarines, but so efficient was the system of protection worked out by the navy, that only one loaded transport was sunk. Early in February, 1918, the Tuscania, carrying 2179 American soldiers, was torpedoed off the north coast of Ireland. British destroyers rescued all but about two hundred before the ship sank. Nearly all the bodies were washed ashore and were tenderly buried.

A CALL TO ARMS

[February 5, 1918]

It is I, America, calling!
Above the sound of rivers falling,
Above the whir of the wheels and the chime of bells in the steeple
—Wheels, rolling gold into the palms of the people—
Bells ringing silverly clear and slow
To church-going, leisurely steps on pavements below.
Above all familiar sounds of the life of a nation
I shout to you a name.
And the flame of that name is sped
Like fire into hearts where blood runs red—
The hearts of the land burn hot to the land's salvation
As I call across the long miles, as I, America, call to my nation
Tuscania! Tuscania!
Americans, remember the Tuscania!

Shall we not remember how they died
In their young courage and loyalty and pride,
Our boys—bright-eyed, clean lads of America's breed,
Hearts of gold, limbs of steel, flower of the nation indeed?
How they tossed their years to be
Into icy waters of a winter sea
That we whom they loved—that the world which they loved should be free?
Ready, ungrudging, they died, each one thinking, likely, as the moment was come
Of the dear, starry flag, worth dying for, and then of dear faces at home;
Going down in good order, with a song on their lips of the land of the free and the brave
Till each young, deep voice stopped—under the rush of a wave.
Was it like that? And shall their memory ever grow pale?
Not ever, till the stars in the flag of America fail.
It is I, America, who swear it, calling
Over the sound of that deep ocean's falling,
Tuscania! Tuscania!
Arm, arm, Americans! Remember the Tuscania!

Very peacefully they are sleeping
In friendly earth, unmindful of a nation's weeping,
And the kindly, strange folk that honored the long, full graves, we know;
And the mothers know that their boys are safe, now, from the hurts of a savage foe;
It is for us who are left to make sure and plain
That these dead, our precious dead, shall not have died in vain;
So that I, America, young and strong and not afraid,
I set my face across that sea which swallowed the bodies of the sons I made,
I set my eyes on the still faces of boys washed up on a distant shore
And I call with a shout to my own to end this horror forevermore!
In the boys' names I call a name,
And the nation leaps to fire in its flame
And my sons and my daughters crowd, eager to end the shame—
It is I, America, calling,
Hoarse with the roar of that ocean falling,
Tuscania! Tuscania!
Arm, arm, Americans! And remember, remember, the Tuscania!

Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews.

Meanwhile, in France, the Americans were already taking part in the war. About the middle of October, the First division had been sent into a heretofore quiet sector of the trenches beyond Einville, in Lorraine. On October 25, we took our first prisoner; a few days later, we had our first wounded; and finally before dawn on the morning of November 3, came a swift German raid in which three Americans were killed, five wounded and eleven taken prisoner. The three, whose names were Corporal James D. Gresham, Private Thomas F. Enright, and Private Merle D. Hay, were buried at Bathlemont next day, with touching ceremonies.

THE FIRST THREE

[November 3, 1917]

"Somewhere in France," upon a brown hillside,
They lie, the first of our brave soldiers slain;
Above them flowers, now beaten by the rain,
Yet emblematic of the youths who died
In their fresh promise. They who, valiant-eyed,
Met death unfaltering have not fallen in vain;
Remembrance hallows those who thus attain
The final goal; their names are glorified.
Read then the roster!—Gresham! Enright! Hay!—
No bugle call shall rouse them when the flower
Of morning breaks above the hills and dells,
For they have grown immortal in an hour,
And we who grieve and cherish them would lay
Upon their hillside graves our immortelles!

Clinton Scollard.

TO AMERICA, ON HER FIRST SONS FALLEN IN THE GREAT WAR

Now you are one with us, you know our tears,
Those tears of pride and pain so fast to flow;
You too have sipped the first strange draught of woe;
You too have tasted of our hopes and fears;
Sister across the ocean, stretch your hand,
Must we not love you more, who learn to understand?

There are new graves in France, new quiet graves;
The first-fruit of a Nation great and free,
Full of rich fire of life and chivalry.
Lie quietly, though tide of battle laves
Above them; sister, sister, see our tears,
We mourn with you, who know so well the bitter years.

Now do you watch with us; your pain of loss
Lit by a wondrous glow of love and power
That flowers, star-like at the darkest hour
Lighting the eternal message of the Cross;
They gain their life who lose it, earth shall rise
Anew and cleansed, because of life's great sacrifice.

And that great band of souls your dead have met,
Who saved the world in centuries past and gone,
Shall find new comrades in their valiant throng;
O, Nation's heart that cannot e'er forget,
Is not death but the door to life begun
To those who hear far Heaven cry, "Well done!"

E. M. Walker.

Training proceeded rapidly, and the sectors where its final stages took place became more and more lively as the Americans were gradually given a freer and freer hand.

ROUGE BOUQUET

[March 7, 1918]

In a wood they call the Rouge Bouquet
There is a new-made grave to-day,
Built by never a spade nor pick
Yet covered with earth ten metres thick.
There lie many fighting men,
Dead in their youthful prime,
Never to laugh nor love again
Nor taste the Summertime.
For Death came flying through the air
And stopped his flight at the dugout stair.
Touched his prey and left them there,
Clay to clay.
He hid their bodies stealthily
In the soil of the land they fought to free
And fled away.
Now over the grave abrupt and clear
Three volleys ring;
And perhaps their brave young spirits hear
The bugle sing:
"Go to sleep!
Go to sleep!
Slumber well where the shell screamed and fell
Let your rifles rest on the muddy floor,
You will not need them any more.
Danger's past;
Now at last,
Go to sleep!"

There is on earth no worthier grave
To hold the bodies of the brave
Than this place of pain and pride
Where they nobly fought and nobly died.
Never fear but in the skies
Saints and angels stand
Smiling with their holy eyes
On this new-come band.
St. Michael's sword darts through the air
And touches the aureole on his hair
As he sees them stand saluting there,
His stalwart sons:
And Patrick, Brigid, Columkill
Rejoice that in veins of warriors still
The Gael's blood runs.
And up to Heaven's doorway floats,
From the wood called Rouge Bouquet,
A delicate cloud of bugle notes
That softly say:
"Farewell!
Farewell!
Comrades true, born anew, peace to you!
Your souls shall be where the heroes are
And your memory shine like the morning-star.
Brave and dear,
Shield us here.
Farewell!"

Joyce Kilmer.

The great summons came in the spring of 1918, for on March 21 the Germans began a series of terrific attacks which they believed would end the war. On March 31 an official note announced that "the Star-Spangled Banner will float beside the French and English flags in the plains of Picardy." On April 17 the order came for the First Division to move into the battle area.

MARCHING SONG

[April 17, 1918]

When Pershing's men go marching into Picardy.
Marching, marching into Picardy—
With their steel aslant in the sunlight and their great gray hawks a-wing
And their wagons rumbling after them like thunder in the Spring—

Tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp
Till the earth is shaken—
Tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp
Till the dead towns waken!
And flowers fall and shouts arise from Chaumont to the sea—
When Pershing's men go marching, marching into Picardy.

Women of France, do you see them pass to the battle in the North?
And do you stand in the doorways now as when your own went forth?
Then smile to them and call to them, and mark how brave they fare
Upon the road to Picardy that only youth may dare!

Tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp,
Foot and horse and caisson—
Tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp,
Such is Freedom's passion—
And oh, take heart, ye weary souls that stand along the Lys,
For the New World is marching, marching into Picardy!

April's sun is in the sky and April's in the grass—
And I doubt not that Pershing's men are singing as they pass—
For they are very young men, and brave men, and free,
And they know why they are marching, marching into Picardy.

Tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp,
Rank and file together—
Tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp,
Through the April weather.
And never Spring has thrust such blades against the light of dawn
As yonder waving stalks of steel that move so shining on!

I have seen the wooden crosses at Ypres and Verdun,
I have marked the graves of such as lie where the Marne waters run,
And I know their dust is stirring by hill and vale and lea,
And their souls shall be our captains who march to Picardy.

Tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp,
Hope shall fail us never—
Tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp,
Forward, and forever!
And God is in His judgment seat, and Christ is on His tree—
And Pershing's men are marching, marching into Picardy.

Dana Burnet.

On June 2, the Second and Third Divisions met and checked the enemy at Château-Thierry. The Marne offensive was followed sharply by another on the part of the British, with whom our Twenty-Seventh Division was fighting, and on August 8 the Twenty-Seventh broke through the famous Hindenburg line.

OUR MODEST DOUGHBOYS

[August 8, 1918]

Said the Captain: "There was wire
A mile deep in No Man's Land,
And the concentrated fire
Was all mortal nerve could stand;
But these huskies craved the chance
To go out and leave their bones!"
"The climate's quite some damp in France,"
Said Private Thomas Jones.

Said the Major: "What is more,
At the point where we attacked,
Tough old veterans loudly swore
Hindy's line could not be cracked.
But the 27th said,
'Hindenburg! That guy's a myth!'"
"I slept last night in a reg'lar bed,"
Said Private Johnny Smith.

Said the Colonel: "They had placed
Pillboxes on the crests.
I can safely say we faced
Maybe thousands of those nests.
But our doughboys took one height
Seven times in that hell's hail."
"And were the cooties thick? Good night!"
Said Private William Dale.

Said the General: "We were told
Anything we'd start they'd stop—
That the Boche would knock us cold
When we slid across the top.
But the 7th with a yell
Made the Prussian Guards back down."
"You oughta lamped the smile on Nell!"
Said Private Henry Brown.

Said the Sergeant: "Every shell
Seemed to whine, 'Old scout, you're dead!'
And I thought I'd gone to hell
In a blizzard of hot lead.
But each bloomin' gunner stuck
At his post by his machine."
"Our orders said to hold it, Buck!"
Said Private Peter Green.

Said the Chaplain: "Talk of pep!
They were there! And, may I add,
When we clambered up the step
That last fight, we only had
Eighty men of Company D—
Every one, I'll say, a man!"
"And am I glad I'm home? Ah, oui!"
Said Private Mike McCann.

Charlton Andrews.

Early in September eight American divisions were concentrated on the Lorraine front and organized into the First American Army. On September 12 an assault in force was made against the St. Mihiel salient, which had threatened France for four years. Twenty-four hours later the salient was ours, together with 15,000 prisoners.

SEICHEPREY

[September 12, 1918]

A handful came to Seicheprey
When winter woods were bare,
When ice was in the trenches
And snow was in the air.
The foe looked down on Seicheprey
And laughed to see them there.

The months crept by at Seicheprey
The growing handful stayed,
With growling guns at midnight,
At dawn, the lightning raid,
And learned, in Seicheprey trenches,
How war's red game is played.

September came to Seicheprey;
A slow-wrought host arose
And rolled across the trenches
And whelmed its sneering foes,
And left to shattered Seicheprey
Unending, sweet repose.

Two weeks later we began our greatest battle in an attack on the strong German positions running from the Meuse westward through the Argonne forest. It was in this battle that perhaps the most remarkable single exploit of the war was performed, when Corporal Alvin C. York, a young giant from the mountains of Tennessee, who had been sent forward with a small squad to clean up some machine-gun nests, killed single-handed twenty-eight Germans, and came back with 132 prisoners.

A BALLAD OF REDHEAD'S DAY

[October 8, 1918]

Talk of the Greeks at Thermopylæ!
They fought like mad till the last was dead;
But Alvin C. York, of Tennessee,
Stayed cool to the end though his hair was red,
Stayed mountain cool, yet blazed that gray
October the Eighth as Redhead's Day.

With rifle and pistol and redhead nerve
He captured one hundred and thirty-two;
A battalion against him, he did not swerve
From the Titans' task they were sent to do—
Fourteen men under Sergeant Early
And York, the blacksmith, big and burly.

Sixteen only, but fighters all,
They dared the brood of a devil's nest,
And three of those that did not fall
Were wounded and out of the scrap; the rest
Were guarding a bunch of Boche they'd caught,
When both were trapped by a fresh onslaught.

Excepting York, who smiled "Amen,"
And, spotting the nests of spitting guns,
Potted some twenty birds, and then
Did with his pistol for eight more Huns
Who thought they could crush a Yankee alive
In each red pound of two hundred and five.

That was enough for kill-babe Fritz:
Ninety in all threw up their hands,
Suddenly tender as lamb at the Ritz,
Milder than sheep to a York's commands;
And back to his line he drove the herd,
Gathering more on the way—Absurd!

Absurd, but true—ay, gospel fact;
For here was a man with a level head,
Who, scorning to fail for the help he lacked,
Helped himself till he won instead;
An elder was he in the Church of Christ,
Immortal at thirty; his faith sufficed.

Richard Butler Glaenzer.

While our Argonne offensive was in progress, the French and English had been striking mighty blows at other portions of the German line, and everywhere the enemy was in retreat. Realizing that their power was broken and to save themselves from imminent disaster, the Germans asked for an armistice. It was offered on terms so drastic that many thought the Germans would not sign, but they did, and at eleven o'clock on the morning of November 11, 1918, firing ceased all along the front.

VICTORY BELLS

I heard the bells across the trees,
I heard them ride the plunging breeze
Above the roofs from tower and spire,
And they were leaping like a fire,
And they were shining like a stream
With sun to make its music gleam.
Deep tones as though the thunder tolled,
Cool voices thin as tinkling gold,
They shook the spangled autumn down
From out the tree-tops of the town;
They left great furrows in the air
And made a clangor everywhere
As of metallic wings. They flew
Aloft in spirals to the blue
Tall tent of heaven and disappeared.
And others, swift as though they feared
The people might not heed their cry
Went shouting Victory up the sky.
They did not say that war is done,
Only that glory has begun
Like sunrise, and the coming day
Will burn the clouds of war away.
There will be time for dreams again,
And home-coming for weary men.

Grace Hazard Conkling.

America had lost nearly fifty thousand men killed in battle, and immediately after the armistice, work was begun gathering together their bodies, scattered over many battlefields, and re-interring them in beautiful cemeteries, where their graves would be perpetually cared for and honored.

EPICEDIUM

IN MEMORY OF AMERICA'S DEAD IN THE GREAT WAR

No more for them shall Evening's rose unclose,
Nor Dawn's emblazoned panoplies be spread;
Alike, the Rain's warm kiss, and stabbing snows,
Unminded, fall upon each hallowed head.
But the Bugles as they leap and wildly sing,
Rejoice, ... remembering.

The guns' mad music their young years have known—
War's lullabies that moaned on Flanders Plain;
To-night the wind walks on them, still as stone,
Where they lie huddled close as riven grain.
But the Drums, reverberating, proudly roll—
They love a Soldier's soul!

With arms outflung, and eyes that laughed at Death,
They drank the wine of sacrifice and loss;
For them a life-time spanned a burning breath,
And Truth they visioned, clean of earthly dross.
But the Fifes—can ye not hear their lusty shriek?
They know, and now they speak!

The lazy drift of cloud, the noon-day hum
Of vagrant bees, the lark's untrammeled song
Shall gladden them no more, who now lie dumb
In Death's strange sleep, yet once were swift and strong.
But the Bells that to all living listeners peal,
With joy their deeds reveal!

They have given their lives, with bodies bruised and broken,
Upon their Country's altar they have bled;
They have left, as priceless heritage, a token
That Honor lives forever with the dead.
And the Bugles, as their rich notes rise and fall—
They answer, knowing all.

J. Corson Miller.

THE DEAD

Think you the dead are lonely in that place?
They are companioned by the leaves and grass,
By many a beautiful and vanished face,
By all the strange and lovely things that pass.
Sunsets and dawnings and the starry vast,
The swinging moon, the tracery of trees—
These they shall know more perfectly at last,
They shall be intimate with such as these.
'Tis only for the living Beauty dies,
Fades and drifts from us with too brief a grace,
Beyond the changing tapestry of skies
Where dwells her perfect and immortal face.
For us the passage brief;—the happy dead
Are ever by great beauty visited.

David Morton.

THE UNRETURNING

For us, the dead, though young,
For us, who fought and bled,
Let a last song be sung,
And a last word be said!

Dreams, hopes, and high desires,
That leaven and uplift,
On sacrificial fires
We offered as a gift.

We gave, and gave our all,
In gladness, though in pain;
Let not a whisper fall
That we have died in vain!

Clinton Scollard.

To America's soldier dead was added, on January 6, 1919, a valiant and righteous warrior, Theodore Roosevelt, whose sudden death at the age of sixty-one was a shock to the whole country.

THE STAR

[January 6, 1919]

Great soul, to all brave souls akin,
High bearer of the torch of truth,
Have you not gone to marshal in
Those eager hosts of youth?

Flung outward by the battle's tide,
They met in regions dim and far;
And you—in whom youth never died—
Shall lead them, as a star!

Marion Couthouy Smith.

Arrangements for sending home the American army were begun immediately after the armistice, and within a few months a steady stream of khaki-clad troops was flowing through the port of Brest, bound for America.

BREST LEFT BEHIND

The sun strikes gold the dirty street,
The band blares, the drums insist,
And brown legs twinkle and muscles twist—
Pound!—Pound!—the rhythmic feet.
The laughing street-boys shout,
And a couple of hags come out
To grin and bob and clap.
Stiff rusty black their dresses,
And crispy white their Breton cap,
Prim on white, smooth tresses.

Wait!... Wait!... While dun clouds droop
Over the sunlit docks,
Over the wet gray rocks
And mast of steamer and sloop,
And the old squat towers,
Damp gray and mossy brown,
Where lovely Ann looked down
And dreamed rich dreams through long luxurious hours.

Sudden and swift, it rains!
Familiar, fogging, gray;
It blots the sky away
And cuts the face with biting little pains.
We grunt and poke shoes free of muddy cakes,
Watching them messing out
Upon the dock in thick brown lakes—
"No more French mud!" the sergeant cries,
And someone swears, and someone sighs,
And the neat squads swing about.

Silent the looming hulk above—
No camouflage this time—
She's white and tan and black!
Hurry, bend, climb,
Push forward, stagger back!
How clean the wide deck seems,
The bunks, how trim;
And, oh, the musty smell of ships!
Faces are set and grim,
Thinking of months, this hope was pain;
And eyes are full of dreams,
And gay little tunes come springing to the lips—
Home, home, again, again!

She's moving now,
Across the prow
The dusk-soft harbor bursts
Into a shivering bloom of light
From warehouse, warship, transport, tramp,
And countless little bobbing masts
Each flouts the night
With eager boastful lamp—
Bright now, now dimmer, dimmer,
Fewer and fewer glimmer.
Only the lights that mark the passing shore,
Lofty and lonely star the gray—
Then are no more.
We are alone with dusk and creamy spray.

The captain coughs, remembering the rain.
The major coughs remembering the mud.
Some shudder at the horror of dark blood,
Or wine-wet kisses, lewd.
Some sigh, remembering new loves and farewell pain.
Some smile, remembering old loves to be renewed.
Silent, we stare across the deepening night.
France vanishing!—Swift, swift, the curling waves—
Fights and despair,
And faces fair;
Proud heads held high
For Victory;
And flags above friends' graves.

The group buzzes, rustles, hums,
Then stiffens as the colonel comes,
A burly figure in the mellow light,
With haughty, kingly ways.
He does not scan the night,
Nor hissing spray that flies,
But his cold old glance plays
Along the level of our eyes.

"I don't see very many tears," he says.

John Chipman Farrar.

America went wild in welcoming them, as they arrived division after division. There were parades and celebrations; but with surprising swiftness the divisions were demobilized and the men returned to civil life.

TO THE RETURNING BRAVE

Victorious knights without reproach or fear—
As close as man is ever to the stars!—
Our welcome met you on the ocean drear
In loud, free winds and sunset's golden bars.
Here, at our bannered gate
Love, honor, laurels wait.
Though you be humble, we are proud, and, in your stead, elate.

Fame shall not tire to tell, no sordid stain
Lies on your purpose, on your record none.
No broken word, no violated fane,
No winning one could wish had ne'er been won.
You were our message sent
To the torn Continent:
That with its hope and faith henceforth our faith and hope are blent.

You of our new, our homespun chivalry,
Here is your welcome—in all women's eyes,
The envious handclasp, romping children's glee,
Music, and color, and glad tears that rise.
Here every voice of Peace
Shall bruit our joy, nor cease
To vie with shotless guns to shout your blameless victories.

But, though you are a part of all men's pride,
And from your fortitude new nations date,
Oh, lay not yet your sacred steel aside,
But save it for the still-imperiled State.
You who have bound a girth
Of new hope round the Earth,
Should its firm bond be loosened here, what were your struggle worth?

A redder peril dogs the path of war;
With fire and poison wanton children play;
And fickle crowds toward new pretenders pour
Who summon demons they can never lay.
Already we can hear,
Importunately near,
The snarling of the savage crew, half fury and half jeer.

Then hang not up your arms till you have taught
The ungrateful guests about our hearth and board
That in your swift encounter has been wrought
A keener edge to our reluctant sword.
You who know well the price
Of the great sacrifice,
Your courage saved us once; pray Heaven, it need not save us twice.

And those who come not back, who mutely lie
By Marne or Meuse or tangled Argonne wood:
Were it to lose the gain, (let them reply!)
Would we recall their spirits if we could?
Open your ranks and save
Their places with the brave,
That Liberty may greet you all, her shields of land and wave.

Robert Underwood Johnson.

Amid all the celebrations, there was always the consciousness of those who would not return, in body, at least, but whose spirits would never be severed from America's.

THE RETURN

Golden through the golden morning,
Who is this that comes
With the pride of banners lifted,
With the roll of drums?

With the self-same triumph shining
In the ardent glance,
That divine, bright fate defiance
That you bore to France.

You! But o'er your grave in Flanders
Blow the winter gales;
Still for sorrow of your going
All life's laughter fails.

Borne on flutes of dawn the answer:
"O'er the foam's white track,
God's work done, so to our homeland
Comes her hosting back.

"Come the dead men with the live men
From the marshes far,
From the mounds in no man's valley,
Lit by cross nor star.

"Come to blend with hers the essence
Of their strength and pride,
All the radiance of the dreaming
For whose truth they died."

So the dead men with the live men
Pass, an hosting fair,
And the stone is rolled forever
From the soul's despair.

Eleanor Rogers Cox.

One distinguished visitor was welcomed by the American people as they welcomed their own sons—King Albert, of Belgium, who made an extensive tour of the United States in the summer of 1919.

KING OF THE BELGIANS

How spoke the King, in his crucial hour victorious?
The words of a high decision, few, but glorious.

What was the choice he made, that all fear surmounted?
The choice of a man—that leaves not the soul uncounted.

What did the King, in bitter defeat and sorrow?
He stood as a god, foreseeing a great to-morrow.

How fought the King? In silent and stern persistence;
Patience and power within, and hope in the distance.

What was the gift he won, in the fire that tried him?
The deathless love of his own, who fought beside him.

What is his crown, the noblest of all for wearing?
The homage of hearts that beat for his splendid bearing.

Robe and sceptre and crown—what are these for holding?
Vesture and sign for his spirit's royal moulding.

What speaks he now, in the hour of faith victorious?
Words of a quiet gladness, few, but glorious.

Then, as we greet him, what shall be ours to render?
Silence that shines, and speech that is proud and tender!

Marion Couthouy Smith.

Meanwhile, at Paris, the Peace Conference, under the leadership of President Woodrow Wilson, who had broken all precedents by going to Europe, was struggling with the peace treaty. For America, the great conflict had been a war to end war, and the President insisted that provisions to establish a League of Nations should be made an integral part of the treaty.

THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

With that pathetic impudence of youth,
America, half-formed, gigantic and uncouth,
Stretching great limbs, in something of surprise
Beholds new meaning written on the skies.

Out of the granite, Time has reared a State
Haughty and fearless, awkward, passionate—
For all his dreaming and his reckless boast,
Betrayed by those whom he has trusted most.

Years of stern peril knit that welded frame,
Banded those arms and set that heart aflame,
Burdened those loins with vigor of increase,
Gave to his hand a weapon forged to peace.

He cannot turn the discovering hour aside,
He feels the stir that will not be denied,
And in the family the Nations plan
Forgets the boy and finds himself a man!

Willard Wattles.

After months of struggle and negotiation, this purpose was achieved, and on July 10, 1919, the President laid the treaty before the Senate for confirmation. Strong opposition to the League of Nations developed immediately, on the ground that it interfered with America's independence and freedom of action, and various "reservations" were proposed, limiting America's participation. These the President refused to accept, and finally, after eight months of bitter debate, largely partisan and personal, the Senate rejected the treaty March 19, 1920.

THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS

Lo, Joseph dreams his dream again,
And Joan leads her armies in the night,
And somewhere near, the Master from His cross
Lifts his hurt hands and heals the world again!
For from the great red welter of the world,
Out from the tides of its red suffering
Comes the slow sunrise of the ancient dream—
Is flung the glory of its bright imagining.
See how it breaks in beauty on the world,
Shivers and shudders on its trembling way—
Shivers and waits and trembles to be born!

America, young daughter of the gods, swing out,
Strong in the beauty of virginity,
Fearless in thine unquestioned leadership,
And hold the taper to the nations' torch,
And light the hearthfires of the halls of home.
Thine must it be to break an unpathed way,
To lift the torch for world's in-brothering—
To bring to birth this child of all the earth,
Formed of the marriage of all nations;
Else shall we go, the head upon the breast,
A Cain without a country, a Judas at the board!

Mary Siegrist.

BEYOND WARS

FOR THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS

Then will a quiet gather round the door,
And settle on those evening fields again,
Where women watch the slow, home-coming men
Across brown acres hoofed and hurt no more,
The sound of children's feet be on the floor,
When lamps are lit, and stillness deeper falls,
Unbroken, save where cattle in their stalls
Keep munching patiently upon their store.

Only a scar beside the pasture gate,
A torn and naked tree upon the hill,
What times remembered, will remind them still
Of long disastrous days they knew of late;
Till these, too, yield for sweet, accustomed things,—
And a man ploughs, a woman sews and sings.

David Morton.

It was a revival of the old idea of "splendid isolation" on the part of men whose gaze was backward and who had learned nothing from the war. To all others, however, it is evident that America must take her place with the other peoples of the earth at the council-table of the League of Nations, and do her part toward the establishment of peace and liberty throughout the world.

"WHEN THERE IS PEACE"

"When there is Peace, our land no more
Will be the land we knew of yore."
Thus do our facile seers foretell
The truth that none can buy or sell
And e'en the wisest must ignore.

When we have bled at every pore,
Shall we still strive for gear and store?
Will it be heaven? Will it be hell?
When there is Peace?

This let us pray for, this implore:
That, all base dreams thrust out at door,
We may in loftier aims excel
And, like men waking from a spell,
Grow stronger, nobler, than before,
When there is Peace.

Austin Dobson.

AFTER THE WAR

After the war—I hear men ask—what then?
As though this rock-ribbed world, sculptured with fire,
And bastioned deep in the ethereal plan,
Can never be its morning self again
Because of this brief madness, man with man;
As though the laughing elements should tire,
The very seasons in their order reel;
As though indeed yon ghostly golden wheel
Of stars should cease from turning, or the moon
Befriend the night no more, or the wild rose
Forget the world, and June be no more June.

How many wars and long-forgotten woes
Unnumbered, nameless, made a like despair
In hearts long stilled; how many suns have set
On burning cities blackening the air,—
Yet dawn came dreaming back, her lashes wet
With dew, and daisies in her innocent hair.
Nor shall, for this, the soul's ascension pause,
Nor the sure evolution of the laws
That out of foulness lift the flower to sun,
And out of fury forge the evening star.

Deem not Love's building of the world undone—
Far Love's beginning was, her end is far;
By paths of fire and blood her feet must climb,
Seeking a loveliness she scarcely knows,
Whose meaning is beyond the reach of Time.

Richard Le Gallienne.

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