From a vision red with war I awoke and saw the Prince of Peace hovering over No Man’s Land.
Loud the whistles blew and thunder of cannon was drowned by the happy shouting of the people.
From the Sinai that faces Armageddon I heard this chant from the throats of white-robed angels:
Blow your trumpets, little children!
From the East and from the West,
From the cities in the valley,
From God’s dwelling on the mountain,
Blow your blast that Peace might know
She is Queen of God’s great army.
With the crying blood of millions
We have written deep her name
In the Book of all the Ages;
With the lilies in the valley,
With the roses by the Mersey,
With the golden flower of Jersey,
We have crowned her smooth young temples.
Where her footsteps cease to falter
Golden grain will greet the morning,
Where her chariot descends
Shall be broken down the altar
Of the gods of dark disturbance.
Nevermore shall men know suffering,
Nevermore shall women wailing
Shake to grief the God of Heaven.
From the East and from the West,
From the cities in the valley,
From God’s dwelling on the mountain,
Little children, blow your trumpets!
From Ethiopia, groaning ’neath her heavy burdens I heard the music of the old slave songs.
I heard the wail of warriors, dusk brown, who grimly fought the fight of others in the trenches of Mars.
I heard the plea of blood-stained men of dusk and the crimson in my veins leapt furiously:
Forget not, O my brothers, how we fought
In No Man’s Land that peace might come again!
Forget not, O my brothers, how we gave
Red blood to save the freedom of the world!
We were not free, our tawny hands were tied;
But Belgium’s plight and Serbia’s woes we shared
Each rise of sun or setting of the moon.
So when the bugle blast had called us forth
We went not like the surly brute of yore,
But, as the Spartan, proud to give the world
The freedom that we never knew nor shared.
These chains, O brothers mine, have weighed us down
As Samson in the temple of the gods;
Unloosen them and let us breathe the air
That makes the goldenrod the flower of Christ;
For we have been with thee in No Man’s Land,
Through lake of fire and down to Hell itself;
And now we ask of thee our liberty,
Our freedom in the land of Stars and Stripes.
I am glad that the Prince of Peace is hovering over No Man’s Land.
4. Adolphus Johnson
From the Preface of Adolphus Johnson’s The Silver Chord I will take a paragraph that is more poetic and perfect in expression than any stanza in his book. Poetry, I think, is in him, but when he wrote these rhymes he was not yet sufficiently disciplined in expression. But this is how he can say a thing in prose:
“As the Goddess of Music takes down her lute, touches its silver chords, and sets the summer melodies of nature to words, so an inspiration comes to me in my profoundest slumbers and gently awakens my highest faculties to the finest thought and serenest contemplation herein expressed. Always remember that a book is your best friend when it compels you to think, disenthralls your reason, enkindles your hopes, vivifies your imagination, and makes easier all the burdens of your daily life.”
IV. William Stanley Braithwaite
The critical and the creative faculties rarely dwell together in harmony. One or the other finally predominates. In the case of Mr. Braithwaite it seems to be the critical faculty. He has preferred, it seems, to be America’s chief anthologist, encouraging others up rugged Parnassus, rather than himself to stand on the heights of song. Since 1913 he has edited a series of annual anthologies of American magazine verse, which he has provided with critical reviews of the verse output of the respective year. Of several anthologies of English verse also he is the editor. Three books of original verse stand to his credit: Lyrics of Life and Love (1904), The House of Falling Leaves (1908), and Sandy Star and Willie Gee (1922). These dates seem to prove that the creative impulse has waned.