The hours that feed on war go heavy-hearted,
Death is no fare wherewith to make hearts fain.
Oh, we are sick to find that they who started
With glamour in their eyes came not again.
O day, be long and heavy if you will,
But on our hopes set not a bitter heel.
For tiny hopes like tiny flowers of Spring
Will come, though death and ruin hold the land,
Though storms may roar they may not break the wing
Of the earthed lark whose song is ever bland.
Fell year unpitiful, slow days of scorn,
Your kind shall die, and sweeter days be born.
A. Victor Ratcliffe
THE BATTLEFIELD
Around no fire the soldiers sleep to-night,
But lie a-wearied on the ice-bound field,
With cloaks wrapt round their sleeping forms, to shield
Them from the northern winds. Ere comes the light
Of morn brave men must arm, stern foes to fight.
The sentry stands, his limbs with cold congealed;
His head a-nod with sleep; he cannot yield,
Though sleep and snow in deadly force unite.
Amongst the sleepers lies the Boy awake,
And wide-eyed plans brave glories that transcend
The deeds of heroes dead; then dreams o'ertake
His tired-out brain, and lofty fancies blend
To one grand theme, and through all barriers break
To guard from hurt his faithful sleeping friend.
Sydney Oswald
"ON LES AURA!"
SOLDAT JACQUES BONHOMME LOQUITUR:
See you that stretch of shell-torn mud spotted with
pools of mire,
Crossed by a burst abandoned trench and tortured
strands of wire,
Where splintered pickets reel and sag and leprous
trench-rats play,
That scour the Devil's hunting-ground to seek their
carrion prey?
That is the field my father loved, the field that once
was mine,
The land I nursed for my child's child as my fathers
did long syne.