THE DEATH OF
THE
SCHARNHORST
AND OTHER POEMS

by ARCH ALFRED McKILLEN

VANTAGE PRESS, Inc. NEW YORK

Copyright, 1952, by Arch Alfred McKillen
Manufactured in the United States of America

To
L.R.D., EM 1/c, U. S. Navy
Killed in action, Pearl Harbor, T. H.
December 7, 1941

Smile a little, lad,
For when you smile
There is no sleep.
How can there then be Death?

The Chicago Sun has kindly granted permission to
reprint the poem “The Litany of Pearl Harbor,”
which it published on December 7, 1942, in
June Provines’ column

CONTENTS

THE BIRD, THE LAD AND ME

The sky was touched with tints of morn,
A wind was in the trees,
I lay in bed awakened
By the murmur of the leaves.

I listened to the chirping
Of the first-awakened bird,
And, his leather heels a-clicking,
Some lad off to work I heard.

Then my thoughts to sleep returning
Wondered briefly, of us three,
What brave paths the fates have destined
For the bird, the lad and me.

THE WAR IN SPAIN

The war in Spain is over
Yet victory does not smile
For all the lads are murdered
Who might have laughed awhile.

And those who march triumphant
Are sadder than the dead
Because their hearts are shadowed,
Because their hands are red.

The war in Spain is over,
Yet other trumpets sound
And call the world’s young manhood
To another battleground.

IT RAINS TONIGHT

It rains tonight and wolf-winds howl.
His grave is not so deep,
But that the mournful Heavens
Upon his body weep;
They wet the mound of spaded earth
And through his coffin seep.

It rains tonight and wolf-winds howl,
And beaten hangs the tree,
And comfortless in Death he lies
Who comforted should be,
The guy who lost
And killed himself,
And never spoke to me!

WHILE DRUMS ARE ROLLING

Then you’ll go while drums are rolling,
And you’ll charge and make the bluff
That your heart is full of courage,
And you’ll curse the vilest stuff.

And you’ll see a lot of fellows
That you’ve never seen before,
And they may all be twenty
Or one or two years more.

And you’ll briefly talk together,
But of what you will not know.
There is so much that lads can say
When off to war they go.

And you’ll see a lot of fellows
When the battle roar is done,
Though all are dead upon the field
And will not know it’s won.

And the drums will roll on, rolling
Till some bullet finds your heart,
Then you’ll join the lads before you
And you’ll never have to part.

APOLLO

Beautiful pagan, possess me!
Over thy body my fingers I race.
Hot on thy cheeks are my kisses,
Naked with thee in a lovers’ embrace.

Passionate night,
And the scents from the orchard
Heavily here
In thy temple retreat.

Moonlight and marble,
Where pillars and shadows
Cast thee in twilight,

Beautiful statue,
Warm with the warmth
Of my body
Against thee,

I quiver,
I clasp thee
And fall at thy feet!

FOUNTAIN OF LOVELINESS

Fountain of loveliness, flowing
Deep in a wildwood of aspen and pine,
Swanlike forever upon thy calm surface
I drift in my nakedness, white in the sun.

O plunge me beneath,
Where thy depths are the greenest,
Cover my heart,
And the secret it keeps!

HIGHWAY NUMBER 66

We drove down the road
Like two bats out of Hell,
And before us the gates
At the rail crossing fell.

But we crashed through the splinters
And over the tracks,
And the train whistled madly
And screamed at our backs.

And we rode on in silence
With never a word,
And only the wind
And the motor were heard.

For a lad lay a-dying
That both of us knew,
And over the hills
To his bedside we flew.

He was dead when we got there,
And somehow I know
At that curve on the hill
With the valley below,

Where the crossing is laid,
And that monster of steel,
Not my hand, but his
Was guiding the wheel.

DIRGE FOR THE SQUALUS

We did not raise a submarine
From the ocean’s fathomed bed,
But twenty-six brave sailor lads
And all of them were dead.
We left them not beneath the sea;
We brought them sadly home,
To dedicate anew to Death,
Who nevermore shall roam.

Then, trumpeter, be firm your lip,
What though the tears may fall,
For muffled drums in velvet beat
Beneath your trumpet’s call.
And there are hearts in other lads
That swell with sorrow, too.
It need not matter that those hearts
Are not in navy blue.

And they who have escaped that tomb
Beneath the restless wave,
How deeply reverent they hold
The gift the dead men gave.
For twenty-six on them bestowed
The utmost they could give,
When twenty-six accepted death
That thirty-three might live.

The passage doorway dogged and tight,
On either side two groups of men.
In one compartment, mad with fright,
The thirty-three who’ll live again.
And on the other, maddened, too,
The water rising swiftly, high,
The twenty-six who looked and knew
They were the ones who had to die.

Then let some fitting tribute stand
When we from here are fled,
The living consecrated
By the consecrated dead!

ECHO CANYON

We ride to Echo Canyon,
He rides with me tonight,
No moon above to guide us,
The stars alone are bright.

The wind is in the sagebrush;
Somewhere a coyote calls;
The studded sky is briefly lit
As a flaming starlet falls.

We draw the rein together,
He trembles as I pass
To turn the horses free to graze
In the wild September grass.

And now I stretch beside him
Where he lies upon the ground,
And in all this lovely wilderness
We two alone are found.

FRAGMENT

He wandered through the darkened streets of night,
His massive cape a-blown with every wind.
He passed the strumpets flirting near the lamps,
And bowed to one—the one most infamous.
Then down familiar avenues he strolled,
And met, as he was sure to meet them there,
The lads who knew these lanes where men were bold.

How many a British soldier went to death
Beneath an Afric sun with some small gift,
A pocketknife inlaid with precious stones,
A case for cigarettes, or watch and chain,
Which had been given him by Oscar Wilde.

WE HANG UPON A SCAFFOLD

We hang upon a scaffold, lad,
The skeleton within
Is all the horror of the world,
Of virtue and of sin.

For he who knows no word of love,
Nor has his heart’s desire,
Must hang the same and die the same
As he who walks in fire.

Then hang upon your scaffold, lad
The mob will pierce your side,
Yet cry your triumph and your pain,
For man is crucified.

I LOOKED INTO YOUR EYES

I looked into your eyes and saw,
Or thought I saw, your love.
I tried to hide my own from you;
Not ever spoken of.

Yet, there was something I could feel
Electrify the air
When both of us were quite alone
And no one else was there.

And when at last I spoke my love,
And wanting yours for me,
I looked into your eyes and knew
Such love was not to be.

OF THIS GREAT VOICELESS LOVE

Of this great voiceless love of mine for you
There is no word to your heart out of mine
That may go winging through the whispering night.

Look only then for laughter in my letters
As I from day to day The Fool rehearse.
And if one blushing phrase too boldly written
Inscribes too fervently that I am yours,
Believe it only penmanship and style,
Or the careless informality of friends.

I WOULD HAVE BROUGHT YOU FIRE

I would have brought you fire for those nights
When you were cold and lonely and in doubt.
I would have brought you laughter for your tears
And given you new dreams to dream about.

But look away, your eyes are much too bright,
And sorrow has lent beauty to your face,
And should I cast aside this cloak of years
And live forever after in disgrace—
It is an old temptation sprung anew,
Yet must not be.
Ah, look at me and you shall see
I am, my love, as miserable as you!

TOO MUCH OF LIFE

Too much of life we spend alone,
Too many thoughts are ours to share,
Too little love we call our own
Though multitudes of men are there.

We’re strangers undetermined of
Where madness rules the lives of men,
Where he who dares design of love
Lives not to dare the deed again.

Beware of love! Be lonely, lad.
There is no death that can compare
Where loving hearts are crucified,
And multitudes of men are there.

LONE CELLO

Too much is incomplete. Let’s make an end
Of all the fond impossible dreams we’ve dreamed,
And when we part,
We were not meant to be
Too closely here companioned where the thorn
Of our red love transfixes joy’s brief crown.
The roses wither, time itself decays,
And log-lit embers fall to ashes when
The memory of the flame no longer glows.

We rode to Echo Canyon and your smile
Ran naked through the chambers of my heart.
Now lonely cellos must out parting sing
As when some cool green afternoon lets fall
From one high branch a few wind-weary leaves.
We grow too old too suddenly. Farewell!

APOCALYPSE

These are the seeds of the future,
The weary, the wretched, the slain.
These are the ghosts we shall harvest
In wars that shall come again.

These are the fields we have furrowed,
The dreams that have fallen apart,
And this is the plow of our madness,
The fear that has entered the heart.

Oh, how shall we welcome the reaper
When autumn shall fill the air,
When all the hope of the springtime
Is cut with the edge of despair?

THE OLD SEA WALL

Oh, you who go hurrying, worrying by
With never a cry or a call,
Saw you a lad who was standing here
On the crest of the old sea wall?

I saw him last night in the twilight
As the long low breakers rolled,
And across the bay in the chapel
An evening bell was tolled.

And we looked at each other a moment
And then from each other we turned,
But I read in his eyes of a longing
That a merciless world had spurned.

Oh, have you no answer to make me,
All you who go hastening past,
And though I am late will none tell me
Where he was standing last?

Like a whisper I hear from the sea wall,
Where the waters are troubled below,
A murmur of wavelets complaining,
And the fate of the lad I know.

Spin onward, old world, to your ending.
The hearts that you break and condemn
Will someday rise madly against you,
Reversing your judgment of them.

THE MIDNIGHT HORSEMAN

Ten thousand trees in the forest stood
And watched me as I passed,
Ten thousand trees that did not breathe
The wind that rode as fast,
Ten thousand leaves on every tree
Immovably aghast!

The road in the light of the moon was white,
The sky overhead was gray,
With a kind of a washed, half-tone effect
That took the night away,
Yet to right and left like the cloak of death
The deepest darkness lay.

The steed’s quick breath his hooves beat out
And silvered all the air,
On, on we sped like a thing of dread;
We were a ghostly pair.
We passed the somber stricken wood;
We found no shelter there.

I might have stayed and made pretense
That I was like the rest,
And laughed and drunk and sung their songs
As loudly as the best,
And never have given an answer to,
Not recognized my quest.

Farewell, and onward! Piteous flight
That leaves all friends behind,
That hastes from old familiar scenes
Where love was young and kind.
Oh, petrified Sylvania,
Where shall I others find?

LONELY HEART

Where do you wander far and afield,
Lonely heart? Lonely heart, where is your shield?

Where are your rings and where is your purse?
Love is expensive. It’s cheaper to curse.

Where are your garments? Look at your shoes.
Laughter or sorrow, which did you choose?

Walking the streets, nights that are cold,
Men who are wretched, men who are bold.

Rooms in the shadows, Love me tonight,
Love me and leave me before it grows bright.

Don’t heed the sob of a heartbreak within.
Hold me, and kiss me and teach me to sin!

Into the quicksand, hungry and dark,
Into the grotto, into the park,
Into the depths of the tomb, it is said,
Lovers have cast themselves, living and dead.

Lonely heart, lonely heart, walking alone,
Friendless and frantic, and turning to stone!

DREAMS

If you’ve a dream at heart, lad,
Some wilfull, noble plan,
Then cherish it within, lad,
And tell it to no man.

To friend and foe alike be dumb
On what you plan to do,
And keep that secret chamber locked
Until the work is through.

For I had dreams at heart, boy,
But talked them all away,
And now I needs must start, boy,
To dream anew today.

THE BUGLES CALLED

We lay together, he and I,
Upon a little hill,
Beneath a tree that sheltered us,
As trees so often will.

I touched his hand and felt him stir,
Expectancy of love!
And then my lips poured out my heart,
The things I told him of.

But when his heart began to speak
The bugles called to war
And he arose and left me there.
I never saw him more.

MORNING GUARD

Where the old road meets the new road
I stand the guard at morn,
Where one comes winding down the hill,
The other, through it torn.

October’s friendly fingers dipped
In every mellow shade
Have touched the leaves on all the trees
That stand within the glade.

In distant treetops I behold,
As I have seen in clouds,
The faces of my heroes
Or dead men in their shrouds.

The marching columns pass me by,
All sailor lads in blue.
And some will wink, and some will smile,
The way young fellows do.

And overhead the deepening sky
More bright and bluer flows,
While one lone fleecy, sheeplike cloud
Before the dog-wind goes.

The restless leaves like pounding surf
Sound breakers through the trees.
I strip of all reality
And drown myself in these.

WHEN KILMER WROTE OF TREES

When Kilmer wrote of trees he must have seen
The flowering catalpas all a-bloom,
And though about him guns spoke quick of death
And distant cannon thundered oaths of doom
He did not harken. What were all of these
To where beyond the trenches stood the trees?

WILD GEESE

Geese in the night flying low,
I hear the beat of their wings.
I wish that I could know
If they are calling to me.

Rain and a wintry wind
And trees that have shed their leaf.
If man at first had not sinned
Then Christ had not been born.

I WRITE TO YOU IN RED

I write to you in red, though not in blood,
For scarlet all my memories are dyed
With deep imaginings of what the past,
The past, the past—the unforgotten gone.
Ah, what it might have been designed upon!

I write to you in red because the flood
Of scarlet passion prisoned, long denied
Your love, yet in your bondage bonded fast,
Is freed to flow again, to stream,
And if it can, another love esteem.

But all too long your chains upon my heart
Have left a scar which testifies me dead
To all frivolity. I have no part
With lightsome love.
I write to you in red!

’TIS WINTER NOW

When spring again revisits earth,
And in the dark there comes a stirreth
Of seedlings bursting with the birth
Of summer’s future flowers,
Then will I sing you songs of love
And apple blossoms branched above
Shall know the dear devotion of
My poor poetic powers.

But wait till then—’tis winter now.
My thoughts in solitude are claimed.
Yet every wind shall hear my vow
Repeated through the hours,
It’s you alone I love,
And unashamed.

SONNET

Like solitary mountain peaks that list
And seem to sink in seas of restless grain
My love for you goes drowning through a mist
Of unrequited, unrecorded pain.

Oh, while there’s breath of life and passion still,
While yet remains a warmth, a failing flame
Within the fallen fortress of my will,
Give me a moment of your love to claim.

Come let me hold you close in hushed embrace
And crush you with the force of fierce desire,
Yet by that love no future plan to trace,
But just to love that moment to conspire.

I will not chain you, though enchained by thee;
The memory of your love will prison me.

THE TROPIC DAWN

The tropic dawn is beautiful at sea,
The clouds respond so readily to light.
Though overhead the stars continue bright
And scattered like a broken string of beads,
The eastward doors of night are opened wide
And light floods all the ocean floor inside.

The sun gets up, a painter out of bed,
To work again his canvas of the world,
To change black water into blue instead,
To tint what little frantic foam gets hurled
From two waves’ temperaments with ruby fire,
And make the sea a thing for man’s desire.

The day comes gently, working through the clouds,
Which light and burn with brilliance many-hued.
A sailor somewhere singing in the shrouds
With naked chest and feet and arms tatooed,
His sailor hat at angle on his head,
Salutes the day with thoughts of home and bed.

Oh, take me back, away from dawn and sea,
Oh, take me where the heart of me would be,
And in some blessed meadow set me free!

TWILIGHT

A little while ago that sky was gold,
And green that hill,
And blue the white-capped sea,
And I stood watching through these vines a ship
That moved, hull down, beyond,
Beneath the point.

I wonder now, before the stars are out
And long black clouds have filled the sunset sky,
Will I remember this at midnight hour:
How much I longed to be aboard that ship!

ECHO

Oh, weary heart, dependent for a song
On whether someone smiles or not at thee.
Oh, weary life, the loveless years are long
Yet deathless are the thoughts of him to me.

Within an ancient castle on the coast,
Where all the sea-dead sailor lads make moan,
I hear a melancholy cello sing
Its mad and mournful music to the moon,
A dirge of febrile beauty and despair
That fills the night with phantom, frantic song.

And phrase to phrase with sexual life responds
While fierce satyriasis, orchestrally,
Like nine symphonic horns unharmonized
Calls wildly through the hollows of my heart.

STAR COURSE

Into the darkening east we ride,
Wave upon wave we thrust aside,
White and defiant they seethe around.
What do we care! We’re homeward bound!

The sea beneath and the sky above,
These are the things a man can love,
Not when he leaves his native shore,
But when, far out of the sight of land,
He takes the wheel with a steady hand
To guide him home once more.

Then homeward, homeward be my course,
And constant be my star,
For I have wandered east and west
And I have wandered far,
Yet home and joy can only be
Where love and friendship are.

I’ve searched among the isles of men
The love I left behind,
Explored for friendships in the waste
Of broken, humankind,
And sought for beauty, sought for wit,
With naught of all to find.

In dens of laughter when I laughed
There came a hollow sound,
Yet every night I went again
To join the merry round,
And every night I knew that there
My heart would not be found.

Then homeward, homeward be my course,
And constant be my star,
And may I not have changed too much
Because I’ve wandered far.
Their love and laughter now I need
Who home and friendship are.

MEMORANDUM

Quick are the sands that bury a man
When he lays him down to die,
And quick are the hands if there be no sands
Of such fellows as you and I.

THE LITANY OF PEARL HARBOR

Harbor of morning,
Day has begun.
Hills of Oahu
Are waiting the sun.

Harbor of reveille,
Hammocks away.
Sailors are stirring
On ships in the bay.

Harbor of happiness,
Green and complete.
Day from the summit
Has smiled on the fleet.

Harbor deceived,
Death in the sky
Plummets to earth
Before colors shall fly.

Harbor surprised,
Torpedo and shell
Tear through the living,
Harbor of Hell!

Harbor of terror,
Harbor of death,
Harbor where fellows
Are choking for breath.

Harbor of drownings,
Thunderous sound.
Flooded compartments
Harbor the drowned.

Harbor of fire,
Harbor of flame,
Steel and humanity
Crumble the same.

Harbor determined,
Stations are manned.
Against the aggresor
The Harbor will stand.

Harbor of courage,
Gunners and guns
Speak of the worth
Of America’s sons.

Harbor of shipmates,
Sanctified flood,
Dying together,
Harbor of blood!

Harbor of wounds,
Beneath the attack,
Fighting the enemy,
Driving him back.

Harbor of smoke,
Blinding the sun.
Harbor contested,
Yet to be won.

Harbor of roaring,
Harbor ablaze,
Harbor of horror,
Harbor of praise.

Harbor resurgent,
Out of the gloom,
Self-resurrected
Out of the tomb.

Glorious Harbor,
Harbor of woe,
Harbor of vengeance
Blasting the foe.

Harbor of hours,
Endless, intense,
Harbor victorious,
Epic defense.

Dedicate Harbor,
Shipmates are there
Sleeping forever.
Harbor of prayer.

WE WERE WAITING THAT MORNING FOR COLORS

We were waiting that morning for colors,
And the bands were ready to play,
And a motor launch crossing the harbor
Was making its peaceful way,
But to war and the roar of its thunder
Old Glory went up that day.

The firmament split, and our gunners,
The bravest and handsomest crew,
Mid fiery bomb and shrapnel,
Oh, how to their stations they flew!

They fought like a legion of angels
Against the corruption of Hell,
In the blaze of a sacred vengeance
For shipmate lads who fell.

They fought off the vicious invader,
They cut him out of the air,
And he dropped through the smoke of the combat
To death and destruction there.

And our flag through the hours of battle
Flew on till the fighting was won.
Oh, beautiful, dedicate banner,
Our victory has only begun.

With such gunners as ours to defend you,
So bright and beloved in the sky,
While devotion and manhood attend you,
Brave standard, continue on high.
We were waiting that morning for colors.
Old Glory forever shall fly!

THE MOTOR LAUNCH CREW

Crossing the harbor, four lads in a motor launch
Saw the invader host drop from the sky,
Saw a torpedo’s white wake through the water
Make for the stern of a vessel nearby.

“Jump!” cried the coxswain, “Here is my duty,
Here is the logic for which I was born,
One life asunder to stop the torpedo
Ere from their bodies a hundred are torn!”

“Nay,” cried the bowman. “We’re in this together.
Glory to God and such men as ye are!”
Seizing a boat hook he jumped to the gunwhale,
As mad as old Ahab, as fixed as a star.

Oh, the wild race in the harbor that morning!
Prayed to his Diesel the kid engineer,
“Fail me not now, O my beautiful engine!”
Swiftly the launch and torpedo drew near.

Wake upon wake, the two masses converging,
Never a word by the sternman was said.
Oh, there was death in the harbor that morning!
Under the keel the torpedo shaft fled.

Then with the force of a mighty harpooner,
Melville’s dread hero, such bowman was he,
Then from his arm the long boat hook went plunging
Faster than death and destruction could flee.

Into the blades of the whirling propeller,
Following after, the iron hook sank,
Changing the mark where the war head exploded,
Tumbling the rocks and a tree from the bank.

Then all around them the harbor was seething,
Concussion and fire and shouting and fear,
And they, too, are dead. Dead that motor launch coxswain,
That bowman, and sternman and kid engineer!

TO THE GARRISON AT WAKE

A little while, O sacramental dead,
Unvisited a little while yet be.
You shall not lie forgotten nor alone
While ships there are, and planes, and guns, and men.
For now, more adamant, more fierce, more keen,
In permanence and purpose fixed as stars,
To finite manhood hereby we annex
The infinite almightiness of God,
And we shall be His judgment! Woe to that
Ambitious offal sprung from Hell’s abyss
Which catastrophically we shall destroy,
Annihilate, forever make extinct.

No evil feet, where from your chaliced hearts
The precious blood has spilled, shall tread that earth,
That holy, transubstantiated isle
Whose very soil is body, soul, and blood
Of restless lads who loved America!
On who so tread shall light and darkness pounce,
Vast winged horrors plummeting, destroy,
Consuming brilliance, glut-engulfing night,
Like twin devourers, feed there on them!

Ye ancient dead, who fell with Greece or Rome,
Or in the name of Allah and his prophet,
Who fell through all the cycled years of war,
Through plague, disaster, fell in civil strife,
Through revolution, famine, flood and fire,
Apocalyptic woe or freezing night,
Ye ancient dead, to whom heroic stance
And unsurrendered dignity still cling,
Receive who come among you now like gods,
Four hundred splendid, handsome, golden lads.
To them extend that comradship of men
Who live the rugged military life,
Who smile that full, good-natured kind of smile,
Most boyishly unstudied, most beloved,
Who know each other’s thoughts and wants and hopes,
Who know what prayers are said and what forgot,
Who know that greatest, crucifying love
Where friends for friends on strange new crosses die!

And you, O Seraph Outpost Garrison,
Who side by side heroically made stand,
No quarter given, none received, none asked,
Who fought those vicious legions in the three
Old elemental spheres, and of the fourth,
Almost invincible to flame and death,
Stood firmly placed before, beneath the attack
Like Milton’s epic host against all Hell,
New rest, brave lads, in consecrated sleep,
While lonely trumpets sing through muffled drums
A requiem and threnody of grief.

Ah, great Cecilia, Bach, and Handel blind,
Those last full-throated notes to swell from earth,
That trumpet song of loneliness and night,
Give it a contrapuntal theme beneath,
Whose pedal harmonies orchestrally
Shall hint of resurrection, while the pipes
And organ-pillar’d flutes resound the mode
To which the ancient dead have matched and sung.

Then light the strings until they burn as bright
And numberless as candles round a shrine,
Then start the rolling drums, and set the brass
Cannonically recalling one another,
And let the reeds’ ancestral wisdom speak,
What though at first the grave bassoons must weep
Their melancholy, febrile lamentation.
Unsheathe the horns and cut the harmonic knot.
Let full grand orchestra astound the void
With soaring fugue and metric tympani.

And in this last, let herald trumpets sing
While bright kid-trumpeteers who fell at Pearl
Resound a call to quarters there beyond!

CORREGIDOR AND CALVARY

Corregidor and Calvary,
And Christ again is crucified,
And all the lovely lads who died
Are His this day in Paradise.

They hung upon a wretched cross,
We watched them day by day,
And wondered how such men could live
Who hung in such a way,
Who hung in thorns of screeching steel
And had no time to pray.

We knew that soon the lads must die,
And yet they battled death
Unmindful of his awful wings
And black, consuming breath,
Unmindful when he roared at them
Or whispered what he saith.

For shattered men will die in pain,
And shaken men will weep,
And there are things which blast the blood
And through the body creep,
And men will not lie down at night
Afeared that they will sleep.

Afeared they would too deeply sleep,
That battered hearts would burst;
And though each knew that he must die,
The dawn must beckon first,
And each must feel again the grip
Of loneliness and thirst.

For none would die alone, apart,
By twos and twelves they fell,
And if a man could walk he worked,
He loaded shot and shell,
For none would die alone, apart,
Within a narrow cell.

Within a narrow cell at last
All men someday must lie,
But while their blood was in the heart
And light within the eye,
They would not leave the stand they took
Beneath the open sky.

They would not leave us, watching them,
Examples of defeat,
That when we come to look on death,
And though our ranks deplete,
Somehow we must think back to them,
The way they met it, meet!

Alas, Love, I would thou couldst as well
defende thy selfe as thou canst offende others
—SIR PHILIP SIDNEY

When he and I had met I knew
The way he smiled at me
That we’d become the best of pals
Two guys could ever be.

For night and day he filled my thoughts,
I talked of only him,
But there were eyes which watched us both,
Suspicious, cold, and dim.

Suspicious eyes and little mouths
That each reporting made
Of all the times we went to swim
Or rested in the shade.

They told of how we’d taken horse
To ride about the lea,
And how two lonely mounts were seen
Beneath a rugged tree.

They gossiped how instead of church
We went to watch the sun
Come charging over purple hills
To see the day begun,
And how we came not home again
Until that day was done.

And he and I went off to war,
Yet still their evil fed.
He never knew, not ever will,
The wretched things they said,
For he was on Corregidor,
And now the lad is dead.

TO THE MARINES

There’s only one banner says “Semper Fidelis!”
There’s only one flag we defend,
There’s only one heart and one mind and one body
In all of our battles we send.

We fought and we bled on Bataan and Corregidor,
Oh, how we held them at Wake!
And waited in vain for more men and munitions
With all the Pacific at stake.

The sleepers were many, but we were the few
Who wakened the quickest and fought,
And while readjustment and training were planned,
We did what we could, what we ought.

Our dead are at Henderson. Think you they rest?
They fight even now at our side,
Refusing to enter the realms of the blest
Until we have beaten the tide!

THE LADS WHO GO BELOW

The enemy’s reported,
And he’d like to see the show,
But he handles ammunition
So he’s got to go below.

And he’s ready on his station,
Every nerve alert and keen,
With a group of grim-faced sailors
In a lower magazine.

They can feel the ship’s vibrations
When the broadside salvos go,
And the shatter of the turrets
When they batter at the foe.

“Send ’em up and keep ’em coming!
Man the phones and man the hoist!”
Sweat and curse and pass the powder
Till the very deck is moist.

But the enemy is daring,
And his planes get through the screen,
A torpedo rips the blister
Just above the magazine.

Water fills the whole compartment,
In another fires rage,
But the guns still get their powder
And the enemy engage.

Trapped below, the lads are living,
And the hungry hoist they feed,
Though the first concussion stunned them
And their deafened ears must bleed.

Other hits, the foeman scoring,
Thunderous roars of flaming sheen,
“Save the ship from an explosion,
Flood the lower magazine!”

Lads, farewell! The air was dirty
With a lot of fume and smoke,
It’s as bad, lads, when you smother
As on briny water choke.

But the enemy’s defeated,
Thanks to you who’ll never know,
You who handled ammunition
And who had to go below!

THE ROAD TO HIGH WOOD

It was on the road to High Wood
That we found him lying dead,
The soldier boy in khaki
With the broken, battered head.

No more at dawn or sunset
Will he hear the bugle note,
Nor thrill to taps ascending
From a trumpet’s silver throat.

It was on the road to High Wood
Where the maple leaves were burned
That the lad went out at morning
And nevermore returned.

There are many roads to High Wood,
There are many roads to Hell,
And the fields of wheat are rotten
Where a thousand heroes fell.

NIGHT WATCH

His ship is on the ocean
But the sailor lad’s ashore,
And deeply, deeply sleeping,
He’ll waken nevermore.

We buried him atop the hill
That overlooks the bay,
And one there was who walked from there
With slower steps away.

And one there is on watch at night
Who wears the strangest smile,
Because he sees a specter lad
And talks with him awhile.

Across the world he comes to me,
And far horizons dim,
And I await the day when I,
Instead, shall go to him.

Then we will sail on all the seas
That poets can recite,
And stand beside another lad,
And watch with him at night.

THE SOLDIER AND THE SAMOVAR

They shot him as he left the house
And stripped him in the snow
But still he held the samovar
And would not let it go.

Who knows from what fine home he came
With afternoons at tea?
If I had been that lonely lad,
They would have shot at me.

For I’d have run as desperately
Behind some log to settle,
And sit me down beside my theft,
The big, old Russian kettle.

But dead he lies; the snow piles high
And winter fills the land,
And only spring will move the thing
And take it from his hand.

NOCTURNE

Beside you while you slumbered, lad,
My restless heart had lain
Through all the hours of the night
Aware of love and pain.

Aware of love and morning’s light
And eyes that must betray
When someday you should look in mine
Then ever look away.

I’ll come to where you slumber, lad,
If death shall mark me not
And say the prayer that now I pray,
And thought I had forgot.

THE SWING

The crooked swing that hung beneath
The crooked willow tree
Brought all his laughter to my ears
When school was out at three.

When later years and afternoons
Their symphony had sung
Beneath the crooked willow tree
An idle swing had hung.

Then war came on. There’s always war
To readjust the past,
And he got leave and I got leave,
And home we came at last.

But I alone return tonight
And naught to battle bring,
For he is dead beneath the tree
And broken hangs the swing.

SOMEWHERE ON LEAVE

Unfurrowed field and lonely plow,
The laughing lad has fled,
Sweet-throated, unaccompanied lark,
The laughing lad is dead.

I found him on a barren tract,
Stretched out and lying still,
And on his lips the blood had dried,
And on the blasted hill.

Oh, that was far from hills like these,
A hundred thousand guns
Are booming, bursting in his ears
And he does not hear a one.

A soldier’s thoughts and a soldier’s laugh
And a soldier’s boyish grin
Are dead on a lonely battlefield,
And the war is yet to win.

THE SENTRY

The night wind hums a lullaby,
A watchful bivouac keep.
The guns are silent now awhile,
Yet, soldier, do not sleep.
Though weary with the force of night,
And weary with the war,
Sleep not, be watchful, quick alert,
Or sleep forever more.

But words are nought to tired eyes,
And what are words of praise
To minds that long to dream a bit
Of other, saner days.
He sleeps, unmindful of his oath,
And then they find him dead,
The other soldier stands his guard
Who shot him through the head.

The night wind hums a lullaby,
A watchful bivouac keep.
The guns are silent now awhile,
Yet, soldier, do not sleep!

I WATCHED HIM IN THE TOURNAMENT

I watched him in the tournament,
And when he bowled a line
I saw the way his eyes would smile
When things were going fine.

I saw the lonely little frown
That made him look so grave
And older than his twenty years
When things would not behave.

And then we did not meet again;
I heard that he was dead.
The savage sea, not you nor me,
Knows where he is instead.

SOUTH PACIFIC

How often had the sun been red
The sky as deep a blue
Behind long, tired stretched-out clouds
When I was then with you.

How often had the evening sea
Which you so much admired
With archipelagos of foam
Been bright and ruby-fired.

Oh, all these things tonight are here
Upon a distant sea,
But I have found no other one
To stand and watch with me.

DECK-APE

He was just a little deck-ape
With a happy kind of smile,
And a line of boyish chatter
That could make you laugh awhile.

He was just a little deck-ape
Always ready with a hand
When a shipmate needed someone
Who would help or understand.

He was just a little deck-ape,
And we buried him at sea
When he stopped a strafer’s bullet
That was meant, I think, for me.

SAILOR BOY

Upon a railway station bench he lies,
Majestic image of a heathen god
Cast down unknown centuries of time,
And on his back for all the world to see.

He sleeps the silence of unspoken love,
A smile upon his lips, his cheeks aglow
With all the fire of his rhythmic heart
Betraying there the secret of his dream.

And breath and life are one where fills his chest,
And where the texture of his thighs impress
The pagan phallic frontlet in his loins
He testifies unknowingly to youth.

Unstirring in the rapture of his thoughts
He slumbers in the wakeful watch
Of envy and desire!

AVENGE

Avenge! Avenge! Great sword of God,
The massacre of these
Ten thousand Polish soldier lads,
All hung from gallows’ trees.

Send down Thy angels armed with fire,
Send down Thy fiery lake,
Avenge the tortured, fiercely marred,
And killed for killing’s sake,
Brave prisoners of Guam, Bataan, Corregidor, and Wake!

O hasten, hasten, wrath of God!
Five times five thousand slain
In one red week of murderous lust,
New Christs, new cross, new pain!

Our patience and our mercy wait
While they who slaughter don’t.
Annihilate! Annihilate!
We’ll do it if You won’t!

THE CROSSING OF THE RHINE

And what is the talk we make tonight
As we fill our glasses amber bright
And drink to the guys who are in the fight,
The crossing of the Rhine.

And the song we sing is a simple thing
Of a tune that moves with a martial swing
To a set of words that have caught the ring,
The crossing of the Rhine.

We laugh and we jest, and we wish them well,
And then we remember the lads who fell
By blasted bridge and screaming shell,
The crossing of the Rhine.