Reflections

I 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 nations's past with blazing sods! A kingdom's waste! a people's homeless woe! Man's broken Word, and voilated gods!                 II 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 ociean, nations till the soil, Genius be born and generations die, Orient and Occident together toil, Ere such a mighty work man rears on high!                 III Hearken, the feet of the Destroyer tread The wine-press of the nations; fast the blood Pours from the side of Europe; in the flood On the septentrional watershed The rivers of fair France are running red! England, the mother-aerie 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 you close, O Flower of Christendom!                 IV 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.                 V I pray for peace; yet peace is but a prayer. How many wars have been in my brief years! All races and all faiths, both hemispheres, My eyes have seen embattled everywhere The wide earth through; yet do I not despair Of peace, that slowly through far ages nears; Though not to me the golden morn appears, My faith is perfect in time's issue fair. For man doth build on an eternal scale, And his ideals are framed of hope deferred; The millennium came not; yet Christ did not fail, Though ever unaccomplished is His word; Him Prince of Peace, though unenthroned, we hail, Supreme when in all bosoms He be heard.                 VI This is my faith, and my mind's heritage, Wherein I toil, though in a lonely pace, Who yet world-wide survey the human race Unequal from wild nature disengage Body and soul, and life's old strife assuage; Still must abide, till heaven perfect its grace, And love grown wisdom sweeten in man's face, Alike the Christian and the heathen rage. The tutelary genius of mankind Ripens by slow degrees the final State, That in the soul shall its foundations find And only in victorious love grow great; Patient the heart must be, humble the mind, That doth the greater births of time await!                 VII Whence not unmoved I see the nations form From Dover to the fountains of the Rhine, A hundred leagues, the scarlet battle-line, And by the Vistula great armies swarm, A vaster flood; rather my breast grows warm, Seeing all peoples of the earth combine Under one standard, with one countersign, Grown brothers in the universal storm. And never through the wide world yet there rang A mightier summons! O Thou who from the side Of Athens and the loins fo Cæsar sprang, Strike, Europe, with half the coming world allied For those ideals for which, since Homer sang, The hosts of thirty centuries have died.

George Edward Woodberry

O living pictures of the dead, O songs without a sound, O fellowship whose phantom tread Hallows a phantom ground -- How in a gleam have these revealed The faith we had not found. We have sought God in a cloudy Heaven, We have passed by God on earth: His seven sins and his sorrows seven, His wayworn mood and mirth, Like a ragged cloak have hid from us The secret of his birth. Brother of men, when now I see The lads go forth in line, Thou knowest my heart is hungry in me As for thy bread and wine; Thou knowest my heart is bowed in me To take their death for mine.

Henry Newbolt

Now is the midnight of the nations: dark Even as death, beside her blood-dark seas, Earth, like a mother in birth agonies, Screams in her travail, and the planets hark Her million-throated terror. Naked, stark, Her torso writhes enormous, and her knees Shudder against the shadowed Pleiades, Wrenching the night's imponderable arc. Christ! What shall be delivered to the morn Out of these pangs, if ever indeed another Morn shall succeed this night, or this vast mother Survive to know the blood-spent offspring, torn From her racked flesh? --What spendour from the smother? What new-wing'd world, or mangled god still-born?

Percy McKaye

What of the faith and fire within us Men who march away Ere the barn-cocks say Night is growing gray, To hazards whence no tears can win us; What of the faith and fire within us Men who march away! Is it a purblind prank, O think you, Friend with the musing eye Who watch us stepping by, With doubt and dolorous sigh? Can much pondering so hoodwink you? Is it a purblind prank, O think you, Friend with the musing eye? Nay. We see well what we are doing, Though some may not see -- Dalliers as they be -- England's need are we; Her distress would leave us rueing: Nay. We well see what we are doing, Though some may not see! In our heart of hearts believing Victory crowns the just, And that braggarts must Surely bite the dust, Press we to the field ungrieving, In our heart of hearts believing Victory crowns the just. Hence the faith and fire within us Men who march away Ere the barn-cocks say Night is growing gray, To hazards whence no tears can win us; Hence the faith and fire within us Men who march away.

Thomas Hardy September 5, 1914

We willed it not. We have not lived in hate, Loveing too well the shires of England thrown From sea to sea to covet your estate, Or wish one flight of fortune from your throne. We had grown proud because the nations stood Hoping together against the calumny That, tortured of its old barbarian blood, Barbarian still the heart of man should be. Builders there are who name you overlord, Building with us the citadels of light, Who hold as we this chartered sin abhorred, And cry you risen Cæsar of the Night. Beethoven speaks with Milton on this day, And Shakespeare's word with Goethe's beats the sky, In witness of the birthright you betray, In witness of the vision you deny. We love the hearth, the quiet hills, the song, The friendly gossip come from every land; And very peace were now a nameless wrong -- You thrust this bitter quarrel to our hand. For this your pride the tragic armies go, And the grim navies watch long the seas; You trade in death, you mock at life, you throw To God the tumult of your blasphemies. You rob us of our live-right. It is said. In treason ot the world you are enthroned. We rise, and, by the yet ungathered dead, Not lightly shall the treason be atoned.

John Drinkwater September 5, 1914

Now slowly sinks the day-long labouring Sun Behind the tranquil trees and old church-tower; And we who watch him know our day is done; For us too comes the evening -- and the hour. The sunbeams slanting through those ancient trees, The sunlit lichens burning on the byre, The lark descending,and the homing bees, Proclaim the sweet relief all things desire. Golden the river brims beneath the west, And holy peace to all the world is given; The songless stockdove preens her ruddied breast; The blue smoke windeth like a prayer to heaven. * O old, old England, land of golden peace, Thy fields are spun with gossameres of gold, And golden garners gather thy increase, And plenty crowns thy loveliness untold. By sunlight or by starlight ever thou Art excellent in beauty manifold: The still star victory ever gems thy brow; Age cannot age thee, ages make thee old. Thy beauty brightens with the evening sun Across the long-lit meads and distant spire: So sleep thou well -- like his thy labour done; Rest in thy glory as he rests in fire. * But even in this hour of soft repose A gentle sadness chides us like a friend -- The sorrow of the joy that overflows, The burden of the beauty that must end. And from the fading sunset comes a cry, And in the twilight voices wailing past, Like wild-swans calling, "When we rest we die, And woe to them that linger and are last"; And as the Sun sinks, sudden in heav'n new born There shines an armèd Angel like a Star, Who cries above the darkling world in scorn, "God comes in Judgment. Learn ye what ye are." * * From fire to umber fades the sunset-gold, From umber into silver and twilight; The infant flowers their orisons have told And turn together folded for a night; The garden urns are black against the eve; The white moth flitters through the fragrant glooms; How beautiful the heav'ns! -- But yet we grieve And wander restless from the lighted rooms. For through the world to-night a murmur thrills As at some new-born prodigy of time -- Peace dies like twilight bleeding on the hills, And Darkness creeps to hide the hateful crime. The Death of Peace Art thou no more, O Maiden Heaven-born, O Peace, bright Angel of the windless morn? Who comest down to bless our furrow'd fields, Or stand like Beauty smiling 'mid the corn: Mistress of mirth and ease and summer dreams, Who lingerest among the woods and streams, To help us heap the harvest 'neath the moon, And homeward laughing lead the lumb'ring teams: Who teaches to our children thy wise lore; Who keepest full the goodman's golden store; Who crownest Life with plenty, Death with flow'rs; Peace, Queen of Kindness -- but of earth, no more. * Not thine but ours the fault, thy care was vain; For this that we have done be ours the pain; Thou gavest much, as He who gave us all, And as we slew Him for it thou art slain. Heav'n left to men the moulding of their fate: To live as wolves or pile the pillar'd State -- Like boars and bears to grunt and growl in mire, Or dwell aloft, effulgent gods, elate. Thou liftedst us: we slew and with thee fell -- From golden thrones of wisdom seeping fell. Fate rends the chaplets from our feeble brows; The spires of Heaven fade in fogs of hell. * * She faints, she falls; her dying eyes are dim; Her fingers play with those bright buds she bore To please us, but that she can bring no more; An dying yet she smiles -- as Christ on him Who slew Him slain. Her eyes so beauteous Are lit with tears shed -- not for herself but for us. The gentle Beings of the hearth and home; The lovely Dryads of her aislèd woods; The Angels that do dwell in solitudes Where she dwelleth; and joyous Spirits that roam To bless her bleating flocks and fruitful lands; Are gather'd there to weep, and kiss her dying hands. "Look, look," they cry, "she is not dead, she breathes! And we have staunched the damnèd wound and deep, The cavern-carven wound. She doth but sleep And will awake. Bring wine, and new-wound wreths Wherewith to crown awaking her dear head, And make her Queen again." -- But no, for Peace was dead. * And then there came black Lords; and Dwarfs obscene With lavish tongues; and Trolls; and treacherous Things Like loose-lipp'd Councillors and cruel Kings Who sharpen lies and daggers subterrene: And flashed their evil eyes and weeping cried, "We ruled the world for Peace. By her own hand she died." * In secret he made sharp the bitter blade, And poison'd it with bane of lies and drew, And stabb'd -- O God! the Cruel Cripple slew; And cowards fled or lent him trembling aid. She fell and died -- in all the tale of time The direst deed e'er done, the most accursèd crime.

Ronald Ross

Further and further we leave the scene Of war -- and of England's care; I try to keep my mind serene -- But my heart stays there; For a distant song of pain and wrong My spirit doth deep confuse, And I sit all day on the deck, and long -- And long for news! I seem to see them in battle-line -- Heroes with hearts of gold, But of their victory a sign The Fates withhold; And the hours too tardy-footed pass, The voiceless hush grows dense 'Mid the imaginings, alas! That feed suspense. Oh, might I lie on the wind, or fly In the wilful sea-bird's track, Would I hurry on, with a homesick cry -- Or hasten back?

Florence Earle Coates

Burned from the ore's rejected dross, The iron whitens in the heat. With plangent strokes of pain and loss The hammers on the iron beat. Searched by the fire, through death and dole We feel the iron in our soul. O dreadful Forge! if torn and bruised The heart, more urgent comes our cry Not be spared but to be used, Brain, sinew, and spirit, before we die. Beat out the iron, edge it keen, And shape us to the end we mean!

Laurence Binyon

Come, Death, I'd have a word with thee; And thou, poor Innocency; And Love -- a lad with broken wing; Apnd Pity, too; The Fool shall sing to you, As Fools will sing. Ay, music hath small sense, And a tune's soon told, And Earth is old, And my poor wits are dense; Yet have I secrets, -- dar, my dear, To breathe you all: Come near. And lest some hideous listener tells, I'll ring my bells. They're all at war! Yes, yes, their bodies go 'Neath burning sun and icy star To chaunted songs of woe, Dragging cold cannon through a mud Of rain and blood; The new moon glinting hard on eyes Wide with insanities. Hush! . . . I use words I hardly know the meaning of; And the mute birds Are glancing at Love! From out their shade of leaf and flower, Trembling at treacheries Which even in noonday cower. Heed, heed not what I said Of frenzied hosts of men, More fools than I, On envy, hatred fed, Who kill, and die -- Spake I not plainly, then? Yet Pity whispered, "Why?" Thou silly thing, off to thy daisies go. Mine was not news for child to know, And Death -- no ears hath. He hath supped where creep Eyeless worms in hush of sleep; Yet, when he smiles, the hand he draws Athwart his grinning jaws Faintly their thin bones rattle, and . . . There, there; Hearken how my bells in the air Drive away care! . . . Nay, but a dream I had Of a world all mad. Not a simple happy mad like me, Who am mad like an empty scene Of water and willow tree, Where the wind hath been; But that foul Satan-mad, Who rots in his own head, And counts the dead, Not honest one -- and two -- But for the ghosts they were, Brave, faithful, true, When, heads in air, In Earth's clear green and blue Heaven they did share With Beauty who bade them there. . . . There, now! he goes -- Old Bones; I've wearied him. Ay, and the light doth dim, And asleep's the rose, And tired Innocence In dreams is hence. . . Come, Love, my lad, Nodding that drawsy head, 'T is time thy prayers were said!

Walter da la Mare

Before I knew, the Dawn was on the road, Close at my side, so silently he came Nor gave a sign of salutation, save To touch with light my sleeve and make the way Appear as if a shining countenance Had looked on it. Strange was this radiant Youth, As I, to these fair, fertile parts of France, Where Cæsar with his legions once passed. And where the Kaiser's Uhlans yet would pass Or e'er another moon should cope with clouds For mastery of these same fields. -- To-night (And but month has gone since I walked there) Well might the Kaiser write, as Cæsar wrote, In his new Commentaries on a Gallic war, "Fortissimi Belgæ" -- A moon ago! Who would have then divined that dead would lie Like swaths of grain beneath the harvest moon Upon these lands the ancient Belgæ held, From Normandy beyond renowned Liège! But it was out of that dread August night From which all Europe woke to war, that we, This beautiful Dawn-Youth, and I, had come, He from afar. Beyond grim Petrograd He'd waked the moujik from his peaceful dreams, Bid the muezzin call to morning prayer Where minarets rise o'er the Golden Horn, And driven shadows from the Prussian march To lie beneath the lindens of the stadt. Softly he'd stirred the bells to ring at Rheims, He'd knocked at high Montmartre, hardly asleep, Heard the sweet carillon of doomed Louvain, Boylike, had tarried for a moment's play Amid the traceries of Amiens, And then was hast'ning on the road to Dieppe, Where he o'er took me drowsy from the hours Through which I'd walked, with no companions else Than ghostly kilometer posts that stood As sentinels of space along the way. -- Often, in doubt, I'd paused to question one, With nervous hands, as they who read Moon-type; And more than once I'd caught a moment's sleep Beside the highway, in the dripping grass, While one of these white sentinels stood guard, Knowing me for a friend, who loves the road, And best of all by night, when wheels do sleep And stars alone do walk abroad. -- But once Three watchful shadows, deeper than the dark, Laid hands on me and searched me for the marks Of traitor or of spy, only to find Over my heart the badge of loyalty. -- With wish for bon voyage they have me o'er To the white guards who led me on again. The Dawn o'ertook me and with magic speech Made me forget the night as we strode on. Where'er he looked a miracle was wrought: A tree grew from the darkness at a glance; A hut was thatched; a new château was reared Of stone, as weathered as the church at Cæn; Gray blooms were coloured suddenly in red; A flag was flung across the eastern sky. -- Nearer at hand, he made me then aware Of peasant women bending in the fields, Cradling and gleaning by the first scant light, Their sons and husbands somewhere o'er the edge Of these green-golden fields which they had sowed, But will not reap, -- out somewhere on the march, God but knows where and if they come again. One fallow field he pointed out to me Where but the day before a peasant ploughed, Dreaming of next year's fruit, and there his plough stood now mid-field, his horses commandeered, A monstrous sable crow perched on the beam. Before I knew, the Dawn was on the road, Far from my side, so silently he went, Catching his golden helmet as he ran, And hast'ning on along the dun straight way, Where old men's sabots now began to clack And withered women, knitting, led their cows, On, on to call the men of Kitchener Down to their coasts, -- I shouting after him: "O Dawn, would you had let the world sleep on Till all its armament were turned to rust, Nor waked it to this day of hideous hate, Of man's red murder and of woman's woe!" Famished and lame, I came at last to Dieppe, But Dawn had made his way across the sea, And, as I climbed with heavy feet the cliff, Was even then upon the sky-built towers Of that great capital where nations all, Teuton, Italian, Gallic, English, Slav, Forget long hates in one consummate faith.

John Finley

'Twas in the piping time of peace We trod the sacred soil of Greece, Nor thought, where the Illissus runs, Of Teuton craft or Teuton guns; Nor dreamt that, ere the year was spent, Their iron challenge insolent Would round the world's horizons pour, From Europe to the Australian shore. The tides of war had ebb'd away From Trachis and Thermopylæ Long centuries had come and gone Since that fierce day at Marathon; Freedom was firmly based, and we Wall'd by our own encircling sea; The ancient passions dead, and men Battl'd with ledger and with pen. So seem'd it, but to them alone The wisdom of the gods is known; Lest freedom's price decline, from far Zeus hurl'd the thunderbolt of war. And so once more the Persian steel The armies of the Greeks must feel, And once again a Xerxes know The virtue of a Spartan foe. Thus may the cloudy fates unroll'd Retrace the starry circles old, And the recurrent heavens decree A Periclean dynasty.

W. Macneile Dixon

"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 see 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

Thou, whose deep ways are in the sea, Whose footsteps are not known, To-night a world that turned from Thee Is waiting -- at Thy Throne. The towering Babels that we raised Where scoffing sophists brawl, The little Antichrists we praised -- The night is on them all. The fool hath said . . . The fool hath said . .. And we, who deemed him wise, We who believed that Thou wast dead, How should we seek Thine eyes? How should we seek to Thee for power Who scorned Thee yesterday? How should we kneel, in this dread hour? Lord, teach us how to pray! Grant us the single heart, once more, That mocks no sacred thing, The Sword of Truth our fathers wore When Thou wast Lord and King. Let darkness unto darkness tell Our deep unspoken prayer, For, while our souls in darkness dwell, We know that Thou art there.

Alfred Noyes

When battles were fought With a chivalrous sense of should and ought, In spirit men said, "End we quick or dead, Honour is some reward! Let us fight fair -- for our own best or worst; So, Gentlemen of the Guard, Fire first!" In the open they stood, Man to man in his knightlihood: They would not deign To profit by a stain On the honourable rules, Knowing that practise perfidy no man durst Who in the heroic schools      Was nurst. But now, behold, what Is war with those where honour is not! Rama laments Its dead innocents; Herod howls: "Sly slaughter Rules now! Let us, by modes once called accurst, Overhead, under water,      Stab first."

Thomas Hardy

Led by Wilhelm, as you tell, God has done extremely well; You with patronizing nod Show that you approve of God. Kaiser, face a question new -- This -- does God approve of you? Broken pledges, treaties torn, Your first page of war adorn; We on fouler things must look Who read further in that book, Where you did in time of war All that you in peace forswore, Where you, barbarously wise, Bade your soldiers terrorize. Where you made -- the deed was fine -- Women screen your firing line. Villages burned down to dust, Torture, murder, bestial lust, Filth too foul for printer's ink, Crime from which the ape would shrink -- Strange the offereings that you press On the God of Righteousness! Kaiser, when you'd decorate Sons or friends who serve your State, Not that Iron Cross bestow, But a cross of wood, and so -- So remind the world that you Have made Calvary anew. Kaiser, when you'd kneel in prayer Look upon your hands, and there Let that deep and awful stain From the blood of children slain Burn your very soul with shame, Till you dare not breathe that Name That now you glibly advertise -- God as one of your allies. Impious braggart, you forget: God is not your conscript yet; You shall learn in dumb amaze That His ways are not your ways, That the mire through which you trod Is not the high white road of God. To Whom, whichever way the comat rolls, We, fighting to the end, commend our souls.

Barry Pain

The horror-haunted Belgian plains riven by shot and shell Are strewn with her undaunted sons who stayed the jaws of hell. In every sunny vale of France death is the countersign. The purest blood in Britain's veins is being poured like wine. Far, far across the crimsoned map the impassioned armies sweep. Destruction flashes down the sky and penetrates the deep. The Dreadnought knows the silent dread, and seas incarnadine Attest the carnival of strife, the madman's battle scene. Relentless, savage, hot, and grim the infuriate columns press Where terror simulates disdain and danger is largess, Where greedy youth claims death for bride and agony seems bliss. It is the cause, the cause, my soul! which sanctifies all this. Ride, Cossacks, ride! Charge, Turcos, charge! The fateful hour has come. Let all the guns of Britain roar or be forever dumb. The Superman has burst his bonds. With Kultur-flag unfurled And prayer on lip he runs amuck, imperilling the world. The impious creed that might is right in him personified Bids all creation bend before the insatiate Teuton pride, Which, nourished on Valhalla dreams of empire unconfined, Would make the cannon and the sword the despots of mankind. Efficient, thorough, strong, and brave -- his vision is to kill. Force is the hearthstone of his might, the pole-star of his will. His forges glow malevolent: their minions never tire To deck the goddess of his lust whose twins are blood and fire. O world grown sick with butchery and manifold distress! O broken Belgium robbed of all save grief and ghastliness! Should Prussian power enslave the world and arrogance prevail, Let chaos come, let Moloch rule, and Christ give place to Baal.

Robert Grant

There is a hill in England, Green fields and a school I know, Where the balls fly fast in summer, And the whispering elm-trees grow,         A little hill, a dear hill, And the playing fields below. There is a hill in Flanders, Heaped with a thousand slain, Where the shells fly night and noontide And the ghosts that died in vain, --         A little hill, a hard hill To the souls that died in pain. There is a hill in Jewry, Three crosses pierce the sky, On the midmost He is dying To save all those who die, --         A little hill, a kind hill, To souls in jeopardy.

Everard Owen Harrow, December, 1915