War

What heroes from the woodland sprung,
When, through the fresh awakened land,
The thrilling cry of freedom rung,
And to the work of warfare strung
The yeoman's iron hand!

Hills flung the cry to hills around,
And ocean-mart replied to mart,
And streams whose springs were yet unfound,
Pealed far away the startling sound
Into the forest's heart.

Then marched the brave from rocky steep,
From mountain river swift and cold;
The borders of the stormy deep,
The vales where gathered waters sleep,
Sent up the strong and bold,

As if the very earth again
Grew quick with God's creating breath,
And, from the sods of grove and glen,
Rose ranks of lion-hearted men
To battle to the death.

The wife, whose babe first smiled that day,

Happy are they and charmed in life
Who through long wars arrive unscarred
At peace. To such the wreath be given,
If they unfalteringly have striven--
In honor, as in limb, unmarred.
Let cheerful praise be rife,
And let them live their years at ease,
Musing on brothers who victorious died--
Loved mates whose memory shall ever please.

And yet mischance is honorable too--
Seeming defeat in conflict justified
Whose end to closing eyes is hid from view.
The will, that never can relent--
The aim, survivor of the bafflement,
Make this memorial due.

I stood with the Dead, so forsaken and still:
When dawn was grey I stood with the Dead.
And my slow heart said, "You must kill; you must kill:
Soldier, soldier, morning is red."

On the shapes of the slain in their crumpled disgrace
I stared for a while through the thin cold rain....
"O lad that I loved, there is rain on your face,
And your eyes are blurred and sick like the plain."

I stood with the Dead.... They were dead; they were dead;
My heart and my head beat a march of dismay;
And gusts of the wind came dulled by the guns....
"Fall in!" I shouted; "Fall in for your pay!"

We now, held in captivity,
Spring to our bondage nor grieve,
See now, how it is blesseder,
Brothers, to give than receive!
Keep trust, wherefore we were made,
Paying the debt that we owe;
For a clean thrust, and the shear of the blade,
Will carry us where would go.
The Ship that Found Herself.

All the world over, nursing their scars,
Sir the old fighting-men broke in the wars,
Sit the old fighting-men, surly and grim
Mocking the lilt of the conquerors' hymn.

Dust of the battle o'erwhelmed them and hid.
Fame never found them for aught that they did.
Wounded and spent to the lazar they drew,
Lining the road where the Legions roll through.

Sons of the Laurel who press to your meed,
Worthy God's pity most, you who succeed!)
Ere you...

I.

The tribune's tongue and poet's pen
May sow the seed in prostrate men;
But 'tis the soldier's sword alone
Can reap the crop so bravely sown!
No more I'll sing nor idly pine,
But train my soul to lead a line--
A soldier's life's the life for me--
A soldier's death, so Ireland's free!


II.

No foe would fear your thunder words,
If 'twere not for your lightning swords--
If tyrants yield when millions pray,
'Tis less they link in war array;
Nor peace itself is safe, but when
The sword is sheathed by fighting men--
A soldier's life's the life for me--
A soldier's death, so Ireland's free!


III.

The rifle brown and sabre bright
Can freely speak and nobly write--
What prophets preached the truth so we...

Ah poverties, wincings, and sulky retreats!
Ah you foes that in conflict have overcome me!
(For what is my life, or any man's life, but a conflict with foes--the old, the incessant war?)
You degradations--you tussle with passions and appetites;
You smarts from dissatisfied friendships, (ah wounds, the sharpest of all;)
You toil of painful and choked articulations--you meannesses;
You shallow tongue-talks at tables, (my tongue the shallowest of any;)
You broken resolutions, you racking angers, you smother'd ennuis;
Ah, think not you finally triumph--My real self has yet to come forth;
It shall yet march forth o'ermastering, till all lies beneath me;
It shall yet stand up the soldier of unquestion'd victory.

Halt! ye Legions, sheathe your Steel:
Blood grows precious; shed no more:
Cease your toils; your wounds to heal
Lo! beams of Mercy reach the shore!
From Realms of everlasting light
The favour'd guest of Heaven is come:
Prostrate your Banners at the sight,
And bear the glorious tidings home.

The plunging corpse with half-clos'd eyes,
No more shall stain th' unconscious brine;
Yon pendant gay, that streaming flies,
Around its idle Staff shall twine.
Behold! along th' etherial sky
Her beams o'er conquering Navies spread;
Peace! Peace! the leaping Sailors cry,
With shouts that might arouse the dead.

Then forth Britannia's thunder pours;
A vast reiterated sound!
From Line to Line the Cannon roars,
And spreads the blazing joy around.
...

        We will now sing in thoughtful strain
        Of wars in Queen Victoria's reign.
        The Russian bear did ages lurk,
        All ready for to spring on Turk,
        For Russian statesmen did divine
        That they should conquer Constantine,
        But like a greyhound after hare
        The Lion did drive back the Bear,
        And made it feel the British rule
        At gates of strong Sebastopol.
        Then insolent was Persia,
        Till Lion had to dictate law,
        And while engaged in scenes like these
        He was attacked by the Chinese,
        And for this outrage all so wanton
        He then resolved to seize on Canton.
        But soon there came a dismal cry
        Of slaughter'd Britons from Delhi,
        T...

Soldier, wake, the day is peeping,
Honour ne'er was won in sleeping,
Never when the sunbeams still
Lay unreflected on the hill:
'Tis when they are glinted back
From axe and armour, spear and jack,
That they promise future story
Many a page of deathless glory.
Shields that are the foe man's terror,
Ever are the morning's mirror.

Arm and up, the morning beam
Hath call'd the rustic to his team,
Hath call'd the falc'ner to the lake,
Hath call'd the huntsman to the brake;
The early student ponders o'er
His dusty tomes of ancient lore.
Soldier, wake, thy harvest, fame;
Thy study, conquest; war, thy game.
Shield, that would be foeman's terror,
Still should gleam the morning's mirror.

Poor hire repays the rustic's pain;
More paltry...

I feel the spring far off, far off,
The faint, far scent of bud and leaf,
Oh, how can spring take heart to come
To a world in grief,
Deep grief?

The sun turns north, the days grow long,
Later the evening star grows bright,
How can the daylight linger on
For men to fight,
Still fight?

The grass is waking in the ground,
Soon it will rise and blow in waves,
How can it have the heart to sway
Over the graves,
New graves?

Under the boughs where lovers walked
The apple-blooms will shed their breath,
But what of all the lovers now
Parted by Death,
Grey Death?

        "What I spent I had; what I saved, I lost; what I gave, I have."


        But yesterday the tourney, all the eager joy of life,
        The waving of the banners, and the rattle of the spears,
        The clash of sword and harness, and the madness of the strife;
        To-night begin the silence and the peace of endless years.

            (One sings within.)

        But yesterday the glory and the prize,
        And best of all, to lay it at her feet,
        To find my guerdon in her speaking eyes:
        I grudge them not, -- they pass, albeit sweet.

        The ring of spears, the winning of the fight,
        The careless song, the cup, the love of friends,
        The earth in spring -- to live, to feel the light --
       ...

Lost in the swamp and welter of the pit,
He flounders off the duck-boards; only he knows
Each flash, and spouting crash, - each instant lit
When gloom reveals the streaming rain. He goes
Heavily, blindly on. And, while he blunders,
"Could anything be worse than this!" - he wonders,
Remembering how he saw those Germans run,
Screaming for mercy among the stumps of trees:
Green-faced, they dodged and darted: there was one
Livid with terror, clutching at his knees...
Our chaps were sticking 'em like pigs... "O hell!"
He thought - "there's things in war one dare not tell
Poor father sitting safe at home, who reads
Of dying heroes and their deathless deeds."

Shut not your doors to me, proud libraries,
For that which was lacking on all your well-fill'd shelves, yet needed most, I bring;
Forth from the army, the war emerging a book I have made,
The words of my book nothing the drift of it everything;
A book separate, not link'd with the rest, nor felt by the intellect,
But you, ye untold latencies, will thrill to every page;
Through Space and Time fused in a chant, and the flowing, eternal Identity,
To Nature, encompassing these, encompassing God to the joyous, electric All,
To the sense of Death and accepting, exulting in Death, in its turn, the same as life,
The entrance of Man I sing.

It isn't the foe that we fear;
It isn't the bullets that whine;
It isn't the business career
Of a shell, or the bust of a mine;
It isn't the snipers who seek
To nip our young hopes in the bud:
No, it isn't the guns,
And it isn't the Huns -
It's the MUD,
        MUD,
        MUD.

It isn't the melee we mind.
That often is rather good fun.
It isn't the shrapnel we find
Obtrusive when rained by the ton;
It isn't the bounce of the bombs
That gives us a positive pain:
It's the strafing we get
When the weather is wet -
It's the RAIN,
        RAIN,
            RAIN.

It isn't because we lack grit
We shrink from the horrors of war.
We don't mind the battle a bit;
In fact that is what we are for;
It isn't the ...

    Heavy and solemn,
    A cloudy column,
    Through the green plain they marching came!
Measure less spread, like a table dread,
For the wild grim dice of the iron game.
The looks are bent on the shaking ground,
And the heart beats loud with a knelling sound;
Swift by the breasts that must bear the brunt,
Gallops the major along the front
        "Halt!"
And fettered they stand at the stark command,
And the warriors, silent, halt!

Proud in the blush of morning glowing,
What on the hill-top shines in flowing,
"See you the foeman's banners waving?"
"We see the foeman's banners waving!"
"God be with ye children and wife!"
Hark to the music the trump and the fife,
How they ring through the ranks which they rouse to the strife!
Thrilling the...

Across the sea I heard the groans
Of nations in the intervals
Of wind and wave. Their blood and bones
Cried out in torture, crushed by thrones,
And sucked by priestly cannibals.

I dreamed of Freedom slowly gained
By martyr meekness, patience, faith,
And lo! an athlete grimly stained,
With corded muscles battle-strained,
Shouting it from the fields of death!

I turn me, awe-struck, from the sight,
Among the clamoring thousands mute,
I only know that God is right,
And that the children of the light
Shall tread the darkness under foot.

I know the pent fire heaves its crust,
That sultry skies the bolt will form
To smite them clear; that Nature must
The balance of her powers adjust,
Though with the earthquake and the storm.

All the world was wearying,
    All the world was sad;
Everything was shadow-filled;
    Things were going bad.
Then a rumour stirred all hearts
    As a wind stirs trees -
Ten thousand men a day
    Coming over seas!

Soon we saw them marching by -
    God! what a sight! -
Shoulders back, and heads erect,
    Faces full of light.
Smiling like a morn in May,
    Moving like a breeze,
Ten thousand men a day
    Coming over seas.

Weary soldiers worn with war
    Lifted up their eyes,
Shadows seemed to fade a bit,
    Dawn was in the skies.
Hope sprang to troubled hearts,
    Strength to tired knees:
Ten thousand men a day
    Were coming over seas.

France and England swarmed with them,
    Khaki-clad ...

Arm'd year! year of the struggle!
No dainty rhymes or sentimental love verses for you, terrible year!
Not you as some pale poetling, seated at a desk, lisping cadenzas piano;
But as a strong man, erect, clothed in blue clothes, advancing,
carrying a rifle on your shoulder,
With well-gristled body and sunburnt face and hands--with a knife in the belt at your side,
As I heard you shouting loud--your sonorous voice ringing across the continent;
Your masculine voice, O year, as rising amid the great cities,
Amid the men of Manhattan I saw you, as one of the workmen, the dwellers in Manhattan;
Or with large steps crossing the prairies out of Illinois and Indiana,
Rapidly crossing the West with springy gait, and descending the Alleghanies;
Or down from the great lakes, or in Pennsylvania, o...