The Illusion Of War

    War
    I abhor,
    And yet how sweet
    The sound along the marching street
    Of drum and fife, and I forget
    Wet eyes of widows, and forget
    Broken old mothers, and the whole
    Dark butchery without a soul.

    Without a soul - save this bright drink
    Of heady music, sweet as hell;
    And even my peace-abiding feet
    Go marching with the marching street,
    For yonder, yonder goes the fife,
    And what care I for human life!
    The tears fill my astonished eyes
    And my full heart is like to break,
    And yet 'tis all embannered lies,
    A dream those little drummers make.

    O it is wickedness to clothe
    Yon hideous grinning thing that stalks
    Hidden in music, like a queen
    That in a garden of glory walks,
    Till good men love the thing they loathe.
    Art, thou hast many infamies,
    But not an infamy like this;
    O snap the fife and still the drum,
    And show the monster as she is.

Richard Le Gallienne

Richard Le Gallienne was an English author and poet born on January 20, 1866. Known for his lyrical poetry, he was a key figure in the literary circles of the fin de siècle. He contributed to the literary magazine 'The Yellow Book' and was involved with the Rhymers' Club, an influential group of London-based poets. His works often explored themes of beauty, love, and nature. His influence extended to both sides of the Atlantic, and he spent the latter part of his life in the United States, where he continued to write until his death on September 15, 1947.

Richard Le Gallienne

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Richard Le Gallienne, Simple Poetry

English

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The War After The War

I.
Yonder, with eyes that tears, not distance, dim,
With ears the wide worlds thickness cannot daunt,
We see tumultuous miseries that haunt
The nights dead watches, hear the battle hymn
Of ruin shrieking through the music grim,
Where the red spectre straddles, long and gaunt,
Spitting across the seas his hideous taunt
At those who nurse at home the unwounded limb.

What shall we say, who, drawing indolent breath,
Mark the quick pant of those who, full of hate,
Drive home the steel or loose the shrieking shell,
Heroes or Huns, who smite the grin of death
And laugh or curse beneath the blows of fate,
Swept madly to the thudding heart of hell?



II.
O peace, be still! Let no drear whirlwind sweep
Our souls about the vault, that groans ...

John Le Gay Brereton

War

I.

The beast exultant spreads the nostril wide,
Snuffing a sickly hate-enkindling scent;
Proud of his rage, on sudden carnage bent,
He leaps, and flings the helpless guard aside.
Again, again the hills are gapped and dyed,
Again the hearts of waiting women spent.
Is there no cooler pathway to content?
Can we not heal the insanity of pride?

Silence the crackle and thunder of battling guns,
And drive your men to strategy of peace;
Crush ere its birth the hell-begotten crime;
Still theres a war that no true warrior shuns,
That knows no mercy, looks for no surcease,
But ghastlier battles, victories more sublime.



II.

Envy has slid in silence to its hole,
And Peace is basking where the workers meet,
And fire has purged ...

John Le Gay Brereton

Repression Of War Experience

Now light the candles; one; two; there's a moth;
What silly beggars they are to blunder in
And scorch their wings with glory, liquid flame -
No, no, not that, - it's bad to think of war,
When thoughts you've gagged all day come back to scare you;
And it's been proved that soldiers don't go mad
Unless they lose control of ugly thoughts
That drive them out to jabber among the trees.

Now light your pipe; look, what a steady hand,
Draw a deep breath; stop thinking, count fifteen,
And you're as right as rain...
    Why won't it rain? ...
I wish there'd be a thunder-storm to-night,
With bucketsful of water to sluice the dark,
And make the roses hang their dripping heads.

Books; what a jolly company they are,
Standing so quiet and patient on their shelves...

Siegfried Sassoon

Billy Khaki

Marching somewhat out of order when the band is cock-a-hoop,
There's a lilting kind of magic in the swagger of the troop,
Swinging all aboard the steamer with her nose toward the sea.
What is calling, Billy Khaki, that you're footing it so free?

Though his lines are none too level,
And he lacks a bit of style.
And he's swanking like the devil
Where the women wave and smile,
He will answer with a rifle
Trim and true from stock to bore,
Where the comrades crouch and stifle
In the reeking pit of war.

What is calling, Billy Khaki? There is thunder down the sky,
And the merry magpie bugle splits the morning with its cry,
While your feet are beating rhythms up the dusty hills and down,
And the drums are all a-talking in the hollow of the town.

Bill...

Edward

Dead Musicians

I

From you, Beethoven, Bach, Mozart,
The substance of my dreams took fire.
You built cathedrals in my heart,
And lit my pinnacled desire.
You were the ardour and the bright
Procession of my thoughts toward prayer.
You were the wrath of storm, the light
On distant citadels aflare.

II

Great names, I cannot find you now
In these loud years of youth that strives
Through doom toward peace: upon my brow
I wear a wreath of banished lives.
You have no part with lads who fought
And laughed and suffered at my side.
Your fugues and symphonies have brought
No memory of my friends who died.

III

For when my brain is on their track,
In slangy speech I call them back.
With fox-trot tunes their ghosts I charm.
    ...

Siegfried Sassoon

The Long Lane
All through the summer night, down the long lane in flower,
The moon-white lane,
All through the summer night,--dim as a shower,
Glimmer and fade the Twain:
Over the cricket hosts, throbbing the hour by hour,
Young voices bloom and wane.

Down the long lane they go, and past one window, pale
With visions silver-blurred;
Stirring the heart that waits,--the eyes that fail
After a spring deferred.
Query, and hush, and Ah!--dim through a moon-lit veil,
The same one word.

Down the long lane, entwined with all the fragrance there;
The lane in flower somehow
With youth, and plighted hands, and star-strewn air,
And muted 'Thee' and 'Thou':--
All the wild bloom an...
Josephine Preston Peabody