The March

    I heard a voice that cried, "Make way for those who died!"
    And all the coloured crowd like ghosts at morning fled;
    And down the waiting road, rank after rank there strode,
    In mute and measured march a hundred thousand dead.

    A hundred thousand dead, with firm and noiseless tread,
    All shadowy-grey yet solid, with faces grey and ghast,
    And by the house they went, and all their brows were bent
    Straight forward; and they passed, and passed, and passed, and passed.

    But O there came a place, and O there came a face,
    That clenched my heart to see it, and sudden turned my way;
    And in the Face that turned I saw two eyes that burned,
    Never-forgotten eyes, and they had things to say.

    Like desolate stars they shone one moment, and were gone,
    And I sank down and put my arms across my head,
    And felt them moving past, nor looked to see the last,
    In steady silent march, our hundred thousand dead.

John Collings Squire, Sir

John Collings Squire, also known as Sir John Squire, was an influential British poet, writer, historian, and influential literary editor of the early 20th century. He is best known for his role as editor of the London Mercury, a powerful literary journal of the time. Squire was a leading figure in the Georgian poetry movement, which sought to return English poetry to its traditional form and diction.

John Collings Squire, Sir

Late Snow

John Collings Squire, Sir, Simple Poetry

At Night

John Collings Squire, Sir, Simple Poetry

The Sadness Of The Moon - (Twelve Translations From Charles Baudelaire)

John Collings Squire, Sir, Simple Poetry

Echoes

John Collings Squire, Sir, Simple Poetry

English

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Winter Nightfall

    The old yellow stucco
    Of the time of the Regent
    Is flaking and peeling:
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    In the straight yellow building
    Are empty and still;
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    Toneless and sombre
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    I don't know his name;
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    And the shells of him vanished
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John Collings Squire, Sir

A March In The Ranks, Hard-Prest

A march in the ranks hard-prest, and the road unknown;
A route through a heavy wood, with muffled steps in the darkness;
Our army foil'd with loss severe, and the sullen remnant retreating;
Till after midnight glimmer upon us, the lights of a dim-lighted
building;
We come to an open space in the woods, and halt by the dim-lighted
building;
'Tis a large old church at the crossing roads--'tis now an impromptu
hospital;
--Entering but for a minute, I see a sight beyond all the pictures
and poems ever made:
Shadows of deepest, deepest black, just lit by moving candles and
lamps,
And by one great pitchy torch, stationary, with wild red flame, and
clouds of smoke;
By these, crowds, groups of forms, vaguely I see, on the floor, some
in the pews laid down;
At my ...

Walt Whitman

The March Of The Dead

The cruel war was over - oh, the triumph was so sweet!
We watched the troops returning, through our tears;
There was triumph, triumph, triumph down the scarlet glittering street,
And you scarce could hear the music for the cheers.
And you scarce could see the house-tops for the flags that flew between,
The bells were pealing madly to the sky;
And every one was shouting for the Soldiers of the Queen,
And the glory of an age was passing by.

And then there came a shadow, swift and sudden, dark and drear;
The bells were silent, not an echo stirred.
The flags were drooping sullenly, the men forgot to cheer;
We waited, and we never spoke a word.
The sky grew darker, darker, till from out the gloomy rack
There came a voice that checked the heart with dread:
"Tear down, t...

Robert William Service

For Music

    Death in the cold grey morning
    Came to the man where he lay;
    And the wind shivered, and the tree shuddered
    And the dawn was grey.

    And the face of the man was grey in the dawn,
    And the watchers by the bed
    Knew, as they heard the shaking of the leaves,
    That the man was dead.

John Collings Squire, Sir

Before Marching And After

(in Memoriam F. W. G.)



Orion swung southward aslant
Where the starved Egdon pine-trees had thinned,
The Pleiads aloft seemed to pant
With the heather that twitched in the wind;
But he looked on indifferent to sights such as these,
Unswayed by love, friendship, home joy or home sorrow,
And wondered to what he would march on the morrow.

The crazed household-clock with its whirr
Rang midnight within as he stood,
He heard the low sighing of her
Who had striven from his birth for his good;
But he still only asked the spring starlight, the breeze,
What great thing or small thing his history would borrow
From that Game with Death he would play on the morrow.

When the heath wore the robe of late summer,
And the fuchsia-bells, hot in the s...

Thomas Hardy

Marching On

I

I heard the young lads singing
In the still morning air,
Gaily the notes came ringing
Across the lilac'd square;
They sang like happy children
Who know not doubt or care,
"As WE GO MARCHING ON."

And each one sloped a rifle
And each one bore a pack;
They had no grief to stifle,
No tears to weep, alack;
They were too blithe to question
Which of them should come back,
As they went marching on.

II

Oh, thou whose eyes are sorrow,
And whose soul is sorrowing,
Who knowest that each to-morrow
A deeper woe may bring,
And knowest that all the comfort
Is the very littlest thing
While they go marching on;

These sons of thine seek glory,
As the bridegroom seeks the bride,
And who shall tell the st...

Thomas William Hodgson Crosland