Chapter III: Introduction (2)

The ruse succeeded. At daybreak, when we rested, we found that we had driven the enemy back almost to his original position. All night long we had been fighting with our backs to our comrades who were in the front trenches. The enemy had got behind us and we had had to face about in what served for trenches. By dawn we had him back again in his original position, and we were facing in the old direction. By dawn we had almost, though not quite, forced a junction with the British right.

The night of April the twenty-second is one that I can never forget. It was frightful, yes. Yet there was a grandeur in the appalling intensity of living, in the appalling intensity of death as it surrounded us.

The German shells rose and burst behind us. They made the Yser Canal a stream of molten glory. Shells fell in the city, and split the darkness of the heavens in the early night hours. Later, the moon rose in the splendour of springtime. Straight behind the tower of the great cathedral it rose and shone down on a bloody earth.

Suddenly the grand old Cloth Hall burst into flames. The spikes of fire rose and fell and rose again. Showers of sparks went upward. A pall of smoke would form and cloud the moon, waver, break, and pass. There was the mutter and rumble and roar of great guns....

It was glorious. It was terrible. It was inspiring. Through an inferno of destruction and death ... we lived because we must.

Perhaps our greatest reward came when on April twenty-sixth the English troops reached us. We had been completely cut off by the enemy barrage from all communication with other sectors of the line. Still, through the wounded gone back, word of our stand had drifted out. The English boys fought and force-marched and fought again their terrible way through the barrage to our aid, and when they arrived, weary and worn and torn, cutting their bloody way to us, they cheered themselves hoarse; cheered as they marched along, cheered and gripped our hands as they got within touch of us. Yell after yell went upward, and stirring words woke the echoes. The boys of the Old Country paid their greatest tribute to us of the New as they cried:

"Canadians--Canadians--that's all!"

HAROLD R. PEAT
_From "Private Peat"--Copyright, 1917. Used by
special permission of the Publishers, The
Bobbs-Merrill Company_

FROM "A CANADIAN TWILIGHT"

Oh, to have died that day at Langemarck!
To have perished nobly in a noble cause!

. . . . . . . . . .

For in the years to come it shall be told
How these laid down their lives, not for their homes,
Their orchards, fields and cities: "They were driven
To slaughter by no tyrant's lust for power;
Of their free manhood's choice they crossed the sea
To save a stricken people from its foe.
They died for Justice--Justice owes them this:
That what they died for be not overthrown."

[A]BERNARD FREEMAN TROTTER
_From "A Canadian Twilight and Other
Poems of War and Peace"--By permission
of McClelland & Stewart, Ltd.,
Publishers, Toronto_

FOOTNOTE:

[A] Bernard Freeman Trotter, Second Lieut. Eleventh Leicesters, was killed in action in France, May 7, 1917.

WE WERE MEN OF THE FURROW

We were men of the furrow, men of the hammer and spade;
Men of the plain and the forest, children of commerce and trade;
Men of the day and the distance; men of the mothering earth;
Laying the lines of a nation nurturing fair from the birth.

Taking our freedom for granted, we, who had ever been free;
Speaking the tongue of our fathers, confident, composite, we;
Welcoming all in our borders, laying our wealth at their feet,
Querying not of their motives, holding their honour complete.

Little thought we of the war-cloud, little of drilling and drill;
We were for peace with our neighbours--peace (and a pocket to fill);
Only one neighbour we counted, only one neighbour we knew;
Him--though we watched him--we trusted; trusted, and felt he was true.

Proud of our flag and traditions; proud, but not boastfully so;
Dreaming our dreams and our visions, planning the way we would go;
Saying, "This task for to-morrow; life shall be clay in our hands;
We shall be first of the nations, fattest and fairest of lands".

Then in the quivering heaven gathered the threatening wrath;
We looked--and went on with our labours; heard, and replied with a
laugh;
Surely the world was for business; (list to the hammer and spade);
Leave the war-lords to their lusting--on with our traffic and trade!

Then, in a flash, it was on us; blazed, and it dazzled our eyes;
Then for a moment we faltered, suddenly sick with surprise;
Next, by the blood that was in us, and a manhood not wholly undone,
We were stripping the cloth for the khaki and dropping the spade for
the gun.

What of the men of the furrow, men of the hammer and spade,
Men without heart for the soldier, loathing his life and his trade?
What? Let the enemy answer; he scoffed at our fighters, and then
The flower of his finest battalions went down to our peace-loving men.

Well may the world read a lesson, well may it learn, and be wise;
Not to the strong is the battle; not to the swift is the prize;
Loud is the boast of the despot, clanking his nation in arms;
_But beware of a peace-loving people when they sweep from their
forests and farms!_

ROBERT J. C. STEAD
_From "Kitchener and Other Poems"--
By permission of The Musson Book
Company, Limited, Toronto_

DEVON MEN

From Bideford to Appledore the meadows lie aglow
With kingcup and buttercup that flout the summer snow;
And crooked-back and silver-head shall mow the grass to-day,
And lasses turn and toss it till it ripen into hay;
For gone are all the careless youth did reap the land of yore,
The lithe men and long men,
The brown men and strong men,
The men that hie from Bideford and ruddy Appledore.

From Bideford and Appledore they swept the sea of old
With cross-bow and falconet to tap the Spaniard's gold;
They sped away with dauntless Drake to traffic on the Main,
To trick the drowsy galleon and loot the treasure train;
For fearless were the gallant hands that pulled the sweeping oar,
The strong men, the free men,
The bold men, the seamen,
The men that sailed from Bideford and ruddy Appledore.

From Bideford and Appledore in craft of subtle gray
Are strong hearts and steady hearts to keep the sea to-day;
So well may fare the garden where the cider-apples bloom
And summer weaves her colour-threads upon a golden loom;
For ready are the tawny hands that guard the Devon shore,
The cool men, the bluff men,
The keen men, the tough men,
The men that hie from Bideford and ruddy Appledore!

PERCY HASELDEN
_Reprinted by special permission of
London "Punch"_

CHALK AND FLINT

Comes there now a mighty rally
From the weald and from the coast,
Down from cliff and up from valley,
Spirits of an ancient host;
Castle gray and village mellow,
Coastguard's track and shepherd's fold,
Crumbling church and cracked martello
Echo to this chant of old--
Chant of knight and chant of bowman:
_Kent and Sussex feared no foeman
In the valiant days of old_!

Screaming gull and lark a-singing,
Bubbling brook and booming sea,
Church and cattle bells a-ringing
Swell the ghostly melody;
"Chalk and flint, Sirs, lie beneath ye,
Mingling with our dust below!
Chalk and flint, Sirs, they bequeath ye
This our chant of long ago!"
Chant of knight and chant of bowman,
Chant of squire and chant of yeoman:
_Kent and Sussex feared no foeman
In the days of long ago_!

Hills that heed not Time or weather,
Sussex down and Kentish lane,
Roads that wind through marsh and heather
Feel the mail-shod feet again;
Chalk and flint their dead are giving--
Spectres grim and spectres bold--
Marching on to cheer the living
With their battle-chant of old--
Chant of knight and chant of bowman,
Chant of squire and chant of yeoman:
_Witness Norman! Witness Roman!
Kent and Sussex feared no foeman
In the valiant days of old!_

_Reprinted by special permission of
London "Punch"_

A GRAVE IN FLANDERS

All night the tall trees overhead
Are whispering to the stars;
Their roots are wrapped about the dead
And hide the hideous scars.

The tide of war goes rolling by,
The legions sweep along;
And daily in the summer sky
The birds will sing their song.

No place is this for human tears,
The time for tears is done;
Transfigured in these awful years,
The two worlds blend in one.

This boy had visions while in life
Of stars on distant skies;
So death came in the midst of strife
A sudden, glad surprise.

He found the songs for which he yearned,
Hopes that had mocked desire;
His heart is resting now which burned
With such consuming fire.

So down the ringing road we pass,
And leave him where he fell,
The guardian trees, the waving grass,
The birds will love him well.

FREDERICK GEORGE SCOTT
_From "In the Battle Silences"--By
permission of the Author and The
Musson Book Company, Limited,
Toronto_

INTO BATTLE

(_May, 1915_)

The naked earth is warm with Spring,
And with green grass and bursting trees
Leans to the sun's gaze glorying,
And quivers in the sunny breeze;
And Life is Colour and Warmth and Light,
And a striving evermore for these;
And he is dead who will not fight;
And who dies fighting has increase.

The fighting man shall from the sun
Take warmth, and life from the glowing earth;
Speed with the light-foot winds to run,
And with the trees to newer birth;
And find, when fighting shall be done,
Great rest, and fulness after dearth.

All the bright company of Heaven
Hold him in their high comradeship,
The Dog-Star and the Sisters Seven,
Orion's Belt and sworded hip.

The woodland trees that stand together,
They stand to him each one a friend;
They gently speak in the windy weather;
They guide to valley and ridges' end.

The kestrel hovering by day,
And the little owls that call by night,
Bid him be swift and keen as they,
As keen of ear, as swift of sight.

The blackbird sings to him, "Brother, brother,
If this be the last song you shall sing,
Sing well, for you may not sing another;
Brother, sing".

In dreary doubtful waiting hours
Before the brazen frenzy starts,
The horses show him nobler powers;
O patient eyes, courageous hearts!

And when the burning moment breaks,
And all things else are out of mind,
And only Joy-of-Battle takes
Him by the throat, and makes him blind,

Through joy and blindness, he shall know,
Not caring much to know, that still
Nor lead nor steel shall reach him, so
That it be not the Destined Will:

The thundering line of battle stands,
And in the air Death moans and sings;
But Day shall clasp him with strong hands,
And Night shall fold him in soft wings.

[B]JULIAN GRENFELL
_By permission of Lord Desborough, K.C.V.O._

FOOTNOTE:

[B] Captain the Hon. Julian H. F. Grenfell, D.S.O., was wounded in the trenches in front of Ypres on May 13 and died in hospital on May 26, 1915.

CHRIST IN FLANDERS

We had forgotten You, or very nearly--
You did not seem to touch us very nearly--
Of course we thought about You now and then;
Especially in any time of trouble--
We knew that You were good in time of trouble--
But we are very ordinary men.

And there were always other things to think of--
There's lots of things a man has got to think of--
His work, his home, his pleasure, and his wife;
And so we only thought of You on Sunday--
Sometimes, perhaps, not even on a Sunday--
Because there's always lots to fill one's life.

And, all the while, in street or lane or byway--
In country lane, in city street, or byway--
You walked among us, and we did not see.
Your feet were bleeding as You walked our pavements--
How _did_ we miss Your Footprints on our pavements?--
Can there be other folk as blind as we?

_Now_ we remember; over here in Flanders--
(It isn't strange to think of You in Flanders)--
This hideous warfare seems to make things clear.
We never thought about You much in England--
But now that we are far away from England--
We have no doubts, we know that You are here.

You helped us pass the jest along the trenches--
Where, in cold blood, we waited in the trenches--
You touched its ribaldry and made it fine.
You stood beside us in our pain and weakness--
We're glad to think You understand our weakness--
Somehow it seems to help us not to whine.

We think about You kneeling in the Garden--
Ah! God! the agony of that dread Garden--
We know You prayed for us upon the Cross.
If anything could make us glad to bear it--
'Twould be the knowledge that You willed to bear it--
Pain--death--the uttermost of human loss.

Though we forgot You--You will not forget us--
We feel so sure that You will not forget us--
But stay with us until this dream is past.
And so we ask for courage, strength, and pardon--
Especially, I think, we ask for pardon--
And that You'll stand beside us to the last.

L. W.
_By permission of "The Spectator"_

THE BLIND MAN AND HIS SON

(_1915_)

"The distant boom of angry guns
No longer fills my ear.
Oh! whither have we fled, my son?
Tell me, that I may hear."
"Father, we are in England!"

"No more I hear the stormy wind
Amid the rigging roar.
I feel beneath my tottering feet
The firm ground of the shore.
Is this the end of all our woes?
Shall we not suffer more?"
"Father, we are in England!"

"I hear the sound of kindly speech,
But do not understand;
I feel I've wandered very far,
Far from the fatherland;
How comes it that these tones are not
Those of an unknown land?"
"Father, we are in England!"

"I feel in all the air around
Freedom's sweet breath respire.
I feel celestial fingers creep
Along my quivering lyre;
The birds, the trees, the babbling streams
Speak to me of our home,
Why does my grief less bitter grow
And rest so dear become?"
"Father, we are in England!"

"Bend down upon thy knees, my son,
And take into thy hand,
Thy wounded hand, and mine, somewhat
Of the earth of this good land,
That dreaming of our home, we two
May kiss the soil of England!"

EMILE CAMMAERTS
_From "War Poems and Other Translations"--By
Lord Curzon. By permission of John
Lane, The Bodley Head, London_

EXTRACT FROM "THE WAR AND THE SOUL"

I do not for one moment believe that the world is less Christian than it was before the war, or less intent on spiritual things. The exact contrary is the case as far as my experience goes. I have more than once stated that, if any man wants to be cured of religious pessimism, or any other kind of pessimism, he had better go to the front. If I had been an unbeliever before I went there, I should speedily have been cured. There one sees things every day, almost every hour, to make one marvel at the greatness of the human soul. You will see hell wide open, it is true, but you will see heaven likewise. Such heroism, patience, self-devotion, cheerfulness under affliction, readiness to fling life away to save a comrade or a position--surely these mean more, and are worth more, than the immediate object of their exercise.

. . . . . . . . . .

As humanity has been constituted up to the present, war has been the means, more than any other agency, of bringing out on the grand scale that truth of sacrifice without which flesh can never be made to serve the ends of spirit, and the kingdom of the soul be won. This could be realized without war if only the race as a whole could be lifted to the requisite level. It often has been realized without war in individual cases, but never for long on the wider basis of the communal life.

. . . . . . . . . .

What men are learning on the battle-fields of Europe of the glory of sacrifice and its mystical potencies is drawing them back to God by way of the cross of Christ; our vulgar, blatant, worldly, commercial, pleasure-loving age is seeing meanings in that cross it never saw before, and getting rid of many delusions in the process. We are being saved as by fire. Let us recover the simplicities of life, and we recover faith. We are re-learning the old, old lesson that man cannot live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. We are realizing almost with the surprise of a new discovery, that not what we have but what we are, is the secret of blessedness or wretchedness, that there is nothing to mourn over but the evil in our own hearts, and that death, however sad and dreadful in its accompaniments, is but the prelude to vaster ventures of the soul and unimaginable joys. Nothing can be killed that is worthy to be kept alive or essential to our highest well-being here or hereafter.

REV. R. J. CAMPBELL
_By permission of Chapman & Hall, Ltd.,
Publishers, London, England_

THE GUARDS CAME THROUGH

Men of the 21st
Up by the Chalk Pit Wood,
Weak with our wounds and our thirst,
Wanting our sleep and our food,
After a day and a night--
God, shall we ever forget!
Beaten and broke in the fight,
But sticking it--sticking it yet.
Trying to hold the line,
Fainting and spent and done,
Always the thud and the whine,
Always the yell of the Hun!
Northumberland, Lancaster, York,
Durham and Somerset,
Fighting alone, worn to the bone,
But sticking it--sticking it yet.

Never a message of hope!
Never a word of cheer!
Fronting Hill 70's shell-swept slope,
With the dull dead plain in our rear.
Always the whine of the shell,
Always the roar of its burst,
Always the tortures of hell,
As waiting and wincing we cursed
Our luck and the guns and the Boche,
When our Corporal shouted "Stand to!"
And I heard someone cry, "Clear the front for the Guards!"
And the Guards came through.

Our throats they were parched and hot,
But Lord, if you'd heard the cheers!
Irish and Welsh and Scot,
Coldstream and Grenadiers.
Two brigades, if you please,
Dressing as straight as a hem,
We--we were down on our knees,
Praying for us and for them!
Praying with tear-wet cheek,
Praying with outstretched hand,
Lord, I could speak for a week,
But how could you understand!
How should _your_ cheeks be wet,
Such feelin's don't come to _you_.
But when can me or my mates forget,
When the Guards came through!

"Five yards left extend!"
It passed from rank to rank.
Line after line with never a bend,
And a touch of the London swank.
A trifle of swank and dash,
Cool as a home parade,
Twinkle and glitter and flash,
Flinching never a shade,
With the shrapnel right in their face
Doing their Hyde Park stunt,
Keeping their swing at an easy pace,
Arms at the trail, eyes front!
Man, it was great to see!
Man, it was fine to do!
It's a cot and a hospital ward for me,
But I'll tell 'em in Blighty, wherever I be,
How the Guards came through.

SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
_By permission of the Author_

RED POPPIES IN THE CORN

I've seen them in the morning light,
When white mists drifted by:
I've seen them in the dusk o' night
Glow 'gainst the starry sky.
The slender waving blossoms red,
Mid yellow fields forlorn:
A glory on the scene they shed,
Red Poppies in the Corn.

I've seen them, too, those blossoms red,
Show 'gainst the trench lines' screen,
A crimson stream that waved and spread
Thro' all the brown and green:
I've seen them dyed a deeper hue
Than ever nature gave,
Shell-torn from slopes on which they grew,
To cover many a grave.

Bright blossoms fair by nature set
Along the dusty ways,
You cheered us, in the battle's fret,
Thro' long and weary days:
You gave us hope: if fate be kind,
We'll see that longed-for morn,
When home again we march and find
Red Poppies in the Corn.

W. CAMPBELL GALBRAITH
_By permission of the Author_

EXTRACT FROM LECTURE

"HOW WE STAND NOW"

For my own part I am more proud of Great Britain than ever in my life before, and that largely because, in spite of this froth or scum that sometimes floats on the surface, she is fundamentally true to her great traditions, and treads steadily underfoot those elements which, if they had control, would depose us from being a nation of "white men", of rulers, of gentlemen, and bring us to the level of the enemy whom we denounce, or of the "lesser breeds without the law".

Probably many of us have learned only through this war how much we loved our country. That love depends, of course, not mainly on pride, but on old habit and familiarity, on neighbourliness, and memories of childhood. Yet, mingling with that love for our old country, I do feel a profound pride. I am proud of the response to the Empire's call--a response absolutely unexampled in history, five million men and more gathering from the ends of the earth; subjects of the British Empire coming to offer life and limb for the Empire, not because they were subjects, but because they were free and willing to come. I am proud of our soldiers and our sailors, our invincible sailors!

I am proud of our men in the workshop and the factory; proud of our men, and almost more proud of our women--working one and all, day after day, with constant overtime, and practically no holidays, for the most part demanding no trade safeguards, and insisting on no conditions, but giving freely to the common cause all that they have to give.

I am proud of our political leaders and civil administrators, proud of their resource, their devotion, their unshaken coolness, their magnanimity in the face of intrigue and detraction, their magnificent interpretation of the nation's will.

A few days ago I was in France in the fire-zone. I had been at a field dressing-station, which had just evacuated its wounded and dead, and was expecting more; and, as evening was falling, full of the uncanny strain of the whole place and slightly deafened with the shells, I saw a body of men in full kit plodding their way up the communication trenches to take their place in the firing trench. I was just going back myself, well out of the range of the guns, to a comfortable tea and a peaceful evening; and there, in trench after trench, along all the hundred miles of our front, day after day, night after night, were men moving heavily up to the firing-line, to pay their regular toll of so many killed and so many wounded, while the war drags on its weary length. I suddenly wondered in my heart whether we or our cause or our country is worth that sacrifice; and, with my mind full of its awfulness, I answered clearly, Yes. Because, while I am proud of all the things I have mentioned about Great Britain, I am most proud of the clean hands with which we came into this contest; proud of the Cause for which with clear vision we unsheathed our sword, and which we mean to maintain unshaken to the bitter or the triumphant end.

GILBERT MURRAY
_By permission of the Author_

LUSITANIA

(_May 7, 1915_)

Who that can strike a blow
Now will refrain?
Who with the right to go
Now will remain?
Never was blood so spilt
Under God's vault,
Shame and eternal guilt
Now if you halt.

Who that has prayed for peace
Now will forgive?
Who can have any ease
Now while they live?
Into their land we'll break,
Onward we'll thrust,
Yea, for our children's sake
Beat them to dust.

"Wait, in a little time,"
(Mark how they live)!
"Men will forget this crime,
Soon will forgive;
England will heed our plea:
When the war ends
We shall shake hands and be
Traders and friends."

Look, on a crimson tide
Drifts the great host,
Mother and babe collide,
Ghost upon ghost:
See how they make, those tears,
Pillars of spray,
Never in all God's years
Dying away.

Who that can strike a blow
Now will refrain?
Who with the right to go
Now will remain?
Ah, to be young again!
Ah, to be strong!
One, one with England's men
Marching along!

Rise like a fire and go
Fierce to this strife,
On, give them blow for blow,
Life against life:
Theirs to be infamous
Dust of the sod,
Yours to be glorious
Victors of God.

HAROLD BEGBIE
_By permission of the Author_

THE WHITE SHIPS AND THE RED

(_May 7, 1915_)

With drooping sail and pennant
That never a wind may reach,
They float in sunless waters
Beside a sunless beach.
Their mighty masts and funnels
Are white as driven snow,
And with a pallid radiance
Their ghostly bulwarks glow.

Here is a Spanish galleon
That once with gold was gay,
Here is a Roman trireme
Whose hues outshone the day.
But Tyrian dyes have faded,
And prows that once were bright
With rainbow stains wear only
Death's livid, dreadful white.

White as the ice that clove her
That unforgotten day,
Among her pallid sisters
The grim _Titanic_ lay.
And through the leagues above her
She looked, aghast, and said:
"What is this living ship that comes
Where every ship is dead?"

The ghostly vessels trembled
From ruined stern to prow;
What was this thing of terror
That broke their vigil now?
Down through the startled ocean
A mighty vessel came,
Not white, as all dead ships must be,
But red, like living flame.

The pale green waves about her
Were swiftly, strangely dyed,
By the great scarlet stream that flowed
From out her wounded side.
And all her decks were scarlet
And all her shattered crew.
She sank among the white ghost ships
And stained them through and through.

The grim _Titanic_ greeted her--
"And who art thou?" she said;
"Why dost thou join our ghostly fleet
Arrayed in living red?
We are the ships of sorrow
Who spend the weary night,
Until the dawn of Judgment Day,
Obscure and still and white".

"Nay", said the scarlet visitor,
"Though I sink through the sea
A ruined thing that was a ship,
I sink not as did ye.
For ye met with your destiny
By storm or rock or fight,
So through the lagging centuries
Ye wear your robes of white.

"But never crashing iceberg
Nor honest shot of foe,
Nor hidden reef has sent me
The way that I must go.
My wound that stains the waters,
My blood that is like flame,
Bear witness to a loathly deed,
A deed without a name.

"I went not forth to battle,
I carried friendly men,
The children played about my decks,
The women sang--and then--
And then--the sun blushed scarlet
And Heaven hid its face,
The world that God created
Became a shameful place!

"My wrong cries out for vengeance,
The blow that sent me here
Was aimed in Hell. My dying scream
Has reached Jehovah's ear.
Not all the seven oceans
Shall wash away the stain;
Upon a brow that wears a crown
I am the brand of Cain".

When God's great voice assembles
The fleet on Judgment Day,
The ghosts of ruined ships will rise
In sea and strait and bay.
Though they have lain for ages
Beneath the changeless flood,
They shall be white as silver,
But one--shall be like blood.

[C]JOYCE KILMER
_By permission of George E. Doran Company_

FOOTNOTE:

[C] Killed in action, August 18, 1918

EXTRACT FROM SPEECH AT THE GUILDHALL, LONDON, ENGLAND

(_July 29, 1915_)

In the Dominions beyond the seas the same ideals have led inevitably to the establishment of self-governing institutions. That principle, which in the eyes of the short-sighted seemed destined to drive the far-flung nations of our empire asunder, has but united them by ties stronger than could be dreamed of under any system of autocratic government. Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Canada--all these great free nations possessing full rights of self-government, enjoying parliamentary institutions, living by the voice of the people--why have they joined in this conflict, and why are their citizens from the remotest corners of the earth fighting under a common banner and making common cause with the men of these islands in the greatest war the world has ever known? And why are the descendants in Canada of those who fought under Wolfe, and of those who fought under Montcalm, when contending for the northern half of the American continent, why are they now standing together in the empire's battle line? To speak of later events, why do we find beyond the Channel, in France or in Belgium, the grandson of a Durham and the grandson of a Papineau standing side by side in this struggle? When the historian of the future comes to analyse the events of this war, he will realize that some great overmastering impulse contributed mainly to this wonderful result. One such impulse is to be found in the love of liberty, the ideals of democracy, and the spirit of unity founded thereon, which make the whole empire one in aim and purpose. But there was also the intense conviction that this war was forced upon our empire; for in honour we could not stand aside and see trampled in the dust a weak and unoffending people whose independence and liberties we had guaranteed. Beyond and above all this we realized the supreme truth that the issue forced upon us by this conflict transcends even the destinies of our own empire and involves the future of civilization and of the world.

RT. HON. SIR ROBERT BORDEN

THE RED CROSS NURSE

Against the Dark Destroyer
Their loyal legions moved,
To stand by our defenders
With succour tried and proved.
To stay the hosts of horror
With neither sword nor shield,
To hold the line of mercy
The Red Cross took the field.

BLISS CARMAN

I go wherever men may dare,
I go wherever woman's care
And love can live,
Wherever strength and skill can bring
Surcease to human suffering,
Or solace give.

JOHN FINLEY

And yonder where the battle's waves
Broke yesterday o'erhead,
Where now the swift and shallow graves
Cover our English dead,
Think how your sisters play their part,
Who serve as in a holy shrine,
Tender of hand and brave of heart,
Under the Red Cross sign.

SIR OWEN SEAMAN

EDITH CAVELL

(_October 12, 1915_)

Dead?
Who?
Not you--for whom the assassin's hand
But opened wide the door to larger life
And Immortality!
You are not dead!--
You live forever in our hearts and minds,
A perfect woman, brave, and sweet, and true,
Passed, in the gracious fulness of your time,
To nobler work for Him you served so well.

And you still work among us as before,--
And more.--
No sister-nurse in all the world to-day
But bears upon her heart and face
The impress of your soul's high martyrdom;
And we pay each the homage due to you.
All nursing-hands are gentler still--for you!
All nursing-feet are swifter still--for you!
All nursing-hearts are braver still--for you!
And all our souls more loftily attuned
By our sweet memory of you.

But dead--ay, dead, in grimmest truth,
The soul of that poor land
That gave you victim to its savage spleen.
Dead to all sense of right,--
Dead to all sense of shame,--
Dead to mere decency,--
And dead--dead--dead to God
And His Fair Christ.
The pity!--oh, the pity!--that a land
Which once bore men
Should fall so low!

_Punishment?_
What punishment could fit so foul a crime?
No punishment devisable of man were adequate.
As thou forgavest, we can do no less.
God saw it all.
In His just balances it lies,
The crowning weight of their vast infamies.
In His own time, in His own way,
For this--and all--we wait His Reckoning-Day.

JOHN OXENHAM
_By permission of the Author_

THE SOLDIER

If I should die, think only this of me:
That there's some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam;
A body of England's, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.
And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.

[D]RUPERT BROOKE
_From "Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke".
Reprinted by permission of McClelland
& Stewart, Ltd., Publishers, Toronto,
and of the Executor of the Author, and
Sidgwick & Jackson, Ltd., London,
England_

FOOTNOTE:

[D] Rupert Brooke died from sunstroke on his way to the Dardanelles, April 23, 1915, and was buried in the Island of Scyros.

EXTRACT FROM "THE MEANING OF WAR"

The moral energy of nations, as of individuals, is only sustained by an ideal higher than themselves, and stronger than themselves, to which they cling firmly when they feel their courage waver. Where is the ideal of the Germany of to-day? The time when her philosophers proclaimed the inviolability of right, the eminent dignity of the person, the duty of mutual respect among nations, is no more. Germany, militarized by Prussia, has cast aside those noble ideas, ideas she received for the most part from the France of the eighteenth century and of the Revolution. She has made for herself a new soul, or rather she has meekly accepted the soul Bismarck has given her. To him has been attributed the famous maxim "Might is Right". But in truth Bismarck never pronounced it, for he had well guarded himself against a distinction of right from might. Right was simply in his view what is willed by the strongest, what is consigned by the conqueror in the law he imposes on the conquered. In that is summed up his whole morality. Germany to-day knows no other. She, too, worships brute force. And because she believes herself the strongest, she is altogether absorbed in self-adoration. Her energy comes from her pride. Her moral force is only the confidence which her material force inspires in her. And this means that in this respect she is living on reserves without means of replenishment. Even before England had commenced to blockade her coasts, she had blockaded herself morally, in isolating herself from every ideal capable of giving her new life.

So she will see her forces waste and her courage at the same time. But the energy of our soldiers is drawn from something which does not waste, from an ideal of justice and freedom. Time has no hold on us. To the force which feeds only on its own brutality we are opposing that which seeks outside and above itself a principle of life and renovation. Whilst the one is gradually spending itself, the other is continually re-making itself. The one is already wavering, the other abides unshaken. Have no fear, our force will slay theirs.

HENRI LOUIS BERGSON
_By permission of the Publishers,
T. Fisher Unwin, Ltd.,
London, England_

TO OUR DEAD

The flame of summer droops and fades and closes,
While autumn thins the embers of the copse,
And evermore the violent life of roses
Grows keener as the roseate foliage drops:
O strong young hearts within whose veins was leaping
Love like a fount, hate like a dart shot high,
My heart o'er yours, its dolorous vigil keeping,
Is pierced with sorrow, while in joy you die!

Your ashes o'er the flats of France are scattered,
But hold a fire more hot than flesh of ours;
The stainless flag that flutters, frayed and tattered,
Shall wave and wave like spring's immortal flowers.
You die, but in your death life glows intenser;
You shall not know the shame of growing old:
In endless joy you swing the holy censer,
And blow the trumpet tho' your lips are cold.

Life was to us a mist of intimations,
Death is a flash that shows us where we trod;
You, falling nobly for the righteous nations,
Reveal the unknown, the unhoped-for face of God.
After long toil your labours shall not perish;
Through grateful generations yet to come
Your ardent gesture, dying, Love shall cherish,
And like a beacon you shall guide us home.

EDMUND GOSSE
_By permission of the Author_

THE DEAD

Blow out, you bugles, over the rich Dead!
There's none of these so lonely and poor of old,
But, dying, has made us rarer gifts than gold.
These laid the world away; poured out the red
Sweet wine of youth; gave up the years to be
Of work and joy, and that unhoped serene,
That men call age; and those who would have been,
Their sons, they gave, their immortality.

Blow, bugles, blow! They brought us, for our dearth,
Holiness, lacked so long, and Love, and Pain.
Honour has come back, as a king, to earth,
And paid his subjects with a royal wage;
And Nobleness walks in our ways again;
And we have come into our heritage.

RUPERT BROOKE
_From "Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke".
Reprinted by permission of McClelland
& Stewart, Ltd., Publishers, Toronto,
and of the Executor of the Author, and
Sidgwick & Jackson, Ltd., London,
England_

IN A BELGIAN GARDEN

Once in a Belgian garden,
(Ah, many months ago!)
I saw, like pale Madonnas,
The tall, white lilies blow.

Great poplars swayed and trembled
Afar against the sky,
And green with flags and rushes,
The river wandered by.

Amid the waving wheat-fields
Glowed poppies blazing red,
And showering strange wild music
A lark rose overhead.

. . . . . .

The lark has ceased his singing,
The wheat is trodden low,
And in the blood-stained garden
No more the lilies blow.

And where green poplars trembled
Stand shattered trunks instead,
And lines of small white crosses
Keep guard above the dead.

For here brave lads and noble,
From lands beyond the deep,
Beneath the small white crosses
Have laid them down to sleep.

They laid them down with gladness
Upon the alien plain,
That this same Belgian garden
Might bud and bloom again.

F. O. CALL
_By permission of the Author_

". . . . . THAT HAVE NO DOUBTS"

--_Rudyard Kipling_

_The last resort of Kings are we, but the voice of peoples too_--
Ask the guns of Valmy Ridge--
Lost at the Beresina Bridge,
When the Russian guns were roaring death and the Guard was charging
through.

_Ultima Ratio Regis, we--but he who has may hold,_
Se curantes Dei curant,
Hear the gunners that strain and pant,
As when before the rising gale the Great Armada rolled.

_Guns of fifty--sixty tons that roared at Jutland fight,_
Clatter and clang of hoisting shell;
See the flame where the salvo fell
Amidst the flash of German guns against the wall of white.

_The sons of English carronade or Spanish culverin--_
The Danish windows shivered and broke
When over the sea the children spoke,
And groaning turrets rocked again as we went out and in.

_We have no passions to call our own, we work for serf or lord,_
Load us well and sponge us clean--
Be your woman a slave or queen--
And we will clear the road for you who hold us by the sword.

_We come into our own again and wake to life anew--_
Put your paper and pens away,
For the whole of the world is ours to-day,
And it's we who'll do the talking now to smooth the way for you.

_Howitzer gun or Seventy-five, the game is ours to play,_
And hills may quiver and mountains shake,
But the line in front shall bend or break.
What is it to us if the world is mad? For we are the kings to-day.

KLAXON
_By permission of Wm. Blackwood & Sons,
Edinburgh_

ON THE RUE DU BOIS

(_Written at Sailly, France, 1915_)

O pallid Christ within this broken shrine,
Not those torn Hands and not that Heart of Thine
Have given the nations blood to drink like wine.

Through weary years and 'neath the changing skies
Men turned their back on those appealing Eyes
And scorned as vain Thine awful Sacrifice.

Kings with their armies, children in their play,
Have passed unheeding down this shell-ploughed way:
The great world knew not where its true strength lay.

In pomp and luxury, in lust of gold,
In selfish ease, in pleasures manifold,
"Evil is good, good evil", we were told.

Yet here, where nightly the great flare-lights gleam,
And murder stalks triumphant in their beam,
The world has wakened from its empty dream.

At last, O Christ, in this strange, darkened land,
Where ruined homes lie round on every hand,
Life's deeper truths men come to understand.

For lonely graves along the countryside,
Where sleep those brave hearts who for others died,
Tell of life's union with the Crucified.

And new light kindles in the mourner's eyes,
Like day-dawn breaking through the rifted skies,
For Life is born through life's self-sacrifice.

FREDERICK GEORGE SCOTT
_From "In the Battle Silences"--By
permission of the Author and The
Musson Book Company, Limited,
Toronto_

EXTRACT FROM "FEAR GOD AND TAKE YOUR OWN PART"

(_February, 1916_)

The English navy was mobilized with a rapidity and efficiency as great as that of the German army. It has driven every warship except an occasional submarine, and every merchant ship of Germany off the seas, and has kept the ocean as a highway of life not only for England, but for France, and largely also for Russia. In all history there has been no such gigantic and successful naval feat accomplished as that which the seamen and shipwrights of England have to their credit during the last eighteen months. It was not originally expected that England would have much to do on the continent; and although her wisest sons emphatically desired that she should be ready to do more, yet this desire represented only a recognition of the duty owed by England to herself. To her Allies she has more than kept the promise she has made. She has given Russia the financial assistance that none but she could give; her money effort has been unparalleled in all previous history. Eighteen months ago no Frenchman would have expected that in the event of war England would do more than put a couple of hundred thousand men in France. She has already put in a million, and is training and arming more than double that number. Her soldiers have done their duty fearlessly and well; they have won high honour on the fields of horror and glory; they have shown the same gallantry and stubborn valour that have been so evident in the armies of France and Russia. Her women are working with all the steadfast courage and self-sacrifice that the women of France have shown. Her men from every class have thronged into the army. Her fisher folk, and her seafarers generally, have come forward in such numbers that her fleet is nearly double as strong as it was at the outset of the war. Her mines and war factories have steadily enlarged their output, and it is now enormous, although many of the factories had literally to build from the ground up, and the very plant itself had to be created.

Coal, food, guns, munitions, are being supplied with sustained energy. From across the sea the free Commonwealths of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, and the Indian Empire, have responded with splendid loyalty, and have sent their sons from the ends of the earth to do battle for liberty and civilization. Of Canada I can speak from personal knowledge. Canada has faced the time that tries men's souls, and with gallant heroism she has risen level to the time's need. Mighty days have come to her, and she has been equal to the mighty days. Greatness comes only through labour and courage, through the iron willingness to face sorrow and death, the tears of women and the blood of men, if only thereby it is possible to serve a lofty ideal. Canada has won that honourable place among the nations of the past and the present which can only come to the people whose sons are willing and able to dare and do and die at need. The spirit shown by her sister-commonwealths is the same. High of heart and undaunted of soul the men and women of the British Islands and of the whole British Empire now front the crisis that is upon them.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT
_From "Fear God and Take Your Own Part"--Copyright,
1916. By permission of George II. Doran Company_

TO THE MEMORY OF FIELD-MARSHAL EARL KITCHENER

BORN, JUNE 24TH, 1850

DIED ON SERVICE, JUNE 5TH, 1916

Soldier of England, you who served her well
And in that service, silent and apart,
Achieved a name that never lost its spell
Over your country's heart;--

Who saw your work accomplished ere at length
Shadows of evening fell, and creeping Time
Had bent your stature or resolved the strength
That kept its manhood prime;--

Great was your life, and great the end you made,
As through the plunging seas that whelmed your head
Your spirit passed, unconquered, unafraid,
To join the gallant dead.

But not by death that spell could pass away
That fixed our gaze upon the far-off goal,
Who, by your magic, stand in arms to-day
A nation one and whole,

Now doubly pledged to bring your vision true
Of darkness vanquished and the dawn set free
In that full triumph which your faith foreknew
But might not live to see.

SIR OWEN SEAMAN
_Reprinted by permission of London "Punch"_

KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM

Weep, waves of England! Nobler clay
Was ne'er to nobler grave consigned;
The wild waves weep with us to-day
Who mourn a nation's master mind.

We hoped an honoured age for him,
And ashes laid with England's great;
And rapturous music, and the dim
Deep hush that veils our Tomb of State.

But this is better. Let him sleep
Where sleep the men who made us free,
For England's heart is in the deep,
And England's glory is the sea.

One only vow above his bier,
One only oath beside his bed:
We swear our flag shall shield him here
Until the sea gives up its dead!

Leap, waves of England! Boastful be,
And fling defiance in the blast,
For Earth is envious of the Sea
Which shelters England's dead at last.

ROBERT J. C. STEAD
_From "Kitchener and Other Poems"--By
permission of The Musson Book
Company, Limited, Toronto_

KITCHENER'S MARCH

Not the muffled drum for him
Nor the wailing of the fife--
Trumpets blaring to the charge
Were the music of his life.
Let the music of his death
Be the feet of marching men,
Let his heart a thousandfold
Take the field again.

Of his patience, of his calm,
Of his quiet faithfulness,
England, build your hero's cairn!
He was worthy of no less.
Stone by stone, in silence laid,
Singly, surely, let it grow.
He whose living was to serve
Would have had it so.

There's a body drifting down
For the mighty sea to keep.
There's a spirit cannot die
While one heart is left to leap
In the land he gave his all,
Steel alike to praise and hate.
He has saved the life he spent--
Death has struck too late.

Not the muffled drums for him
Nor the wailing of the fife--
Trumpets blaring to the charge
Were the music of his life.
Let the music of his death
Be the feet of marching men!
Let his heart a thousandfold
Take the field again!

AMELIA JOSEPHINE BURR
_From "Life and Living"--Copyright, 1916.
By permission of the Publishers,
George H. Doran Company_

THE CROWN OF EMPIRE

O England of our Fathers
And England of our Sons,
Along the dark horizon line
The day-dawn glory runs,
For Empire has been ours of old
And Empire ours shall be--
His grip is on the world to-day
Whose grip is on the sea.

O England of our Fathers
And England of our Sons,
Above the roar of battling hosts,
The thunder of the guns,
A Mother's voice was calling us,
We heard it over-sea,
The blood which thou didst give us
Is the blood we spill for thee.

O England of our Fathers
And England of our Sons,
Along the dark horizon-line
The day-dawn glory runs,
For golden Peace is drawing near,
Her paths are on the sea,--
He grips the hearts of all mankind
Who stands for Liberty.

FREDERICK GEORGE SCOTT
_From "In the Battle Silences"--By
permission of the Author and The
Musson Book Company, Limited,
Toronto_