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Title: Hello, Boys!

Author: Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Release date: October 1, 2004 [eBook #6666]

Most recently updated: July 7, 2014

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6666

Credits: Transcribed from the 1919 Gay and Hancock edition by David Price

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HELLO, BOYS! ***

Transcribed from the 1919 Gay and Hancock edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org

HELLO, BOYS!

BY

ELLA WHEELER WILCOX

LONDON

GAY AND HANCOCK, LTD.

1919

All rights reserved

N.B.—The only volumes of my Poems issues

with my approval in the British Empire are

published by Messrs. Gay & Hancock.

ELLA WHEELER WILCOX.

FORWARD

THE greater part of these verses dealing with the war were written in France during my recent seven months’ sojourn there, and for the purpose of using in entertainments given in camps and hospitals to thousands of American soldiers.

They were the result of coming into close contact with the soldiers’ mind and heart, and were intentionally expressed in the simplest manner, without any consideration of methods approved by modern critics.  The fact that I have been asked to autograph scores of copies of many of these verses (and one of them to the extent of 350 copies) is more gratifying to me than would be the highest encomiums of the purely literary critic.

ELLA WHEELER WILCOX.

London,

October 1918.

CONTENTS

PAGE

THANKSGIVING

1

THE BRAVE HIGHLAND LADDIES

3

MEN OF THE SEA

6

ODE TO THE BRITISH FLEET

9

THE GERMAN FLEET

11

DEEP UNTO DEEP WAS CALLING

12

THE SONG OF THE ALLIES

14

TEN THOUSAND MEN A DAY

16

“AMERICA WILL NOT TURN BACK”

18

WAR

20

THE HOUR

23

THE MESSAGE

25

“FLOWERS OF FRANCE”

29

OUR ATLAS

34

CAMP FOLLOWERS

37

COME BACK CLEAN

39

CAMOUFLAGE

41

THE AWAKENING

42

THE KHAKI BOYS WHO WERE NOT AT THE FRONT

44

TIME’S HYMN OF HATE

46

DEAR MOTHERLAND OF FRANCE

48

THE SPIRIT OF GREAT JOAN

50

SPEAK

52

THE GIRL OF THE U.S.A.

54

PASSING THE BUCK

56

SONG OF THE AVIATOR

57

THE STEVEDORES

59

A SONG OF HOME

61

THE SWAN OF DIJON

73

VEILS

65

IN FRANCE I SAW A HILL

68

AMERICAN BOYS, HELLO!

70

DE ROCHAMBEAU

72

AFTER

74

THE BLASPHEMY OF GUNS

75

THE CRIMES OF PEACE

78

IT MAY BE

82

THEN AND NOW

85

WIDOWS

89

CONVERSATION

93

I, TOO

97

HE THAT HATH EARS

99

ANSWERS

101

HOW IS IT?

104

‘LET US GIVE THANKS’

107

THE BLACK SHEEP

109

ONE BY ONE

112

PRAYER

114

BE NOT DISMAYED

116

ASCENSION

118

THE DEADLIEST SIN

121

THE RAINBOW OF PROMISE

124

THEY SHALL NOT WIN

126

THANKSGIVING

Thanksgiving for the strong armed day,

That lifted war’s red curse,

When Peace, that lordly little word,

Was uttered in a voice that stirred—

Yea, shook the Universe.

Thanksgiving for the Mighty Hour

That brimmed the Victor’s cup,

When England signalled to the foe,

‘The German flag must be brought low

And not again hauled up!’

Thanksgiving for the sea and air

Free from the Devil’s might!

Thanksgiving that the human race

Can lift once more a rev’rent face,

And say, ‘God helps the Right.’

Thanksgiving for our men who came

In Heaven-protected ships,

The waning tide of hope to swell,

With ‘Lusitania’ and ‘Cavell’

As watchwords on their lips.

Thanksgiving that our splendid dead,

All radiant with youth,

Dwell near to us—there is no death.

Thanksgiving for the broad new faith

That helps us know this truth.

THE BRAVE HIGHLAND LADDIES

I had seen our splendid soldiers in their khaki uniforms,

And their leaders with a Sam Brown belt;

I had seen the fighting Britons and Colonials in swarms,

I had seen the blue-clad Frenchmen, and I felt

That the mighty martial show

Had no new sight to bestow,

Till I walked on Piccadilly, and my word!

By the bonnie Highland laddies

In their kilts and their plaidies,

To a wholly new sensation I was stirred.

They were like some old-time picture, or a scene from out a play,

They were stalwart, they were young, and debonnair;

Their jaunty little caps they wore in such a fetching way,

And they showed their handsome legs, and didn’t care—

And they seemed to own the town

As they strode on up and down—

Oh, they surely were a sight for tired eyes!

Those braw, bonnie laddies

In their kilts and their plaidies,

And I stared at them with pleasure and surprise.

I had read about the valour of old Scotland’s warrior sons—

How they fought to a finish, or else fell;

I had heard the name bestowed on them by agitated Huns,

Who called these skirted soldiers ‘Dames of Hell’;

And I gave them right of way

On their London holiday,

As I met them swinging down the street and Strand,

Those bonnie, bonnie laddies

In their kilts and their plaidies,

And I breathed a blessing on them and their land

Now the world is all rejoicing that the end of war has come—

And no heart is any gladder than my own,

That the brutal, blatant voices of the guns at last are dumb,

And the Dove of Peace from out her cage has flown.

Yet, when men no more march by,

Making pictures for the eye,

There’s a vital dash of colour earth will lack,

When the brave Highland laddies

Drop their kilts and their plaidies,

And return to common clothes of grey or black!

MEN OF THE SEA

Many the songs of the brave boys sent

Over The Top in the battle’s thunder;

But mine is the song of the men who went

Over the top of the waves—and under.

Men of the sea, Men of the sea,

I lift mine eyes to the Flags unfurled—

The Flags of Victory blowing free

Over the new-born world.

And I cry ‘Thank God! these things can be!

Thank God, and the Men of the Sea!’

Little it matters to what they belong,

Marine or Navy—or Merchant Ship—

To the Men of the Sea I sing my song;

A song that rises from heart to lip.

I sing of the valour that ploughed a path

Straight through the snares of a crafty foe,

Through billows raging with wintry wrath,

And over the dens of the devils below.

To the splendid heroes of Jutland Bank

And the Royal Navy I give their due;

And cheek by jowl with them all, I rank

The brave mine-sweepers and merchant crew.

Trawler—Drifter—or English Fleet—

All are manned by the Men of the Sea,

And all together in my heart meet,

For a boat is a boat to the mind of me.

And who ever over the dread seas fared,

And however humble his work or place,

To the great Christ spirit must be compared—

Since he offered his life for the good of the race.

And how many lie in the deep-sea bed,

No man can reckon, and no man number;

But not one Soul of them all is dead,

For death is only the body’s slumber.

And the Men of the Mist, who from dark to dawn

On the deck or the bridge stand guard at night,

Oft feel the presence of comrades gone

Who keep watch with them, though veiled from sight.

Many the songs of the brave boys sent

Over The Top in the battle’s thunder;

But mine is the song of the men who went

Over the top of the waves—and under.

ODE TO THE BRITISH FLEET

‘Invisible and silent’—Mystery

Surrounded that great Guardian of the Sea.

That Father—Mother—of the mighty main.

While loud in valley and on field and hill—

And over anguished plain

The battles thundered.  God himself is still

And hidden from men’s view; and it were meet

That this subliminal force

Should move in utter silence on its course

Invisible—Inaudible—till that hour

When Time, Fate’s Minister, should speak and say—

‘Come forth! and show thy power!’

When Time commands, even the gods obey.

‘Invisible and silent’; yet the foe

Was driven from the Sea.  All impotent

The brazen braggart went.

While commerce sent her brave ships to and fro;

And from Columbia’s shores there sailed away

Ten thousand men a day—

Ten thousand men a day! who reached their goals

Bringing new courage to war-weary souls.

Oh, silent wonder of the noisy sea!

Though alien, with the blood of Bunker Hill

Down filtering through my veins, the heart of me

Seems with a mingled love and awe to fill

And overflow at thought of that sublime,

Unparalleled large hour of Time;

When bloodless Victory saw the foes’ flag furled—

That insolent menace to a righteous world.

Great Britain’s Fleet unshaken in its might,

Proclaimed itself again in all men’s sight

The Mistress of the Main.  Fair Freedom’s friend,

May peace and glory on thy path attend.

THE GERMAN FLEET

Lie down, and let the billows hide your shame,

Oh, shorn and naked outcast of the seas!

You who confided to each ocean breeze

Your coming conquests, and made loud acclaim

Of your own grandeur and exalted fame;

You who have catered to they world’s disease;

You who have drunk hate’s wine, and found the lees;

Lie down! and let all men forget your name!

You dreamed of world dominion! you! the spawn

Of hell and hatred—Foe to all things free—

Sworn enemy to honour, truth and right;

Too poor a thing now for the Devil’s pawn,

Let the large mercy of the outraged sea

Engulf and hide you evermore from sight.

DEEP UNTO DEEP WAS CALLING

They rode through the bannered city—

The King and the Commoner,

And the hopes of the world were with them,

And the heart of the world was astir.

For the moss-grown walls seemed falling

That have shut away men from Kings;

And Deep unto Deep was calling

For the coming of greater things.

They rode to an age-old Palace

Where the feet of the Mighty go—

(A Palace that stands unshaken

Despite the boast of the foe!)

And the King from Kings descending—

And the Man of the People’s choice

In a Super-Man seemed blending,

And they spoke as with one voice.

And one voice now and for ever

Will speak from sea to sea,

Wherever the British Banner

And the Starry Flag float free.

For our fettering chains are sundered

By the evil that turned to good,

And Deep unto Deep has thundered

Its message of Brotherhood.

It was not a pageant of Victors—

Or a triumph hour of man,

That ride through the bannered City,

It was part of a Mighty Plan;

And the sound of old barriers falling

Rose there where those Rulers trod,

For Deep unto Deep was calling

In the resonant Voice of God.

THE SONG OF THE ALLIES

We are the Allies of God to-day,

And the width of the earth is our right of way.

Let no man question or ask us why,

As we speed to answer a wild world cry;

Let no man hinder or ask us where,

As out over water and land we fare;

For whether we hurry, or whether we wait,

We follow the finger of guiding fate.

We are the Allies.  We differ in faith,

But are one in our courage at thought of death.

Many and varied the tongues we speak,

But one and the same is the goal we seek.

And the goal we seek is not power or place,

But the peace of the world, and the good of the race.

And little matters the colour of skin,

When each heart under it beats to win.

We are the Allies; we fight or fly,

We wallow in trenches like pigs in a sty,

We dive under water to foil a foe,

We wait in quarters, or rise and go.

And staying or going, or near or far,

One thought is ever our guiding star:

We are the Allies of God to-day,

We are the Allies—make way! make way!

TEN THOUSAND MEN A DAY

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 and young,

Filled with all the joy of life—

Into line they swung.

Waning valour rose anew

At the sight of these

Ten thousand men a day

Coming over seas.

Still they come—and still they come

In their strength and pride.

Victory with radiant mien

Marches on beside.

Victory is here to stay,

Every heart agrees,

With ten thousand men a day

Coming over seas.

‘AMERICA WILL NOT TURN BACK’

WOODROW WILSON

America will not turn back;

She did not idly start,

But weighed full carefully and well

Her grave, important part.

She chose the part of Freedom’s friend,

And will pursue it, to the end.

Great Liberty, who guards her gates,

Will shine upon her course,

And light the long, adventurous path

With radiance from God’s Source.

And though blood dye that ocean track,

America will not turn back.

She will not turn until that hour

When thunders through the world

The crash of tyrant monarchies

By Freedom’s hand down-hurled.

While Labour’s voice from sea to sea

Sings loud, ‘My country, ’tis of thee.’

Then will our fair Columbia turn,

While all wars’ clamours cease,

And with our banner lifted high

Proclaim, ‘Let there be Peace.’

But till that glorious day shall dawn

She will march on, she will march on.

WAR

I

There is no picturesqueness and no glory,

No halo of romance, in war to-day.

It is a hideous thing; Time would turn grey

With horror, were he not already hoary

At sight of this vile monster, foul and gory.

Yet while sweet women perish as they pray,

And new-born babes are slaughtered, who dare say

‘Halt!’ till Right pens its ‘Finis’ to the story!

There is no pathway, but the path through blood,

Out of the horrors of this holocaust.

Hell has let loose its scalding crimson flood,

And he who stops to argue now is lost.

Not brooms of creeds, not Pacifistic words

Can stem the tide, but swords—uplifted swords!

II

Yet, after Peace has turned the clean white page

There shall be sorrow on the earth for years;

Abysmal grief, that has no eyes for tears,

And youth that hobbles through the earth like age.

But better to play this part upon life’s stage

Than to aid structures that a tyrant rears,

To live a stalwart hireling torn with fears,

And shamed by feeding on a conqueror’s wage.

Death, yea, a thousand deaths, were sweet in truth

Rather than such ignoble life.  God gave

Being, and breath, and high resolve to youth

That it might be Wrong’s master, not its slave.

Our road to Freedom is the road to guns!

Go, arm your sons!  I say, Go, arm your sons!

III

Arm! arm! that mandate on each wind is whirled.

Let no man hesitate or look askance,

For from the devastated homes of France

And ruined Belgium the cry is hurled.

Why, Christ Himself would keep peace banners furled

Were He among us, till, with lifted lance,

He saw the hosts of Righteousness advance

To purify the Temples of the world.

There is no safety on the earth to-day

For any sacred thing, or clean, or fair;

Nor can there be, until men rise and slay

The hydra-headed monster in his lair.

War! horrid War! now Virtue’s only friend;

Clasp hands with War, and battle to the end!

THE HOUR

This is the world’s stupendous hour—

The supreme moment for the race

To see the emptiness of power,

The worthlessness of wealth and place,

To see the purpose and the plan

Conceived by God for growing man.

And they who see and comprehend

That ultimate and lofty aim

Will wait in patience for the end,

Knowing injustice cannot claim

One lasting victory, or control

Laws that bar progress for the whole.

This is an epoch-making time;

God thunders through the universe

A message glorious and sublime,

At once a blessing and a curse.

Blessings for those who seek His light,

Curses for those whose law is might.

Ephemeral as the sunset glow

Is human grandeur.  Mortal life

Was given that souls might seek and know

Immortal truths; and through the strife

That shakes the earth from land to land

The wise shall hear and understand.

Out of the awful holocaust,

Out of the whirlwind and the flood,

Out of old creeds to Bedlam tossed,

Shall rise a new earth washed in blood—

A new race filled with spirit power,

This is the world’s stupendous hour.

THE MESSAGE

I have not the gift of vision,

I have not the psychic ear,

And the realms that are called Elysian

I neither see nor hear;

Yet oft when the shadows darken

And the daylight hides its face,

The soul of me seems to hearken

For the truths that speak through space.

They speak to me not through reason,

They speak to me not by word;

Yet my soul would be guilty of treason

If it did not say it had heard.

For Space has a message compelling

To give to the ear of Earth;

And the things which the Silence is telling

In the bosom of God have birth.

Now this is the truth as I hear it—

That ever through good or ill,

The will of the Ruling Spirit

Is moving and ruling still.

In the clutch of the blood-red terror

That holds the world in its might,

The Race is learning its error

And will find its way to the light.

And this is the Truth as I see it—

Whoever cries out for peace,

Must think it, and live it, and be it,

And the wars of the world will cease.

Men fight that man may awaken,

And no longer want to kill;

Wars rage, and the heavens are shaken

That man may learn how to be still.

In the silence he finds his Saviour—

The God Who is dwelling within;

And only by Christ-behaviour

Is the soul of him saved from sin.

There is only one Source—no other—

One Light, and each soul is a ray;

And he who would slaughter his brother,

Himself he is seeking to slay.

Now these are the Truths we are learning

Through evils and horrors untold;

For the thought of the race is turning

Away from its methods of old.

And the mind of the race is sated,

With the things that it prized of yore,

And the monster of war is hated,

As never on earth before.

Oh, slow are God’s mills in the grinding,

But they grind exceedingly small;

And slow is man’s soul in the finding,

That he is a part of the All.

Through æons and æons, his story

Is bloody and blackened with crime;

But he will come out into glory

And stand on the summits sublime.

He will stand on the summits of Knowledge,

In the splendour of Light from the Source;

And the methods of church and of college

Will all of them change by his force.

For the creeds that are blind and cruel,

And the teachings by rule and by rod,

Will all be turned into fuel

To light up the pathway to God.

This is the Truth as I hear it—

The clouds are rolling away,

And Spirit will talk with Spirit

In the swift approaching day.

War from the world shall be driven,

From evil shall come forth good;

And men shall make ready for Heaven

Through living in Brotherhood.

‘FLOWERS OF FRANCE’

DECORATION POEM FOR SOLDIERS’ GRAVES, TOURS,

FRANCE, MAY 30, 1918

Flowers of France in the Spring,

Your growth is a beautiful thing;

But give us your fragrance and bloom—

Yea, give us your lives in truth,

Give us your sweetness and grace

To brighten the resting-place

Of the flower of manhood and youth,

Gone into the dust of the tomb.

This is the vast stupendous hour of Time,

When nothing counts but sacrifice and faith,

Service and self-forgetfulness.  Sublime

And awful are these moments charged with death

And red with slaughter.  Yet God’s purpose thrives

In all this holocaust of human lives.

I say God’s purpose thrives.  Just in the measure

That men have flung away their lust for gain,

Stopped in their mad pursuit of worldly pleasure,

And boldly faced unprecedented pain

And dangers, without thinking of the cost,

So thrives God’s purpose in the holocaust.

Death is a little thing: all men must die;

But when ideals die, God grieves in Heaven.

Therefore I think it was the reason why

This Armageddon to the world was given.

The Soul of man, forgetful of its birth,

Was losing sight of everything but earth.

Up from these many million graves shall spring,

A shining harvest for the coming race.

An Army of Invisibles shall bring

A glorified lost faith back to its place.

And men shall know there is a higher goal

Than earthly triumphs for the human soul.

They are not dead—they are not dead, I say,

These men whose mortal forms are in the sod.

A grand Advance-Guard marching on its way,

Their Souls move upwards to salute their God!

While to their comrades who are in the strife

They cry, ‘Fight on!  Death is the dawn of life.’

We had forgotten all the depth and beauty

And lofty purport of that old true word

Deplaced by pleasure—that old good word duty.

Now by its meaning is the whole world stirred.

These men died for it; for it, now, we give,

And sacrifice, and serve, and toil, and live.

From out our hearts had gone a high devotion

For anything.  It took a mighty wrath—

Against great evil to wake strong emotion,

And put us back upon the righteous path.

It took a mingled stream of tears and blood

To cut the channel through to Brotherhood.

That word meant nothing on our lips in peace:

We had despoiled it by our castes and classes.

But when this savage carnage finds surcease

A new ideal will unite the masses.

And there shall be True Brotherhood with men—

The Christly Spirit stirring earth again.

For this our men have suffered, fought, and died.

And we who can but dimly see the end

Are guarded by their spirits glorified,

Who help us on our way, while they ascend.

They are not dead—they are not dead, I say,

These men whose graves we decorate to-day.

America and France walk hand in hand;

As one, their hearts beat through the coming years:

One is the aim and purpose of each land,

Baptized with holy water of their tears.

To-day they worship with one faith, and know

Grief’s first Communion in God’s House of Woe.

Great Liberty, the Goddess at our gates,

And great Jeanne d’Arc, are fused into one soul:

A host of Angels on that soul awaits

To lead it up to triumph at the goal.

Along the path of Victory they tread,

Moves the majestic cortège of our dead.

Flowers of France in the Spring,

Your growth is a beautiful thing;

But give us your fragrance and bloom—

Yea, give us your lives in truth,

Give us your sweetness and grace

To brighten the resting-place

Of the flower of manhood and youth,

Gone into the dust of the tomb.

OUR ATLAS

Not Atlas, with his shoulders bent beneath the weighty world,

Bore such a burden as this man, on whom the Gods have hurled

The evils of old festering lands—yea, hurled them in their might

And left him standing all alone, to set the wrong things right.

It is the way the Fates have done since first Time’s race began!

They open up Pandora’s box before some chosen man;

And then, aloof, they wait and watch, to see if he will find

And wake the slumbering God that dwells in every mortal’s mind.

Erect, our modern Atlas stands, with brave uplifted head,

And there is courage in his eyes, if in his heart be dread.

Not dread of foes, but dread of friends, who may not pull together,

To bring the lurching ship of State safe through the stormy weather.

Oh, never were there wilder waves or more stupendous seas,

Or rougher rocks or bleaker winds, or darker days than these.

Not Washington, not Lincoln knew so grave an hour of Time

As he who now stands face to face with War’s world-shaking crime.

His brain is clear, his soul is brave, his heart is just and right,

He asks no honours of the earth, but favour in God’s sight;

His aim is not to wear a crown or win imperial power,

But to use wisely for the race life’s terrible great hour.

O Liberty, who lights the world with rays that come from God,

Shine on Columbia’s troubled track, and make it bright and broad;

Shine on each heart, and give it strength to meet its pains and losses,

And give supernal strength to one who bears the whole world’s crosses;

Take from his thought the fear of friends who may not pull together,

And bring the glorious ship of State safe through wild waves and weather.

CAMP FOLLOWERS

In the old wars of the world there were camp followers,

Women of ancient sins who gave themselves for hire,

Women of weak wills and strong desire.

And, like the poison ivy in the woods

That winds itself about tall virile trees

Until it smothers them, so these

Ruined the bodies and the souls of men.

More evil were they than Red War itself,

Or Pestilence, or Famine.  Now in this war—

This last most awful carnage of the world—

All the old wickedness exists as then:

But as a foul stream from a festering fen

Is met and scattered by a mountain brook

Leaping along its beautiful, bright course,

So now the force

Of these new Followers of the camp has come

Straight from God’s Source

To cleanse the world and cleanse the minds of men.

Good women, of great courage and large hearts,

Women whose slogan is self-sacrifice,

Willing to pay the price

God asks of pioneers, now play their parts

In this stupendous drama of the age

As Followers of the Camps.

They come in the name of God our Father,

They come in the name of Christ our Brother,

They come in the name of All Humanity,

To give their gold, their labour, and their love

To help the suffering souls in this war-riddled earth,

The New Women of the Race—

The New Camp Followers—

The Centuries shall do honour to their names.

COME BACK CLEAN

This is the song for a soldier

To sing as he rides from home

To the fields afar where the battles are

Or over the ocean’s foam:

‘Whatever the dangers waiting

In the lands I have not seen,

If I do not fall—if I come back at all,

Then I will come back clean.

‘I may lie in the mud of the trenches,

I may reek with blood and mire,

But I will control, by the God in my soul,

The might of my man’s desire.

I will fight my foe in the open,

But my sword shall be sharp and keen

For the foe within who would lure me to sin,

And I will come back clean.

‘I may not leave for my children

Brave medals that I have worn,

But the blood in my veins shall leave no stains

On bride or on babes unborn;

And the scars that my body may carry

Shall not be from deeds obscene,

For my will shall say to the beast, Obey!

And I will come back clean.

‘Oh, not on the fields of slaughter

And not in the prison-cell,

Or in hunger and cold is the story told

By war, of its darkest hell.

But the old, old sin of the senses

Can tell what that word may mean

To the soldiers’ wives and to innocent lives,

And I will come back clean.’

CAMOUFLAGE

Camouflage is all the rage.

Ladies in their fight with age—

Soldiers in their fight with foes—

Demagogues who mask and pose

In the guise of statesmen—girls

Black of eyes with golden curls—

Politicians, votes in mind,

Smiling, affable and kind,

All use camouflage to-day.

As you go upon your way,

Walk with caution, move with care;

Camouflage is everywhere!

THE AWAKENING

I said, ‘I will place my heart, my heart all broken,

Beside the world’s torn heart, that it may know

The comradeship of sorrow that is not spoken,

But is carried on wings of all the winds that blow.

I will go homeless into homes of grieving,

And find my own grief easier to be borne.’

So over menacing seas I went, believing

Where all was mourning, I would cease to mourn.

And now I am here, close to the great world-sorrow,

Here where each heart some mighty grief has known;

But from each suffering soul I seem to borrow

A poignant pain that but augments my own.

The earth is like one vast tempestuous ocean,

Where struggling beings fight for light and breath:

I feel their anguish, feel each keen emotion—

Yet through it all, I know there is no death.

And as we toss on billows red with slaughter,

Unto each tortured, anguished soul I cry,

‘There are green lands beyond this raging water,

We shall come into harbour by and by.

Our dead dwell near, life is a thing eternal:

And I have talked with One from that fair shore.

We are but passing through a dream infernal;

We shall awake, we shall be glad once more.’

THE KHAKI BOYS WHO WERE NOT AT THE FRONT

Oh! it is not just the men who face the guns,

Not the fighters at the Front alone, to-day

Who will bring the longed-for close to the bloody fray, for those

Could not carry on that fray without the ones

Who are working at war’s problems far away.

You are all our splendid heroes in the strife,

And we class you with the warriors maimed and scarred,

Though you never have been near enough the battle din to hear,

While you laboured in the dull routine of life

In your khaki suits with sleeves that are not barred.

You have offered up yourselves to save the world;

You have felt the abnegation of the Christ:

And whatever work you do is a noble work and true;

Though it be not done with banners all unfurled,

You will find it has, in sight of God, sufficed.

While you carry back no medals when you go,

Not without you had the fighters borne war’s brunt:

So just lift your heads uncowed, for your country will be proud

And its lasting love and honour will bestow

On the khaki boys who were not at the Front.

TIME’S HYMN OF HATE

Oh, boastful, wicked land, that once was beautiful and great,

How bitter and how black must be your self-invited fate,

While Time goes down the centuries and sings his hymn of hate!

Time’s voice is just.  His words ring true.  For as the past recedes,

The clear-eyed Future slowly writes the story of its deeds;

And as Time toward the Infinite his ceaseless flight is winging

He shall go singing

The hymn of hate, of men and gods, for all your deeds of lust,

For all your acts of cruelty and hell-concocted schemes

(More hideous than the darkest plot of which a devil dreams)

Which sprang from your Medusa head before it touched the dust.

Beneath the strangling hand of Fate

That strident voice of yours

Shall hush to silence, soon or late

That Justice that endures

Will mobilise its mighty ranks and free the human race,

Then shall all Space,

Yea, all the chains of sphere on sphere,

With that loud hymn be ringing,

Which Time goes singing

His far flight winging

And all the cherubims of God that dwell in regions o’er us

Shall swell the chorus.

Oh, boastful, wicked land, that once was beautiful and great,

How desolate and dark must be your self-invited fate,

While Time goes down the centuries and sings his hymn of hate!

DEAR MOTHERLAND OF FRANCE

DEDICATED TO

THE MEN AND WOMEN OF FRANCE

Our Motherland, dear Motherland,

The source of beauty and of Art,

Who but thy children understand

The love which permeates each heart!

We see, through rainbow-tints of tears,

Thy glory of a thousand years.

O country of the Great and Free,

We live for thee, we live for thee,

Dear Motherland of France.

O Motherland, both blithe and brave,

What magic lies in thy name—France!

Yet can thy radiant mien be grave,

And stern thy ever-smiling glance.

And when thy sons and daughters know

That enemies would lay thee low

And dim thy fame on land and sea,

We fight for thee, we fight for thee,

Dear Motherland of France.

Dear Motherland of joy and mirth,

Dear Motherland of faith divine,

A thousand years the wondering earth

Has seen thy star in splendour shine.

Still shall it see that star of France

Its splendour and its light enhance.

Dear Motherland, when it need be

We die for thee, we die for thee,

Dear Motherland of France.

THE SPIRIT OF GREAT JOAN

Back of each soldier who fights for France,

Ay, back of each woman and man

Who toils and prays through these long tense days,

Is the spirit of Great Joan.

For the love she gave, and the life she gave,

In the eyes of God sufficed

To crown her with light, and power, and might,

That made her second to Christ.

And so in that hour at the Marne she came,

To the seeing eyes of men;

And the blind of view still felt and knew

That her spirit had come again.

And she will come in each crucial hour

And joy shall follow despair,

For Joan sees her France on its knees

And she hears the voice of its prayer.

There is no hate in the heart of France,

But a mighty moral force

That takes its stand for her worshipped land,

And cannot be swerved from its course.

For this is the way with France to-day,

Her courage comes from faith,

And she bends her knee ere she straightens her arm;

In her forward rush toward death.

A jungle of beasts in the heart of the Hun—

War to the world laid bare.

And war has revealed, that France concealed,

Only the lion’s lair.

A lioness fighting to save her own,

She fights as a lioness can,

And strength to the end shall the Unseen send,

In the spirit of Great Joan.

SPEAK

Obscured the sun, the world is dark;

Maid of Orleans, Joan of Arc,

Send down thy spark.

Let every heart in France be stirred,

By such an all-compelling word

As thou once heard.

Say to each soul, ‘Lo! I am near;

My voice still speaks in accents clear.

Be still and hear.

‘The France I saved can not be lost;

Though tempest-torn and terror-tossed,

Count not the cost.

‘Give as the maid of Domrémy

Gave all—gave life itself to see

Her country free.

‘Back of great France my spirit towers

To aid her through the darkest hours

With God’s own powers!’

Maid of Orleans, Joan of Arc,

Shine through the night, speak through the dark

The while we hark.

THE GIRL OF THE U.S.A.

Oh! the maidens of France are certainly fine,

And I think every fellow will state

That the ‘what-you-may-call-it’ coiffured way

They put up their hair is great!

And they know how to dress, and they wear their clothes

In a fetching, Frenchy way;

And yet to me, there is just one girl—

The girl of the U.S.A.

I like to listen when French girls talk,

Though I’m weak in the ‘parlez-vous’ game;

But the language of youth in every land

Is somehow about the same,

And I’ve learned a regular code of shrugs,

And they seem to know what I say!

But the girl whose voice goes straight to my heart

Is the girl of the U.S.A.

I haven’t a word but words of praise

For these dear little girls of France;

And I will confess that I’ve felt a thrill

As I faced their line of advance!

But I haven’t been taken a prisoner yet,

And I won’t be, until the day

When I carry my colours to lay at the feet

Of a girl of the U.S.A.

PASSING THE BUCK

Whatever the task that comes your way,

Just take it as part of your luck.

Look it right square in the eyes, and say,

‘This is my task, I’ll do it to-day’:

Don’t pass the buck.

Oh! whether you cook, or whether you fight,

Or whether you trundle a truck,

Just tackle your job and do it right:

Don’t pass the buck.

The wheels of the earth have gone, alack!

Deep into war’s mire and muck.

If you want to put it again on its track,

Don’t shift your load on another man’s back:

Don’t pass the buck.

SONG OF THE AVIATOR

You may thrill with the speed of your thoroughbred steed,

You may laugh with delight as you ride the ocean,

You may rush afar in your touring car,

Leaping, sweeping, by things that are creeping—

But you never will know the joy of motion

Till you rise up over the earth some day,

And soar like an eagle, away—away.

High and higher above each spire,

Till lost to sight is the tallest steeple,

With the winds you chase in a valiant race,

Looping, swooping, where mountains are grouping,

Hailing them comrades, in place of people.

Oh! vast is the rapture the birdman knows,

As into the ether he mounts and goes.

He is over the sphere of human fear;

He has come into touch with things supernal.

At each man’s gate death stands await;

And dying, flying, were better than lying

In sick-beds, crying for life eternal.

Better to fly half-way to God

Than to burrow too long like a worm in the sod.

THE STEVEDORES

We are the army stevedores, lusty and virile and strong,

We are given the hardest work of the war, and the hours are long.

We handle the heavy boxes, and shovel the dirty coal;

While soldiers and sailors work in the light, we burrow below like a mole.

But somebody has to do this work, or the soldiers could not fight!

And whatever work is given a man, is good if he does it right.

We are the army stevedores, and we are volunteers.

We did not wait for the draft to come, to put aside our fears;

We flung them away on the winds of fate, at the very first call of our land,

And each of us offered a willing heart and the strength of a brawny hand.

We are the army stevedores, and work as we must and may,

The cross of honour will never be ours to proudly wear away.

But the men at the Front could never be there,

And the battles could not be won,

If the stevedores stopped in their dull routine

And left their work undone.

Somebody has to do this work; be glad that it isn’t you!

We are the army stevedores—give us our due!

A SONG OF HOME

I am singing a song to the boys to-day,

A song of the home that is far away.

And I know that an echo the word is waking

In many a heart that is secretly aching,

Yes, almost breaking, thinking of Home, dear Home.

But thought, dear boys, is a carrier dove,

And it flies straight into the hearts you love.

You picture the days of your youthful joys,

The old home circle, the girls and boys

You knew in that wonderful world of pleasure,

When life danced on to a lilting measure;

Each scene you treasure, thinking of Home, dear Home.

And here is a thought that is sweet and true—

The ones you long for are longing for you.

You picture the day when the war is done,

The duty accomplished, the victory won,

And over the billows our ships go leaping,

Into our beautiful harbour sweeping,

And with laughter and weeping, you go back Home, Home, Home.

On the walls of your heart you must hang with care

This beautiful picture, framed in prayer.

Thinking of Home, you are blazing a trail

For that glorious day when our ships shall sail;

Where the Goddess of Liberty lights the water

To guide you back from the fields of slaughter,

Fair Freedom’s daughter, who welcomes us Home, Home, Home.

So hold your vision, and work and pray,

As you dream of the Home that is far away.

THE SWAN OF DIJON

I was in Dijon when the war’s wild blast

Was at its loudest; when there was no sound

From dawn to dawn, save soldiers marching past,

Or rattle of their wagons in the street.

When every engine whistle would repeat

Persistently, with meaning tense, profound,

‘We carry men to slaughter’ or ‘we bring

Remnants of men back as war’s offering.’

And there in Dijon, the out-gazing eye

Grew weary of the strife-suggesting scene;

But, searching, found one quiet spot hard by

Where war was not; a little lake whereon

Moved leisurely a stately, tranquil swan,

Majestic and imposing, yet serene.

I was in Dijon, when no sound or sight

Woke thoughts of peace, save this one speck of white,

Sailing ’neath skies of menace, unafraid

While silver fountains for his pleasure played.

Dear Swan of Dijon, it was your good part

To rest a tired heart.

VEILS

Veils, everywhere float veils; veils long and black,

Framing white faces, oft-times young and fair,

But, like a rose touched by untimely frost,

Showing the blighting marks of sorrow’s track.

Veils, veils, veils everywhere.  They tell the cost

Of man-made war.  They show the awful toll

Paid by the hearts of women for the crimes,

The age-old crimes by selfishness ill-named

‘Justice’ and ‘Honour’ and ‘The call of Fate’—

High words men use to hide their low estate.

About the joy and beauty of this world

A long black veil is furled.

Even the face of Heaven itself seems lost

Behind a veil.  It takes a fervent soul

In these tense times

To visualise a God so long defamed

By insolent lips, that send out prayers, and prate

Of God’s collaboration in dark deeds,

So foul they put to shame the fiends of hell.

Yet One does dwell

In Secret Centres of the Universe—

The Mighty Maker; and He hears and heeds

The still small voice of soulful, selfless faith;

And He is lifting now the veil of death,

So long down-dropped between those worlds and earth.

Yea!  He is giving faith a great new birth

By letting echoes from the hidden places

Where dwell our dead, fall on love’s listening ear.

Hearken, and you shall hear

The messages which come from those star-spaces!

That is the reason why

God let so many die;

That the vast hordes of suffering hearts might wake

Mighty vibrations, and the silence break

Between the neighbouring worlds, and lift the veil

’Twixt life on earth, and life Beyond.  All hail

To great Jehovah, Who has given life

Eternal, everlasting, after strife!

Veils, long black veils, you shall be bridal white.

Eyes, blind with tears, you shall receive your sight,

And see your dead alive in Worlds of Light.

IN FRANCE I SAW A HILL

In France I saw a hill—a gentle slope

Rising above old tombs to greet the gleam

From soft spring skies.  Beyond these skies dwells hope,

But those green graves bespeak a broken dream.

There was a row of narrow beds, new-made;

Each bore a starry banner and a cross.

And each the name of one who, ere he played

His rôle of warrior, met earth’s final loss.

They were so young, so eager for the fray!

And thoughts of glory filled each boyish heart,

When over dangerous seas they sailed away

To face the foe and play some splendid part.

But in the tedious toil, the dull routine

Which must precede achievement on the field,

Disease, that secret enemy with mean

Sly tactics, forced them to disarm and yield.

So they were buried on that hill in France,

Before their ears had heard the battle din;

Before life gave them its dramatic chance—

A lasting fame, or glorious death to win.

Yet, looking up beyond their graves of green,

I seem to see them wearing band and star;

Men are rewarded in the Worlds Unseen

Not for the way they die, but what they are.

AMERICAN BOYS, HELLO!

Oh! we love all the French, and we speak in French

As along through France we go.

But the moments to us that are keen and sweet

Are the ones when our khaki boys we meet,

Stalwart and handsome and trim and neat;

And we call to them—‘Boys, hello!’

‘Hello, American boys,

Luck to you, and life’s best joys!

American boys, hello!’

We couldn’t do that if we were at home—

It never would do, you know!

For there you must wait till you’re told who’s who,

And to meet in the way that nice folks do.

Though you knew his name, and your name he knew—

You never would say ‘Hello, hello, American boy!’

But here it’s just a joy,

As we pass along in the stranger throng,

To call out, ‘Boys, hello!’

For each is a brother away from home;

And this we are sure is so,

There’s a lonesome spot in his heart somewhere,

And we want him to feel there are friends right there

In this foreign land, and so we dare

To call out ‘Boys, hello!’

‘Hello, American boys,

Luck to you, and life’s best joys!

American boys, hello!’

DE ROCHAMBEAU

ON THE PRESENTATION OF AN AMERICAN BANNER

TO CAMP ROCHAMBEAU BY THE MARQUISE DE

ROCHAMBEAU AT TOURS, FRANCE, JUNE 1, 1918

Here is a picture I carry away

On memory’s wall.  A green June day,

A golden sun in an amethyst sky,

And a beautiful banner floating as high

As the lofty spires of the city of Tours,

And a slender Marquise, with a face as pure

As a sculptured saint: while staunch and true

In new-world khaki and old-world blue,

Wearing their medals with modest pride,

Her stalwart bodyguard stand at her side.

Simple the picture; but much it may mean

To one who reads into and under the scene,

For there, in that opulent hour and weather,

Two great Republics came closer together;

A little nearer came land to land

Through the magical touch of a woman’s hand.

And once again as in long ago

The grand old name of de Rochambeau

Shines forth like a star, for our world to see—

Our Land of the Brave, and our Home of the Free.

AFTER

Over the din of battle,

Over the cannons’ rattle,

Over the strident voices of men and their dying groans,

I hear the falling of thrones.

Out of the wild disorder

That spreads from border to border,

I see a new world rising from ashes of ancient towns;

And the rulers wear no crowns.

Over the blood-charged water,

Over the fields of slaughter,

Down to the hidden vaults of Time, where lie the worn-out things,

I see the passing of kings.

THE BLASPHEMY OF GUNS

There must be lonely moments when God feels

The need of prayer—

Such lonely moments, knowing not anywhere,

In any spot or place,

In all the far recesses of vast space,

Dwells any one to whom His prayers may rise,

And then, methinks—so urgent is His need—

God bids His prayers descend.

He that has ears to hear, let him take heed,

For much God’s prayers portend.

God flings His solar system forth to be

Finished by beings who befit each sphere.

Not ours to pry the secrets out of Mars;

Our work lies here.

To star-folk leave the stars.

There must be many worlds that give God care:

Young worlds that glow and burn,

Old worlds that freeze and fade.

This world is man’s concern.

Methinks God must be very much dismayed,

Seeing the use we make of earth to-day,

While loud we pray.

Last night, in sleep, beyond the earth’s small zone,

Adventurously my spirit went alone,

Past lesser hells and heavens, where souls may pause

To learn the meaning of death’s larger laws,

Past astral shapes and bodies of desire,

Past angels and archangels, high and higher,

Until the pinnacles of space it trod,

Then, awestruck, paused, hearing the voice of God.

‘Mortals of earth, for whom I shaped a sphere

(So spake the Voice), ‘there rises to Mine ear

Eternal praises and eternal pleas.

Now, after centuries, I tire of these.

Have ye no knowledge of the Maker’s needs,

Ye who ask favours and who praise by creeds?

Why has it not sufficed

That unto this small earth I sent great Christ,

Divine expression of the mortal man,

To aid my plan?

‘Why ask for more when all has been refused?

Why praise My name Who hourly am abused?

Why seek for Me or heaven, when in you dwells

Hate’s lurid hells?

‘Persistent praises and persuasive pleas—

I tire, I tire of these;

But I, the Maker of a billion suns,

Ask men to stop the blasphemy of guns.’

This is God’s prayer.

(There must be many worlds that give God care.)

THE CRIMES OF PEACE

Musing upon the tragedies of earth,

Of each new horror which each hour gives birth,

Of sins that scar and cruelties that blight

Life’s little season, meant for man’s delight,

Methought those monstrous and repellent crimes

Which hate engenders in war-heated times,

To God’s great heart bring not so much despair

As other sins which flourish everywhere

And in all times—bold sins, bare-faced and proud,

Unchecked by college, and by Church allowed,

Lifting their lusty heads like ugly weeds

Above wise precepts and religious creeds,

And growing rank in prosperous days of peace.

Think you the evils of this world would cease

With war’s cessation?

If God’s eyes know tears,

Methinks He weeps more for the wasted years

And the lost meaning of this earthly life—

This big, brief life—than over bloody strife.

Yea; there are mean, lean sins God must abhor

More than the fatted, blood-drunk monster, War.

Looking from His place, looking from His high place among the stars, God saw a peaceful land—

A land of fertile fields and golden harvests—and great cities whose innumerable spires pierced the vault of heaven, like bayonets of an invading army.

And God said, speaking unto Himself aloud, God said:

‘Peace and power and plenty have I given unto this land; and those tall steeples are monuments to Me.

Now let My people reveal themselves, that I may see their works, done in My name in a fertile land of peace.

I will withdraw Mine eyes from other worlds that I may behold them, that I may behold these people to whom I sent Christ—they whose innumerable spires pierce My blue vault like bayonets.’

God saw the restless, idle rich in club and cabaret,

Meat-gorged, wine-filled, they played and preened and danced till dawn o’ day;

They played at sports; they played at love; they played at being gay.

They were but empty, silk-clad shells; their souls had leaked away.

He saw the sweat-shop and the mill where little children toiled,

The sunless rooms where mothers slaved and unborn souls were spoiled;

While those whose greedy, selfish lives had thrust the toilers there,

He saw whirled down broad avenues, clothed all with raiment fair.

He saw in homes made beautiful with all that gold can give

Unhappy souls at odds with life, not knowing how to live.

He saw fair, pampered women turn from motherhood’s sweet joy,

Obsessed with methods to prevent or mania to destroy.

He saw men sell their souls to vice and avarice and greed;

He heard race quarrelling with race and creed decrying creed;

And shameful wealth and waste He saw, and shameful want and need.

He saw bold little children come from church and schoolroom, blind

To suffering of lesser things, unfeeling and unkind;

He heard them taunt the poor, and tease their furred and feathered kin;

And no voice spake from home or church to tell them this was sin.

He heard the cry of wounded things, the wasteful gun’s report;

He saw the morbid craze to kill, which Christian men called sport.

And then God hid His grieving face behind a wall of cloud,

On earth they said, ‘A thunder-storm’—but God had wept aloud.

IT MAY BE

Let us be silent for a little while;

Let us be still and listen.  We may hear

Echoes from other worlds not far a way.

City on city rising, steeple out-topping steeple,

Gaining and hoarding and spending, and armies on battle bent,

People and people and people, and ever more human people—

This is not all of creation, this is not all that was meant!

Earth on its orbit spinning,

This is not end or beginning;

That is but one of a trillion spheres out into the ether hurled:

We move in a zone of wonder,

And over our planet and under

Are infinite orders of beings and marvels of world on world.

There may be moving among us curious people and races,

Folk of the fourth dimension, folk of the vast star spaces.

They may be trying to reach us,

They may be longing to teach us

Things we are longing to know.

If it is so,

Voices like these are not heard in earth’s riot,

Let us be quiet.

Classes with classes disputing, nation warring with nation,

Building and owning and seeking to lead—this is not all!

Endless the works of creation,

There may be waiting our call

Beings in numberless legions,

Dwellers in rarefied regions,

Journeying Godward like us,

Alist for a word to be spoken,

Awatch for a sign or a token.

If it be thus,

How they must grieve at our riotous noise

And the things we call duties and joys!

Let us be silent for a little while;

Let us be still and listen.  We may hear

Echoes from other worlds not far away.

THEN AND NOW

A little time agone, a few brief years,

And there was peace within our beauteous borders;

Peace, and a prosperous people, and no fears

Of war and its disorders.

Pleasure was ruling goddess of our land; with her attendant Mirth

She led a jubilant, joy-seeking band about the riant earth.

Do you recall those laughing days, my Brothers,

And those long nights that trespassed on the dawn?

Those throngs of idle dancing maids and mothers

Who lilted on and on—

Card mad, wine flushed, bejewelled and half stripped,

Yet women whose sweet mouth had never sipped

From sin’s black chalice—women good at heart

Who, in the winding maze of pleasure’s mart,

Had lost the sun-kissed way to wholesome pleasures of an earlier day.

Oh!  You remember them!  You filled their glasses;

You ‘cut in’ at their games of bridge; you left

Your work to drop in on their dancing classes

Before the day was cleft

In twain by noontide.  When the night waxed late

You led your partner forth to demonstrate

The newest steps before a cheering throng,

And Time and Peace danced by your side along.

Peace is a lovely word, and we abhor that red word ‘War’;

But look ye, Brothers, what this war has done for daughters and for son,

For manhood and for womanhood, whose trend

Seemed year on year toward weakness to descend.

Upon this woof of darkness and of terror, woven by human error,

Behold the pattern of a new race-soul,

And it shall last while countless ages roll.

At the loud call of drums, out of the idler and the weakling comes

The hero valiant with self-sacrifice, ready to pay the price

War asks of men, to help a suffering world.

And out of the arms of pleasure, where they whirled

In wild unreasoning mirth, behold the splendid women of the earth

Living new selfless lives—the toiling mothers, sister, daughters, wives

Of men gone forth as target for the foe.

Ah, now we know

Man is divine; we see the heavenly spark

Shining above the smoke and gloom and dark

Which was not visible in peaceful days.

God! wondrous are Thy ways,

For out of chaos comes construction; out of darkness and of doubt

And the black pit of death comes glorious faith;

From want and waste comes thrift, from weakness strength and power

And to the summits men and women lift

Their souls from self-indulgence in this hour,

This crucial hour of life:

So shines the golden side of this black shield of strife.

WIDOWS

The world was widowed by the death of Christ:

Vainly its suffering soul for peace has sought

And found it not.

For nothing, nothing, nothing has sufficed

To bring back comfort to the stricken house

From whence has gone the Master and the Spouse.

In its long widowhood the world has striven

To find diversion.  It has turned away

From the vast aweful silences of Heaven

(Which answer but with silence when we pray)

And sought for something to assuage its grief.

Some surcease and relief

From sorrow, in pursuit of mortal joys.

It drowned God’s stillness in a sea of noise;

It lost God’s presence in a blur of forms;

Till, bruised and bleeding with life’s brutal storms,

Unto immutable and speechless space

The World lifts up its face,

Its haggard, tear-drenched face,

And cries aloud for faith’s supreme reward,

The promised Second Coming of its Lord.

So many widows, widows everywhere,

The whole earth teems with widows.  Guns that blare—

Winged monsters of the air—

And deep-sea monsters leaping through the water,

Hell bent on slaughter,

All these plough paths for widows.  Maids at dawn,

And brides at noon, ere eventide pass on

Into the ranks of widows: but to weep

Just for a little space; then will grief sleep

In their young bosoms, where sweet hope belongs,

New love will sing once more its age-old songs,

And life bloom as a rose-tree blooms again

After a night of rain.

There are complacent widows clothed in crêpe

Who simulate a grief that is not real.

Through paths of seeming sorrow they escape

From disappointed hopes to some ideal,

Or, from the penury of unloved wives

Walk forth to opulent lives.

And there are widows who shed all their tears

Just at the first

In one wild burst,

And then go lilting lightly down the years:

Black butterflies, they flit from flower to flower

And live in the thin pleasures of the hour;

Merging their tender memories of the dead

In tenderer dreams of being once more wed.

But there are others: women who have proved

That loving greatly means so being loved.

Women who through full beauteous years have grown

Into the very body, souls, and heart

Of their dear comrades.  When death tears apart

Such close-knit bonds as these, and one alone

Out to the larger freer life is called,

And one is left—

Then God in heaven must sometimes be appalled

At the wild anguish of the soul bereft,

And unto His Son must say, ‘I did not know

Mortals could suffer so.’

But Christ, remembering Gethsemane,

Will answer softly, ‘It was known to Me.’

God’s alchemist, old Time, will merge to calm

That bitter anguish; but there is no balm

Save the sweet certitude that each long day

Is one step in a stair

That circles up to where freed spirits stay.

Widows, so many widows everywhere.

The world was widowed by the death of Christ,

And nothing, nothing, nothing has sufficed

To bring back comfort to the stricken house

From whence has gone the Master and the Spouse.

Hasten, dear Lord, with Thy Millennium, Hasten and come.

CONVERSATION

We were a baker’s dozen in the house—six women and six men

Besides myself; and all of us had known

Those benefits supposed to come from school and church and brush and pen,

And opportunities of being thrown

In contact with the cultured and the gifted people of the day.

Being the thirteenth one among six pairs

I deemed it wise to keep apart and let the others have their say:

And from my vantage-place upon the stairs,

Or in a corner, where I seemed to read, I listened for some word

That would make life seem sweeter, or cast light

Upon the goal toward which all footsteps wend: and this was what I heard

Throughout each day and half of every night.

The men talked business, politics, and trade;

They told of safe investments, and great chances

For speculation.  (One man who had made

Pleasure his art, described the newest dances

And dwelt upon each chassé, glide, and whirl

As lovers dwell upon the charms of some fair girl.)

They talked of war, and tried to find its cause,

And quite deplored the fact that wars must come.

But since this desperate condition was,

They carefully computed what the sum

Of profit might be to a land of peace,

And wondered if times would be harder should war cease.

They spoke of games and sports; told many a story

That made the listeners laugh; then back from these

Always they harked to money, or the gory

And savage drama playing overseas.

Then there were tales from club and smoking-room—

The submarines of gossip, bringing some name doom.

The women talked of fashions and of plays,

But more of players and their private lives;

Related tittle-tattle of their words and ways,

Their lightning change of husbands and of wives.

And there was chat of garments and their price,

Of operas and balls and all that gives life spice.

Some talk there was of music, pictures, books,

But of musicians, painters, authors, more.

The way they lived—their methods and their looks—

The colour of their eyes—the clothes they wore;

And whether it was true, as had been stated,

That gifted people were quite sure to be mis-mated.

They talked of servants, menus, and disease,

And operations.  Each one came in line

With some astounding tale to tell of these,

And of her surgeon’s skill, which seemed divine.

But of that vast Domain where live our dead

And where we all are hurrying, no word was said.

When we know that goal awaits each one of us a little farther on,

When we know how an ever-increasing company of friends is gathered there,

Why do we not speak of it in our daily conversation?

Why do we not familiarise our minds with thoughts of worlds unseen?

There are many beautiful things to be learned of that country.

There are sacred books of great travellers, whose souls have cried, ‘Hail across the border’;

There are truths which have been learned in visions and by revelations:

All the revelations were not given to St. John alone,

All the wise men of the world did not die two thousand years ago!

Why do we not talk of these eternal truths,

Instead of wasting all our words on the evanesent, the ever-changing, the trivial, and the unimportant?

There is but one important theme, and that is Life Immortal.

I, TOO

I saw fond lovers in that glow

That oft-times fades away too soon:

I saw and said, ‘Their joy I know—

I, too, have had my honeymoon.’

A young expectant mother’s gaze

Held earth and heaven within its scope:

My thoughts went back to holy days—

I said, ‘I, too, have known that hope.’

I saw a stricken mother swayed

By sorrow’s storm, like wind-blown grass:

I said, ‘I, too, dismayed

Have seen the little white hearse pass.’

I saw a matron rich with years

Walk radiantly beside her mate:

I blessed them, and said through my tears,

‘I, too, have known that high estate.’

I saw a woman swathed in black

So blind with grief she could not see:

I said, ‘Not far need I look back—

I, too, have known Gethsemane.’

I saw a face so full of light,

It seemed with all God’s truths to shine:

I said, ‘I, too, have found my sight,

I, too, have touched the Fact Divine.’

HE THAT HATH EARS

‘He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.’—St. John the Divine.

The Spirit says unto the churches,

‘Ere ever the churches began

I lived in the centre of Being—

The life of the Purpose and Plan;

I flowed from the mind of the Maker

Through nature to man.

‘I sleep in the glow of the jewel,

I wake in the sap of the tree,

I stir in the beast of the forest,

I reason in man, and am free

To turn on the path of Ascension

To the god yet to be.

‘I was, and I am, and I will be;

I live in each church and each faith

But yield to no bond and no fetter,

I animate all with my breath;

I speak through the voice of the living

And I speak after death.’

The Spirit says unto the churches,

‘The dead are not gone, they are near

And my voice, when I will it, speaks through them,

Speaks through them in messages clear.

And he that hath ears, in the silence

May listen and hear.’

The Spirit says unto the churches,

‘So many the feet that have trod

The road leading up into knowledge,

The steep narrow path has grown broad;

And the curtain held down by old dogmas

Is lifted by God.’

ANSWERS

What is the end of each man’s toil,

Brother, O Brother?

A handful of dust in a bit of soil—

His name forgotten as centuries roll,

Though blazoned to-day on Glory’s scroll;

For the lordliest work of brain or hand

Is only an imprint made on sand;

When the tidal wave sweeps over the shore

It is there no more,

Brother, my Brother.

Then what is the use of striving at all,

Brother, O Brother?

Because each effort or great or small

Is a step on the long, long road that leads

To the Kingdom of Growth on the River of Deeds:

And that is the kingdom no man can gain

Till he uses his hand and his mind and brain,

And when he has used them and learned control

He finds his soul,

Brother, my Brother.

And after he finds it, what is the end,

Brother, O Brother?

Upward ever its course and trend;

For this is the purpose and aim and plan

To seek in the soul for the Super-man—

The man who is conscious that Heaven is near—

A bulletin bearer from There to Here,

Finding God dwells in the spirit within

Where He ever has been,

Brother, my Brother.

And what will the God-man do when He comes,

Brother, O Brother?

He will better the world or in courts or slums,

He will do in gladness his nearest duty:

He will teach the religion of love and beauty

In field or factory, mine or mart,

While He tells the world of the larger part

And the wider life that is yet to be

When spirit is free,

Brother, my Brother.

When spirit is free, then where will it go,

Brother, O Brother?

Its uttermost summit no man may know,

For it goes up to God in His holy Tower

To gather more knowledge and force and power;

Like a ray of the sun it shall shine again

To brighten new planets and races of men.

Life had no beginning, life has no end,

Brother and friend—

Brother, my Brother.

HOW IS IT?

You who are loudly crying out for peace,

You who are wanting love to vanquish hate,

How is it in the four walls of your home

The while you wait?

Do those who form your household welcome your approach in the morning

As the earth welcomes the presence of dawn,

Or do they dread your coming lest you censure and complain?

Do you begin the day with praise to God for each blessing you possess, and do you speak frequent words of commendation to those about you?

Do those you claim to love often hear you talking in love’s language,

Or is your softest tone and your sweetest speech saved for the sometime guest,

While the harsh voice and the sharp retort are used with those you love the best?

You who are praying for the Christ’s return

And for the coming of the Promised Day,

How is it in the four walls of your home

The while you pray?

Are you trying to make your home a reflection of what you believe heaven will be?

Unless you are you will never find heaven anywhere;

The foundations of our heavenly mansions must first be built on earth.

Unless you are striving to put in use some of the angelic virtues here and now,

No angelhood will be accorded you hereafter.

Unless you are illustrating your desire for peace by a peaceful, love-ruled home,

You have no right to clamour for a cessation of hostilities among nations;

Nations are only chains of individuals.

When each individual expresses nothing but love and peace in his daily life, there will be no more war.

You who are loudly crying out for peace,

You who are wanting love to vanquish hate,

How is it in the four walls of your home

The while you wait?

‘LET US GIVE THANKS’

For the courage which comes when we call,

While troubles like hailstones fall;

For the help that is somehow nigh,

In the deepest night when we cry;

For the path that is certainly shown

When we pray in the dark alone,

Let us give thanks.

For the knowledge we gain if we wait

And bear all the buffets of fate;

For the vision that beautifies sight

If we look under wrong for the right;

For the gleam of the ultimate goal

That shines on each reverent soul:

Let us give thanks.

For the consciousness stirring in creeds

That love is the thing the world needs;

For the cry of the travailing earth

That is giving a new faith birth;

For the God we are learning to find

In the heart and the soul and the mind:

Let us give thanks.

For the growth of the spirit through pain,

Like a plant in the soil and the rain;

For the dropping of needless things

Which the sword of a sorrow brings;

For the meaning and purpose of life

Which dawns on us out of the strife:

Let us give thanks.

For the solace that comes to our grief

In knowing earth’s season is brief;

For the certitude given by faith

Of the continents out beyond death;

For the glorious thought that each day

Is speeding us the reward away:

Let us give thanks.

THE BLACK SHEEP

‘Black sheep, black sheep, have you any wool?’

Yes, sir—yes, sir: three bags full.’

‘I don’t want any New Thought,’ said he,

‘Or any Theosophy, for, you see,

The faith I learned at my mother’s knee

Is good enough for me.

Of course, I’m a wee bit broader than she,

Hearing one sermon where she heard three,

And I read my paper on Sunday, instead

Of the Bible only.  My mother said

I was a black sheep, when she saw

I strayed a trifle away from the law,

And didn’t think every one left in the lurch

Who happened to go to a different church;

But, still, in the main, her creed is mine,

And I don’t want anything more divine.’

Yet his mother’s mother was more austere;

She taught her children a creed of fear,

And she called them ‘black sheep’ when, with a shock,

She saw them straying away from the flock,

Just far enough

To get around places they thought too rough,

Like infant damnation and endless hell.

But his mother’s mother’s mother would tell

How her mother thought it was God’s sweet will

To punish and torture a heretic till

They drove out the devil that made him dare

Think for himself in the matter of prayer

And faith and salvation.  So we see how it is

If we look back over the centuries—

The creeds men learned at their mother’s knee

When Salem witches were hanged to a tree,

And the pious dames flocked thither to see,

Are not deemed Christian or holy to-day;

And the bold black sheep who went straying away

From rut-worn paths in their search for God,

And leaped over the fence into pastures broad,

Are the great trail-makers for mortal souls,

Leading the race up to higher goals

And a larger religion; where man must find

God dwelling ever within his mind,

Christ in his conduct, and heaven in his thought,

And hell but the places where love is not.

A mighty religion that makes this earth

But the cradle that fits us for death’s new birth

And the life beyond it, that is so near

Its echoes may reach to the listening ear.

‘Black sheep, black sheep, have you any wool?’

‘Yes, sir—yes, sir: a whole world full.’

ONE BY ONE

Little by little and one by one,

Out of the ether, were worlds created;

Star and planet and sea and sun,

All in the nebulous Nothing waited

Till the Nameless One Who has many a name

Called them to being and forth they came.

All things mighty and all things small,

Stone and flower and sentient being,

Each is an answer to that one call,

A part of Himself that His will is freeing—

Freeing to go on the long, long way

That winds back home at the end of the day.

Little by little does mortal man

Build his castles for joy and glory,

And one by one time shatters each plan

And lowers his palaces, story by story—

Story by story, till earth is just

A row of graves in the lowly dust.

One by one, whatever was called,

Must be called back to the primal Centre.

Let no soul tremble or be appalled,

For the heart of the Maker is where we enter—

Is where we enter to gain new force

Before we are sent on another course.

And one by one, as He calls us back,

We shall find the souls that we loved with passion,

In the great way-stations along the track,

And clasp them again in the old, sweet fashion—

In the old, sweet fashion when earth we trod—

And journey along with them up to God.

PRAYER

Lord, let us pray.

Give us the open mind, O God,

The mind that dares believe

In paths of thought as yet untrod;

The mind that can conceive

Large visions of a wider way

Than circumscribes our world to-day.

May tolerance temper our own faith,

However great our zeal;

When others speak of life and death,

Let us not plunge a steel

Into the heart of one who talks

In terms we deem unorthodox.

Help us to send our thoughts through space,

Where worlds in trillions roll,

Each fashioned for its time and place,

Each portion of the whole;

Till our weak minds may feel a sense

Of Thy Supreme Omnipotence.

Let us not shame Thee with a creed

That builds a costly church,

But blinds us to a brother’s need

Because he dares to search

For truth in his own soul and heart

And finds his church in home and mart.

Give us the faith that makes us kind,

Give us the open sight and mind—

O God, the often mind

That lifts itself to meet the Ray

Of the New Dawning Day:

Lord, let us pray.

BE NOT DISMAYED

Be not dismayed, be not dismayed when death

Sets its white seal upon some worshipped face.

Poor human nature for a little space

Must suffer anguish, when that last drawn breath

Leaves such long silence; but let not thy faith

Fail for a moment in God’s boundless grace.

But know, oh know, He has prepared a place

Fairer for our dear dead than worlds beneath,

Yet not beneath; for those entrancing spheres

Surround our earth as seas a barren isle.

Ours is the region of eternal fears;

Theirs is the region where God’s radiant smile

Shines outward from the centre, and gives hope

Even to those who in the shadows grope.

They are not far from us.  At first though long

And lone may seem the paths that intervene,

If ever on the staff of prayer we lean

The silence will grow eloquent with song

And our weak faith with certitude wax strong.

Intense, yet tranquil; fervent, yet serene,

He must be who would contact World Unseen

And comrade with their Amaranthine throng;

Not through the tossing waves of surging grief

Come spirit-ships to port.  When storms subside,

Then with their precious cargoes of relief

Into the harbour of the heart they glide.

For him who will believe and trust and wait

Death’s austere silence grows articulate.

ASCENSION

I have been down in the darkest water—

Deep, deep down where no light could pierce;

Alone with the things that are bent on slaughter,

The mindless things that are cruel and fierce.

I have fought with fear in my wave-walled prison,

And begged for the beautiful boon of death;

But out of the billows my soul has risen

To glorify God with my latest breath.

There is no potion I have not tasted

Of all the bitters in life’s large store;

And never a drop of the gall was wasted

That the lords of Karma saw fit to pour,

Though I cried as my Elder Brother before me,

‘Father in heaven, let pass this cup!’

And the only response from the still skies o’er me

Was the brew held close for my lips to sup.

Yet I have grown strong on the gall Elysian,

And a courage has come that all things dares;

And I have been given an inner vision

Of the wonderful world where my dear one fares;

And I have had word from the great Hereafter—

A marvellous message that throbs with truth,

And mournful weeping has changed to laughter,

And grief has changed into the joy of youth.

Oh! there was a time when I supped sweet potions,

And lightly uttered profound belief,

Before I went down in the swirling oceans

And fought with madness and doubt and grief.

Now I am climbing the Hills of Knowledge,

And I speak unfearing, and say ‘I know,’

Though it be not to church, or to book, or college,

But to God Himself that my debt I owe.

For the ceaseless prayer of a soul is heeded,

When the prayer asks only for light and faith;

And the faith and the light and the knowledge needed

Shall gild with glory the path to death.

Oh! heart of the world by sorrow shaken,

Hear ye the message I have to give:

The seal from the lips of the dead is taken,

And they can say to you, ‘Lo! we live.’

THE DEADLIEST SIN

There are not many sins when once we sift them.

In actions of evolving human souls

Striving to reach high goals

And falling backward into dust and mire,

Some element we find that seems to lift them

Above our condemnation—even higher

Into the realm of pity and compassion.

So beauteous a thing as love itself can fashion

A chain of sins; descending to desire,

It wanders into dangerous paths, and leads

To most unholy deeds,

And light-struck, walks in madness toward the night.

Wrong oft-times is an over-ripened right,

A rank weed grown from some neglected flower,

The lightning uncontrolled: flames meant for joy

And beauty, used to ravage and destroy.

For sins like these repentance can atone.

There is one sin alone

Which seems all unforgivable, because

It springs from no temptation and no need

And no desire, save to make sweet faith bleed,

And to defame God’s laws.

Oh! viler than the murderer or the thief

Who slays the body and who robs the purse,

Is he who strives to kill the mind’s belief

And rob it of its hope

Of life beyond this little pain-filled span.

God has no curse

Quite dark enough to punish such a man,

Who, seeing how souls grope

And suffer in this world of mighty losses,

And how hearts stagger on beneath life’s crosses,

Yet strives to rob them of their staff of faith

And make them think dark death

Ends all existence; think the worshipped child

Cold in its mother’s arms is but a clod

And has not gone to God;

That souls united by love undefiled

And holy can by death be torn asunder

To meet no more.

It must be true that under

This earth of ours there lies a Purgatory

For those who seek to rob grief of the glory

That shines through hope of life immortal.  In

Sin’s lexicon this is the vilest sin—

Needless and cruel, ugly, gaunt and mean,

Without one poor excuse on which to lean,

A vandal sin, that with no hope of gain

Finds pleasure only in another’s pain.

God! though all other sins on earth persist,

Strike dumb the blatant, loud-mouthed atheist.

THE RAINBOW OF PROMISE

In the face of the sun are great thunderbolts hurled,

And the storm-clouds have shut out its light;

But a Rainbow of Promise now shines on the world,

And the universe thrills at the sight.

’Tis the flag of our Union, the red, white, and blue,

Our Star-spangled Banner—our pride;

Fair symbol of all that is noble and true,

Flung out over continents wide.

Flung out in its glory o’er land and o’er sea,

With a message from God in each star;

And a glorious promise of peace yet to be

In the fluttering folds of each bar.

A Rainbow of Promise, bright emblem of hope,

Fair flag of each cause that is just;

No longer in doubt or in darkness we grope—

In the Star-spangled Banner we trust.

THEY SHALL NOT WIN

Whatever the strength of our foes is now,

Whatever it may have been,

This is our slogan, and this our vow—

They shall not win, they shall not win.

Though out of the darkness they call the aid

Of the evil forces of Sin,

We utter our slogan unafraid—

They shall not win, they shall not win.

We know we are right, and know they are wrong,

So to God above and within—

We make our vow and we sing our song

They shall not win, they shall not win.

It rises over the shriek of shell,

And over the cannons’ din:

Our slogan shall scatter the hosts of Hell—

They shall not win, they shall not win.

Printed by T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to His Majesty

at the Edinburgh University Press

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Table of Contents

HELLO, BOYS!

FORWARD

CONTENTS

THANKSGIVING

THE BRAVE HIGHLAND LADDIES

MEN OF THE SEA

ODE TO THE BRITISH FLEET

THE GERMAN FLEET

DEEP UNTO DEEP WAS CALLING

THE SONG OF THE ALLIES

TEN THOUSAND MEN A DAY

‘AMERICA WILL NOT TURN BACK’

WAR

I

II

III

THE HOUR

THE MESSAGE

‘FLOWERS OF FRANCE’

OUR ATLAS

CAMP FOLLOWERS

COME BACK CLEAN

CAMOUFLAGE

THE AWAKENING

THE KHAKI BOYS WHO WERE NOT AT THE FRONT

TIME’S HYMN OF HATE

DEAR MOTHERLAND OF FRANCE

THE SPIRIT OF GREAT JOAN

SPEAK

THE GIRL OF THE U.S.A.

PASSING THE BUCK

SONG OF THE AVIATOR

THE STEVEDORES

A SONG OF HOME

THE SWAN OF DIJON

VEILS

IN FRANCE I SAW A HILL

AMERICAN BOYS, HELLO!

DE ROCHAMBEAU

AFTER

THE BLASPHEMY OF GUNS

THE CRIMES OF PEACE

IT MAY BE

THEN AND NOW

WIDOWS

CONVERSATION

I, TOO

HE THAT HATH EARS

ANSWERS

HOW IS IT?

‘LET US GIVE THANKS’

THE BLACK SHEEP

ONE BY ONE

PRAYER

BE NOT DISMAYED

ASCENSION

THE DEADLIEST SIN

THE RAINBOW OF PROMISE

THEY SHALL NOT WIN

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG™ LICENSE