No More Learning

Man and beast lay hurt and screaming,
(Men must die when Kings are dreaming! )--
While within the harried town
Mothers dragged their children down
As the awful rain came screaming,
For the glory of a Crown!

So the Morning flung her cloak
Through the hanging pall of smoke--
Trimmed with red, it was, and dripping with a deep and angry stain!
And the Day came walking then
Through a lane of murdered men,
And her light fell down before her like a Cross upon the plain!
But the forts still crowned the height
With a bitter iron crown!
They had lived to flame and fight,
They had lived to keep the Town!
And they poured their havoc down
All that day . . . and all that night. . . .
While four times their number came,
Pawns that played a bloody game! --
With a silver trumpeting,
For the glory of the King,
To the barriers of the thunder and the fury of the flame!
So they stormed the iron Hill,
O'er the sleepers lying still,
And their trumpets sang them forward through the dull succeeding dawns,
But the thunder flung them wide,
And they crumpled up and died,--
They had waged the war of monarchs--and they died the death of pawns.

But the forts still stood. . . . Their breath
Swept the foeman like a blade,
Though ten thousand men were paid
To the hungry purse of Death,
Though the field was wet with blood,
Still the bold defences stood,
Stood!

And the King came out with his bodyguard at the day's departing gleam--
And the moon rode up behind the smoke and showed the King his dream.

_Dana Burnet_




MEN OF VERDUN


There are five men in the moonlight
That by their shadows stand;
Three hobble humped on crutches,
And two lack each a hand.

Frogs somewhere near the roadside
Chorus their chant absorbed:
But a hush breathes out of the dream-light
That far in heaven is orbed.

It is gentle as sleep falling
And wide as thought can span,
The ancient peace and wonder
That brims the heart of man.

Beyond the hills it shines now
On no peace but the dead,
On reek of trenches thunder-shocked,
Tense fury of wills in wrestle locked,
A chaos crumbled red!

The five men in the moonlight
Chat, joke, or gaze apart.
They talk of days and comrades,
But each one hides his heart.

They wear clean cap and tunic,
As when they went to war;
A gleam comes where the medal's pinned:
But they will fight no more.

The shadows, maimed and antic,
Gesture and shape distort,
Like mockery of a demon dumb
Out of the hell-din whence they come
That dogs them for his sport:

But as if dead men were risen
And stood before me there
With a terrible fame about them blown
In beams of spectral air,

I see them, men transfigured
As in a dream, dilate
Fabulous with the Titan-throb
Of battling Europe's fate;

For history's hushed before them,
And legend flames afresh,--
Verdun, the name of thunder,
Is written on their flesh.

_Laurence Binyon_




VERDUN


Three hundred thousand men, but not enough
To break this township on a winding stream;
More yet must fall, and more, ere the red stuff
That built a nation's manhood may redeem
The Master's hopes and realize his dream.