No More Learning

Hence the faith and fire within us
Men who march away
Ere the barn-cocks say
Night is growing gray,
To hazards whence no tears can win us;
Hence the faith and fire within us
Men who march away.

_Thomas Hardy_

_September 5, 1914_




WE WILLED IT NOT


We willed it not. We have not lived in hate,
Loving too well the shires of England thrown
From sea to sea to covet your estate,
Or wish one flight of fortune from your throne.

We had grown proud because the nations stood
Hoping together against the calumny
That, tortured of its old barbarian blood,
Barbarian still the heart of man should be.

Builders there are who name you overlord,
Building with us the citadels of light,
Who hold as we this chartered sin abhorred,
And cry you risen Caesar of the Night.

Beethoven speaks with Milton on this day,
And Shakespeare's word with Goethe's beats the sky,
In witness of the birthright you betray,
In witness of the vision you deny.

We love the hearth, the quiet hills, the song,
The friendly gossip come from every land;
And very peace were now a nameless wrong--
You thrust this bitter quarrel to our hand.

For this your pride the tragic armies go,
And the grim navies watch along the seas;
You trade in death, you mock at life, you throw
To God the tumult of your blasphemies.

You rob us of our love-right. It is said.
In treason to the world, you are enthroned,
We rise, and, by the yet ungathered dead,
Not lightly shall the treason be atoned.

_John Drinkwater_




THE DEATH OF PEACE


Now slowly sinks the day-long labouring Sun
Behind the tranquil trees and old church-tower;
And we who watch him know our day is done;
For us too comes the evening--and the hour.

The sunbeams slanting through those ancient trees,
The sunlit lichens burning on the byre,
The lark descending, and the homing bees,
Proclaim the sweet relief all things desire.

Golden the river brims beneath the west,
And holy peace to all the world is given;
The songless stockdove preens her ruddied breast;
The blue smoke windeth like a prayer to heaven.

* * * * *

O old, old England, land of golden peace,
Thy fields are spun with gossameres of gold,
And golden garners gather thy increase,
And plenty crowns thy loveliness untold.
By sunlight or by starlight ever thou
Art excellent in beauty manifold;
The still star victory ever gems thy brow;
Age cannot age thee, ages make thee old.

Thy beauty brightens with the evening sun
Across the long-lit meads and distant spire:
So sleep thou well--like his thy labour done;
Rest in thy glory as he rests in fire.

* * * * *

But even in this hour of soft repose
A gentle sadness chides us like a friend--
The sorrow of the joy that overflows,
The burden of the beauty that must end.

And from the fading sunset comes a cry,
And in the twilight voices wailing past,
Like wild-swans calling, "When we rest we die,
And woe to them that linger and are last";

And as the Sun sinks, sudden in heav'n new born
There shines an armed Angel like a Star,
Who cries above the darkling world in scorn,
"God comes to Judgment. Learn ye what ye are. "

* * * * *

From fire to umber fades the sunset-gold,
From umber into silver and twilight;
The infant flowers their orisons have told
And turn together folded for the night;

The garden urns are black against the eve;
The white moth flitters through the fragrant glooms;
How beautiful the heav'ns! --But yet we grieve
And wander restless from the lighted rooms.

For through the world to-night a murmur thrills
As at some new-born prodigy of time--
Peace dies like twilight bleeding on the hills,
And Darkness creeps to hide the hateful crime.


Art thou no more, O Maiden Heaven-born
O Peace, bright Angel of the windless morn?
Who comest down to bless our furrow'd fields,
Or stand like Beauty smiling 'mid the corn:

Mistress of mirth and ease and summer dreams,
Who lingerest among the woods and streams
To help us heap the harvest 'neath the moon,
And homeward laughing lead the lumb'ring teams:

Who teachest to our children thy wise lore;
Who keepest full the goodman's golden store;
Who crownest Life with plenty, Death with flow'rs;
Peace, Queen of Kindness--but of earth, no more.

* * * * *

Not thine but ours the fault, thy care was vain;
For this that we have done be ours the pain;
Thou gayest much, as He who gave us all,
And as we slew Him for it thou art slain.

Heav'n left to men the moulding of their fate:
To live as wolves or pile the pillar'd State--
Like boars and bears to grunt and growl in mire,
Or dwell aloft, effulgent gods, elate.

Thou liftedst us: we slew and with thee fell--
From golden thrones of wisdom weeping fell.
Fate rends the chaplets from our feeble brows;
The spires of Heaven fade in fogs of hell.

* * * * *

She faints, she falls; her dying eyes are dim;
Her fingers play with those bright buds she bore
To please us, but that she can bring no more;
And dying yet she smiles--as Christ on him
Who slew Him slain. Her eyes so beauteous
Are lit with tears shed--not for herself but us.