_ though heaven has made my skies divine,
My sons' love sanctifies my soil for aye!
My sons' love sanctifies my soil for aye!
War Poetry - 1914-17
Francis; with her crown
Of battlements, embossed by time,
Stern old Perugia looking down.
Then, mother of great empires, Rome,
City of the majestic past,
That o'er far leagues of alien foam
The shadows of her eagles cast,
Imperious still; impending, vast,
The Colosseum's curving line;
Pillar and arch and colonnade;
St. Peter's consecrated shade,
And Hadrian's tomb where Tiber strays;
The ruins on the Palatine
With all their memories of dead days.
And Naples, with her sapphire arc
Of bay, her perfect sweep of shore;
Above her, like a demon stark,
The dark fire-mountain evermore
Looming portentous, as of yore;
Fair Capri with her cliffs and caves;
Salerno drowsing 'mid her vines
And olives, and the shattered shrines
Of Paestum where the gray ghosts tread,
And where the wilding rose still waves
As when by Greek girls garlanded.
But hark! What sound the ear dismays,
Mine Italy, mine Italy?
Thou that wert wrapt in peace, the haze
Of loveliness spread over thee!
Yet since the grapple needs must be,
I who have wandered in the night
With Dante, Petrarch's Laura known,
Seen Vallombrosa's groves breeze-blown,
Met Angelo and Raffael,
Against iconoclastic might
In this grim hour must wish thee well!
_Clinton Scollard_
ON THE ITALIAN FRONT, MCMXVI
"I will die cheering, if I needs must die;
So shall my last breath write upon my lips
_Viva Italia! _ when my spirit slips
Down the great darkness from the mountain sky;
And those who shall behold me where I lie
Shall murmur: 'Look, you! how his spirit dips
From glory into glory! the eclipse
Of death is vanquished! Lo, his victor-cry! '
"Live, thou, upon my lips, Italia mine,
The sacred death-cry of my frozen clay!
Let thy dear light from my dead body shine
And to the passer-by thy message say:
'_Ecco!
_ though heaven has made my skies divine,
My sons' love sanctifies my soil for aye! '"
_George Edward Woodberry_
AUSTRALIA TO ENGLAND
By all the deeds to Thy dear glory done,
By all the life blood, spilt to serve Thy need,
By all the fettered lives Thy touch hath freed,
By all Thy dream in us anew begun;
By all the guerdon English sire to son
Hath given of highest vision, kingliest deed,
By all Thine agony, of God decreed
For trial and strength, our fate with Thine is one.
Still dwells Thy spirit in our hearts and lips,
Honour and life we hold from none but Thee,
And if we live Thy pensioners no more
But seek a nation's might of men and ships,
'T is but that when the world is black with war
Thy sons may stand beside Thee strong and free.
_Archibald T. Strong_
_August, 1914_
CANADA TO ENGLAND
Great names of thy great captains gone before
Beat with our blood, who have that blood of thee:
Raleigh and Grenville, Wolfe, and all the free
Fine souls who dared to front a world in war.
Such only may outreach the envious years
Where feebler crowns and fainter stars remove,
Nurtured in one remembrance and one love
Too high for passion and too stern for tears.
O little isle our fathers held for home,
Not, not alone thy standards and thy hosts
Lead where thy sons shall follow, Mother Land:
Quick as the north wind, ardent as the foam,
Behold, behold the invulnerable ghosts
Of all past greatnesses about thee stand.
_Marjorie L. C. Pickthall_
LANGEMARCK AT YPRES
This is the ballad of Langemarck,
A story of glory and might;
Of the vast Hun horde, and Canada's part
In the great grim fight.
It was April fair on the Flanders Fields,
But the dreadest April then
That ever the years, in their fateful flight,
Had brought to this world of men.
North and east, a monster wall,
The mighty Hun ranks lay,
With fort on fort, and iron-ringed trench,
Menacing, grim and gray.
And south and west, like a serpent of fire,
Serried the British lines,
And in between, the dying and dead,
And the stench of blood, and the trampled mud,
On the fair, sweet Belgian vines.
And far to the eastward, harnessed and taut,
Like a scimitar, shining and keen,
Gleaming out of that ominous gloom,
Old France's hosts were seen.
When out of the grim Hun lines one night,
There rolled a sinister smoke;--
A strange, weird cloud, like a pale, green shroud,
And death lurked in its cloak.
On a fiend-like wind it curled along
Over the brave French ranks,
Like a monster tree its vapours spread,
In hideous, burning banks
Of poisonous fumes that scorched the night
With their sulphurous demon danks.
Of battlements, embossed by time,
Stern old Perugia looking down.
Then, mother of great empires, Rome,
City of the majestic past,
That o'er far leagues of alien foam
The shadows of her eagles cast,
Imperious still; impending, vast,
The Colosseum's curving line;
Pillar and arch and colonnade;
St. Peter's consecrated shade,
And Hadrian's tomb where Tiber strays;
The ruins on the Palatine
With all their memories of dead days.
And Naples, with her sapphire arc
Of bay, her perfect sweep of shore;
Above her, like a demon stark,
The dark fire-mountain evermore
Looming portentous, as of yore;
Fair Capri with her cliffs and caves;
Salerno drowsing 'mid her vines
And olives, and the shattered shrines
Of Paestum where the gray ghosts tread,
And where the wilding rose still waves
As when by Greek girls garlanded.
But hark! What sound the ear dismays,
Mine Italy, mine Italy?
Thou that wert wrapt in peace, the haze
Of loveliness spread over thee!
Yet since the grapple needs must be,
I who have wandered in the night
With Dante, Petrarch's Laura known,
Seen Vallombrosa's groves breeze-blown,
Met Angelo and Raffael,
Against iconoclastic might
In this grim hour must wish thee well!
_Clinton Scollard_
ON THE ITALIAN FRONT, MCMXVI
"I will die cheering, if I needs must die;
So shall my last breath write upon my lips
_Viva Italia! _ when my spirit slips
Down the great darkness from the mountain sky;
And those who shall behold me where I lie
Shall murmur: 'Look, you! how his spirit dips
From glory into glory! the eclipse
Of death is vanquished! Lo, his victor-cry! '
"Live, thou, upon my lips, Italia mine,
The sacred death-cry of my frozen clay!
Let thy dear light from my dead body shine
And to the passer-by thy message say:
'_Ecco!
_ though heaven has made my skies divine,
My sons' love sanctifies my soil for aye! '"
_George Edward Woodberry_
AUSTRALIA TO ENGLAND
By all the deeds to Thy dear glory done,
By all the life blood, spilt to serve Thy need,
By all the fettered lives Thy touch hath freed,
By all Thy dream in us anew begun;
By all the guerdon English sire to son
Hath given of highest vision, kingliest deed,
By all Thine agony, of God decreed
For trial and strength, our fate with Thine is one.
Still dwells Thy spirit in our hearts and lips,
Honour and life we hold from none but Thee,
And if we live Thy pensioners no more
But seek a nation's might of men and ships,
'T is but that when the world is black with war
Thy sons may stand beside Thee strong and free.
_Archibald T. Strong_
_August, 1914_
CANADA TO ENGLAND
Great names of thy great captains gone before
Beat with our blood, who have that blood of thee:
Raleigh and Grenville, Wolfe, and all the free
Fine souls who dared to front a world in war.
Such only may outreach the envious years
Where feebler crowns and fainter stars remove,
Nurtured in one remembrance and one love
Too high for passion and too stern for tears.
O little isle our fathers held for home,
Not, not alone thy standards and thy hosts
Lead where thy sons shall follow, Mother Land:
Quick as the north wind, ardent as the foam,
Behold, behold the invulnerable ghosts
Of all past greatnesses about thee stand.
_Marjorie L. C. Pickthall_
LANGEMARCK AT YPRES
This is the ballad of Langemarck,
A story of glory and might;
Of the vast Hun horde, and Canada's part
In the great grim fight.
It was April fair on the Flanders Fields,
But the dreadest April then
That ever the years, in their fateful flight,
Had brought to this world of men.
North and east, a monster wall,
The mighty Hun ranks lay,
With fort on fort, and iron-ringed trench,
Menacing, grim and gray.
And south and west, like a serpent of fire,
Serried the British lines,
And in between, the dying and dead,
And the stench of blood, and the trampled mud,
On the fair, sweet Belgian vines.
And far to the eastward, harnessed and taut,
Like a scimitar, shining and keen,
Gleaming out of that ominous gloom,
Old France's hosts were seen.
When out of the grim Hun lines one night,
There rolled a sinister smoke;--
A strange, weird cloud, like a pale, green shroud,
And death lurked in its cloak.
On a fiend-like wind it curled along
Over the brave French ranks,
Like a monster tree its vapours spread,
In hideous, burning banks
Of poisonous fumes that scorched the night
With their sulphurous demon danks.
