Status Updates From A Treasury of War Poetry: B...

Our little hour,—how short a tune
To wage our wars, to fan our hates,
To take our fill of armoured crime,
To troop our banners, storm the gates.
Blood on the sword, our eyes blood-red,
Blind in our puny reign of power,
Do we forget how soon is sped
Our little hour?

The falling rain is music overhead,
The dark night, lit by no Intruding star,
Fit covering yields to thoughts that roam afar
And turn again familiar paths to tread,
Where many a laden hour too quickly sped
In happier times, before the dawn of war,
Before the spoiler had whet his sword to mar
The faithful living and the mighty dead.

All that a man might ask thou hast given me, England,   
Yet grant thou one thing more:
That now when envious foes would spoil thy splendour,   
Unversed in arms, a dreamer such, as I,
May in thy ranks be deemed not all unworthy,   
England, for thee to die.

This poems are so poignant…

So there was the whole picture,
The lovely early morning, the occasional shell
Screeching and scattering past us, the empty landscape,—
Empty, except for the young Gunner saluting,
And the cat, anxiously watching his every movement.

Led by Wilhelm, as you tell,
God has done extremely well;
You with patronizing nod
Show that you approve of God.
Kaiser, face a question new—
This—does God approve of you?
I can hear Susan from Rilla of Ingleside reading this poem 🤣

Burned from the ore's rejected dross,
The iron whitens in the heat.
With plangent strokes of pain & loss
The hammers on the iron beat.
Searched by the fire, through death & dole
We feel the iron in our soul.
O dreadful Forge! if torn & bruised
The heart, more urgent comes our cry
Not to be spared but to be used,
Brain, sinew, & spirit, before we die.
Beat out the iron, edge it keen,
And shape us to the end we mean!

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.

In our heart of hearts believing   
Victory crowns the just,   
And that braggarts must   
Surely bite the dust,
Press we to the field ungrieving,
In our heart of hearts believing   
Victory crowns the just.

I pray for peace; yet peace is but a prayer.
How many wars have been in my brief years!
All races and all faiths, both hemispheres,
My eyes have seen embattled everywhere
The wide earth through; yet do I not despair
Of peace, that slowly through far ages nears;
Though not to me the golden morn appears,
My faith is perfect in time's issue fair.

Old Oxford walls are grey and worn:
She knows the truth of tears,
But to-day she stands in her ancient pride
Crowned with eternal years.
Gone are her sons: yet her heart is glad
In the glory of their youth,
For she brought them forth to live or die
By freedom, justice, truth.

My heart was with the Oxford men
Who went abroad to die.
The years go fast in Oxford,
The golden years & gay,
The hoary Colleges look down
On careless boys at play.
But when the bugles sounded war
They put their games away.
They left the peaceful river,
The cricket-field, the quad,
The shaven lawns of Oxford,
To seek a bloody sod—
They gave their merry youth away
For country and for God.

The daylight lay in ashes
On the blackened western hill,
And the dead were calm and still;
But the Night was torn with gashes—
Sudden ragged crimson gashes—
And the siege-guns snarled and roared,
With their flames thrust like a sword,
And the tranquil moon came riding on the heaven's silver ford.
What a fearful world was there,
Tangled in the cold moon's hair!

Must I for more than carnage call you claimant, paying you a penny for each son you slay?
How should I pay you, miserable people? How should I pay you everything you owe?
Unhappy, can I give you back your honour? Though I forgave, would any man forget?
You have no word to break: no heart to harden. Ride on and prosper. You have lost your spurs.