THE SAGA OF THE 
 SEVENTH DIVISION
 
 THE SAGA 
 
 OF THE 
 
 SEVENTH DIVISION 
 
 BY 
 
 HELEN EMILY FORBES 
 
 I 
 
 LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD 
 NEW YORK : JOHN LANE COMPANY MCMXX
 
 Printed in Great Britain 
 ly Tumiull <&» Shears, Edinburgh
 
 TO 
 
 LORD FRENCH'S 
 
 CONTEMPTIBLE LITTLE ARMY 
 
 AND ITS COMMANDER
 
 FOREWORD 
 
 Men's memories being short, it is advisable, if they 
 condescend to read my Saga and are to understand 
 the allusions, to recall to them what was this Seventh 
 Division — which some have called Immortal — and 
 what it did to earn the epithet. 
 
 It was formed at Lyndhurst in the New Forest in 
 the September of 1914, composed of regiments from 
 the garrisons of the Mediterranean, the Channel 
 Islands, Egypt and South Africa, besides one battalion 
 from Dublin and two battalions of the Guards. 
 Being garrison regiments from foreign service, nearly 
 up to war strength, so not stiffened to any extent by 
 reservists, and the men being all of three to seven 
 years' service, they were the flower of the old British 
 Army — " General French's contemptible little army," 
 as the now historic phrase had it. 
 
 The Division's total strength was about 18,500. 
 It consisted of the 20th Brigade (ist Grenadier Guards, 
 2nd Scots Guards, 2nd Gordon Highlanders and 
 2nd Border Regiment) ; the 21st Brigade (2nd Scots 
 Fusiliers, 2nd Wiltshire Regiment, 2nd Yorkshire 
 Green Howards and 2nd Bedfordshire Regiment) ; 
 the 22nd Brigade (ist Welsh Fusiliers, 1st South 
 Staffordshire Regiment, 2nd Warwickshire Regiment 
 and 2nd Queen's West Surrey Regiment) ; the 
 Northumberland Hussars, Yeomanry ; a Brigade 
 Division Royal Field Artillery ; four 4.7 guns ; and 
 detachments of Royal Engineers and R.A.M. Corps. 
 
 7
 
 After the sea voyage, which for some of the regi- 
 ments had been a long one, the Division marched 
 and manoeuvred for about three weeks in the New 
 Forest, covering a distance of some 200 miles, and 
 by Sunday, October the 4th, fit, hard and trained to 
 the minute, it was ready and waiting for its orders. 
 They came unexpectedly, at 4 o'clock in the afternoon, 
 after the men and officers had been given leave for the 
 day. They were scattered all over the Forest, but 
 returned or were collected in time, and the Division 
 moved off from 7 o'clock onwards and marched to 
 Southampton, where it embarked for an unknown 
 destination at 6 o'clock on the Monday morning. 
 
 Submarines were lurking about the Channel, and 
 it was not till 4 a.m. on the 7th of October that the 
 British transports put into Zeebrugge and disembarked 
 the Division under the eye of German airplanes. 
 The Division was designed to relieve Antwerp, but 
 owing to this delay was too late, and was employed 
 instead to cover the retirement of the Belgian Army. 
 
 During this the Division covered some 160 miles 
 in North Flanders ; it was a floating Division, without 
 a base, facing, though the regimental officers and the 
 rank and file knew nothing of it at the time, the 
 German Army from before Antwerp. It was the 
 first of the British troops to enter Ypres — this on the 
 14th of October. It was then ordered to hold the 
 line before Ypres until Sir John French could bring 
 up the other six Divisions and deploy them from the 
 Aisne to the sea. Ordered to hold on at 3.V. costs, the 
 8
 
 Seventh Division was continually in action from the 
 15th to the 31st of October. 
 
 It had no supports, no reserves ; there was a single 
 line, covering some 8 miles of front, with only eighteen 
 field pieces and four 4.7's and a minimum of ammuni- 
 tion. But it held on according to orders against some 
 340,000 Germans, with guns in proportion. 
 
 The Division which went into action on the 15th of 
 October 18,000 strong was withdrawn on the 31st 
 2000 strong — practically only the transport and supply 
 — having ceased to exist as a fighting unit. 
 
 " Such a gallant feat of arms was never seen before T 
 
 Hatch House, Brentwood 
 November 191 9 
 
 B
 
 This is a plain straight tale of Arms and Men, 
 
 As noble as the immortal singers of old 
 
 Could find to tune their harps to ; and if you, 
 
 Who deign to pause and read, make plaint the words 
 
 I write in are not winged, nor glow with fires 
 
 Of Homer or of Virgil or the sweet 
 
 Voices that sang in the Augustan age, 
 
 Blame not the theme ; blame her, my earth-bound 
 
 Muse, 
 That limps and cannot soar, that burns within. 
 But cannot show her light unto the world. 
 It should not have been mine to touch the lyre 
 With my slow blundering hands ; it should have been 
 Some strong son of Calliope, whose note 
 Would ring from sphere to sphere and call the stars 
 To witness Britain's glory. But none such 
 Was there to see and mark. It was mine eyes 
 That did behold this immortality. 
 And what I saw and heard, I strive with hands 
 I know are weak to set up like an arch 
 Triumphal, or build as a column of stone. 
 Even as built the ancients to their dead. 
 To the immortal memory of men 
 Who trod the great road to the stars and gave 
 The Ultimate Gift for hearth and home. On such 
 The blessing and pardon of God rests — doubt it not. 
 
 II
 
 PART I
 
 BOOK I 
 
 In the dead days of old, when kings were kings, 
 
 Not the pale figurehead of the Ship of State, 
 
 Swayed by the wind, ruled by the waves, and turned 
 
 To every blast of crude opinion that 
 
 Utters the mob in ignorance, but men 
 
 And warriors that led their shouting legions on 
 
 To gather in the harvest of red Death, 
 
 There lived a king ; and in his veins the vdld 
 
 Blood of the North that will not rest, the breath 
 
 Of the North-east Wind which blows across the sea 
 
 Those that shall conquer England. As of old 
 
 Did the great Caesar, this king came and saw. 
 
 And there lay England bleeding at his feet. 
 
 In those days kings were kings. Their word went forth 
 
 And all men hastened to obey. None asked : 
 
 " Hath the king right to do this thing or that ? " 
 
 All was the king's ; he took but of his own. 
 
 'Tis God that loves a garden ; but the kings. 
 The stark kings that came out of Normandie 
 To rule the foolish English for their good, 
 Loved best the echoing glades of the deep woods, 
 The dewy brakes whence crash the noble deer. 
 The whispering voices of a thousand trees, 
 And leaves that start at music of the chase. 
 They loved the crash of battle, but better far 
 The cadences of the hunting horn and cry 
 Of hounds as they break covert. 
 
 IS
 
 Said the king : 
 " In this new country which is mine, I make 
 A forest far transcending all I had 
 In Normandie of old : a forest where I, 
 Wearied with my high state and worldly cares, 
 With holding my fierce war-hounds in a leash, 
 And guarding what I have won, may come for rest J 
 Where I may mount my favourite horse and ride 
 Swift as the wind which whistles in my hair 
 After the swifter deer, and so forget 
 That I am not a hunter, but a king." 
 England was his, a country of deep woods, 
 And tinkling streams that mirrored the bowering leaves 
 Of age-old trees, and brakes of fruitful briars. 
 And hills that marched rank after rank, all green 
 With cover for the game he loved — all his, 
 Spreading before him, the great Saxon Wealds. 
 Here was the Andredsweald, that clothes the slopes 
 Where the doomed Roman port withstood her foes, 
 The pirates of the sea, till all her streets 
 Ran with the blood of loyal citizens. 
 Deserted in their hour of utmost need 
 By their imperial Mother. Here the Weald 
 Of Kent flower-strewed the upland to the cliffs 
 That stretch their chalk-white lips to France, once 
 
 friend 
 And sister, but now conqueror and foe. 
 And to be foe for nigh a thousand years. 
 And, further north, the Forest of Arderne, 
 Swathed the great heart of England ; a wood indeed 
 i6
 
 So vast there seemed no boundary to it ; so old 
 
 Its oaks already were of stalwart girth 
 
 When the first Druids came to shear away 
 
 The mistletoe that crowned them ; in their turn 
 
 These oaks the saplings were of noble trees 
 
 Which sank into the earth so long ago 
 
 That their incalcined branches lapped the bones 
 
 Of beasts no eye of man has seen in flesh ; 
 
 The Mastodon and Tiger sabre-toothed, 
 
 And the great hideous Lizards, born of slime, 
 
 That reared their heads to nip the bursting buds 
 
 Through the long silent days ere Man was born 
 
 To sharpen his flint arrows and look forth 
 
 From his rude-fashioned dwellings by the lake shore 
 
 On all the wonders of the new-born world. 
 
 Nor were these all the forests of England. Wealds 
 
 Of the East Saxons from the singing Thames 
 
 Up to the borders of the North Folk's fens 
 
 Spread their wide arms ; and further north again, 
 
 The tossing firs that grew on Deira's hills 
 
 Stood sentinels to the ravagers that lurked 
 
 Behind the Roman wall. Aye, wealds there were. 
 
 Mile beyond mile, to shelter the king's deer, 
 
 And guard the breeding-places of the wolves. 
 
 And the lush bogs where wallowed the wild pig, 
 
 Meet for the pleasure of the king. He saw 
 
 And noted, but he turned away. 
 
 He took 
 No pleasure in that which was. To suit his will, 
 His forest must be his and his alone, 
 
 c 17
 
 Not haunted by memories of other kings. 
 
 England was his to choose from, and he chose 
 
 A shire of gentle hills and rushing streams 
 
 That bit deep inlets from the heath-clad shore 
 
 And brought the sea far up into the land. 
 
 England was his, and this the shire he chose. 
 
 Soft Devon breeds the rover of the seas. 
 
 The Sussex men are men of iron indeed. 
 
 But Hampshire ? what did Hampshire breed but deer ? 
 
 True that men lived among the echoing hills 
 
 And speared the fish in the deep sea-going streams ; 
 
 But what were they but villeins, hearts of deer ? 
 
 What place had they in the Elysian fields 
 
 Made consecrate to the king's sport ? Such men, 
 
 If men they might be called, that could not fight 
 
 For their own country and their home-bred king. 
 
 What were their homes to them, that would not shed 
 
 One drop of blood to keep them theirs ? For such 
 
 In days of old, when men were men, there was 
 
 No pity. Though our softer age would cry 
 
 That the poor worm has right to crawl upon 
 
 The earth he calls his own, the noisome fly 
 
 A title to his dunghill — so much more 
 
 A man. The Norman William never heard 
 
 Such tales as this, and would have laughed aloud 
 
 To hear a race of men should rise who thought 
 
 That aught should win rights but the sword. He took 
 
 What was his own and made of it forthwith 
 
 A lordly pleasance for a king of old : 
 
 No garden of pleasure and soft luxury, 
 
 i8
 
 Such as an eastern monarch would have planned 
 
 To lie in, listening to the fountain's splash 
 
 And the voluptuous voices of singing slaves ; 
 
 But a free hunting ground, a space the vdnds 
 
 Of heaven had leave to blow on and where men 
 
 And noble beasts strove for the mastery 
 
 Of beasts no jot less noble than themselves, 
 
 And swdfter and more cunning ; sport for men 
 
 And kings that in those days were men indeed. 
 
 And at its boundaries, like the flaming sword 
 
 That guarded Eden's tree, he set stern laws 
 
 To hinder those that would have preyed upon 
 
 His beasts, from princely hart to timid hare. 
 
 Laws that were needed, for the Saxon hinds 
 
 Believed the creatures of the wild their own ; 
 
 Nothing they knew of " thine," but much of " mine." 
 
 They trapped for food, but did not chase for sport. 
 
 And the red deer against their gins and snares 
 
 Had no more chance than any meaner beast. 
 
 But William loved the red deer and the free 
 
 Life of the wild that is all speed and storm. 
 
 So the New Forest was. And to this day 
 
 Is the New Forest. 
 
 League on v;dnd-swept league, 
 It lies four-square to all the vagrant winds. 
 And still some ancient oaks spread their green arms 
 That, tender saplings, saw the echoing chase 
 Of the fierce Norman kings sweep lordly by. 
 And caught the gleam of sunset on their trunks 
 The day Red William died. So gnarled are they, 
 
 19
 
 And stout of girth, and bossed, and rude, they seem 
 Like some old village crone, from toothless gums 
 Mumbling her tales of long ago, the while 
 She knits with knotted fingers like a Fate. 
 
 The kings have gone the road of kings. The deer 
 
 No more are sacred, and the forest laws 
 
 The pale dim shadow of what they used to be. 
 
 But still the mighty ghosts sweep through the glades. 
 
 And the old storm-worn oaks know them again 
 
 And toss their moaning arms to welcome them. 
 
 The passer-by believes he hears the wind, 
 
 That sets those boughs a-creaking, and his hair 
 
 Rises not bristling on his scalp, as when 
 
 Men see the supernatural clothed in flesh. 
 
 Or semblance of the flesh, and trembling quake 
 
 To the marrow of their bones. Ghosts pass us by 
 
 Each hour of the day, nor win their meed of fear. 
 
 The world is full of ghosts, the earth-bound thoughts 
 
 Of saints and sinners alike, returning as 
 
 In dreams to a spot that they once loved — so far 
 
 As they may be away, past all our ken. 
 
 Beyond the utmost star — remembering still. 
 
 And we may stand alone and longing stretch 
 
 Our hands out to that other world, but hear 
 
 No echo of its life, nor for all our tears 
 
 Pierce through the veil. For what indeed are we : 
 
 An evil generation seeking signs ? 
 
 But here's a sight to give our spirit wings. 
 
 20
 
 Stand in the heart of the Forest, and look forth 
 
 Across its leagues of loneliness, and see 
 
 The white moon rising through the billowing mists, 
 
 As though the Huntress mufflings cast away 
 
 And stood close-girt to chase the flying roe. 
 
 The swelling spaces fragrant in the gloom, 
 
 That range between the pine-woods, are all still 
 
 Of bees that hung among the purple bells 
 
 All the hot day ; a coronet of pines 
 
 Stabs with its blacker points the horizon sky, 
 
 And the wind, like a harpist, draws long notes 
 
 Out of the branches thrilling to his touch. 
 
 Far off a wild mare whinnies to her foal. 
 
 Comes the long cry, like minute guns at sea. 
 
 Of mournful owls. Near by a nightingale 
 
 Flutes to the silent stars. The world's asleep 
 
 But for these sentinels. On such a night 
 
 Slip by us time and space, as the cleft waves 
 
 Slip by the hissing prow of the swift ship. 
 
 What have we here to mark the flight of years ? 
 
 Dead ages roll before us, as the heavens 
 
 And earth, they say, will roll on Judgment Day, 
 
 And what we see Red William may have seen, 
 
 And stood where we stand ; though it scarce may be 
 
 His wild soul knew our modern melancholy. 
 
 The spirit of the world no longer young. 
 
 That sighs and doubts and looks to a dim past 
 
 As to a golden time gone by and not 
 
 To dawn again. But in that simpler past 
 
 Men lived from day to day, and trusted God. 
 
 21
 
 The Forest ! the New Forest ! new even now, 
 
 Born fresh again with every spring that comes 
 
 To wake its silences with life and youth ! 
 
 Here is a place to dream a life away, 
 
 And to forget the world of living men, 
 
 A sad world and a sordid at its best. 
 
 This is the kingdom of God's creatures ; here 
 
 The brothers of sweet Saint Francis live their lives 
 
 Innocently to the glory of God ; and if 
 
 At times blows coldly Brother North-east Wind 
 
 And whirls in choking clouds white Sister Snow, 
 
 And wild birds scream and little soft beasts lie dead. 
 
 And it would seem the skies in anger frown 
 
 And would o'erwhelm the breathless world, 'tis still 
 
 All to the glory of God and of His saints. 
 
 For even the wild things in the world He made. 
 
 And the stern and what seem the cruel things, 
 
 Sing with the soft, the gentle and the fair, 
 
 The self-same Benedicite. 
 
 See here 
 Britain compressed in little, for the soil 
 Is England, and the free air and singing brooks ; 
 But the long stretches of heather and the slim 
 Silver-stemmed birches and dark tossing pines 
 Are Scotland ; and the stormy hills that spurned 
 By flying hoofs of the wild ponies seem 
 To echo with clamour as of elfin horns 
 Are Wales. So may we dream we find in these 
 Few miles what we love best in all our land 
 And feel ourselves at home though exiles. Free 
 
 22
 
 As the wild souls that planned it for their sport, 
 
 Fanned by the wind that sings up-Channel and tells 
 
 Strange stirring stories of sea-dogs such as roamed 
 
 The pathless waters in those strong young days 
 
 When all the world lay open like a book, 
 
 Unread save by the brave ; here can we rove 
 
 And dream, and sing ourselves the wanderers' song 
 
 Which all the gentlemen-adventurers knew. 
 
 What more would we ? and what more gifts has life ? 
 
 Only a soul of mud could ask for more. 
 
 The Forest, the New Forest ? Visions of nymphs 
 
 And dryads peeping from the trees arise 
 
 Before our dreaming eyes, and a young world, 
 
 As fresh as dew-drenched roses and as fair 
 
 As aught the morning summer sunshine gilds. 
 
 But this is England, and the sportive nymphs 
 
 And fauns and hamadryads are of the South, 
 
 And danced the panting sunshot summer through 
 
 In groves of olives and of orange-trees 
 
 On marble islands in the ^gean Sea. 
 
 Not here, among our English oaks and thorns. 
 
 And under our cloud-speckled sky, shall we 
 
 Catch echoes of Pan's flute nor hear the chant 
 
 Of witching Orpheus. But on nights when high 
 
 Over the pine-trees, riding the wine-dark skies 
 
 Like a slim barque that breasts calm seas, the moon 
 
 Turns all our heather to silver bells, the trunks 
 
 Of all our trees to silver pillars, our roads 
 
 To silver serpents winding through the night. 
 
 And flings black gulfs of shadow from every bush, 
 
 23
 
 Then we might see, circling a patch of sward, 
 The delicate fairies of our northern clime, 
 That feast all night and leave behind at dawn 
 Their esculent tables for poor mortals' fare. 
 At times amid these spaces and the tense 
 Yet living silence which no voice of man 
 Breaks hour by hour, the soaring spirit longs 
 For but a moment's glimpse of the unseen world, 
 Which yet these bodily eyes and ears are all 
 Too gross to see and hear. 
 
 " Visions of night 
 The old men see, and the young men dream dreams." 
 And this the Forest is — a place of dreams, 
 Now that the kings are dead and the wild deer, 
 The poor and park-fed shadow of lordly beasts, 
 Carrying their branching tines swift as the wind 
 Before the Norman's hounds. The ancient word : 
 Seed-time and harvest, cold and heat, and night 
 And day, shall not, the world enduring, cease : 
 Holds as it did of yore. And here we mark 
 The vernal paces of the year, that seem 
 To follow with unceasing tread the more 
 In their own ordered solitudes than in 
 A haunt of men. The opening buds of spring : 
 First the pale snowdrop and the aconite 
 With golden cups that star the wintry ground. 
 Then the close clustering primrose and the blue 
 Wild hyacinth that mirrors the sky above 
 Or might be ravellings from our Lady's robe 
 Cast on the favoured earth, a sight to make 
 
 24
 
 One that beholds it sing for joy — tell tales 
 
 Of a new birth and rising up again 
 
 Of the Earth Mother lying fast in sleep 
 
 Like the enchanted maid of the fairy tale, 
 
 Waiting the kiss that breaks the frozen charm. 
 
 (Oh, stories of old that have their deeper note !) 
 
 And the old voices call and our hearts bound 
 
 To hear them once again, and all the world 
 
 Is young once more. The long days deepen down 
 
 Into the gold of summer, and the heath 
 
 Spreads out its carpet of purple as if a king 
 
 Should pass that way, and the young green of the leaves 
 
 Deepens to stronger tints. Wild roses blush 
 
 On wayside bushes and the birds fall mute. 
 
 To its fruition comes the youth of the year. 
 
 And summer, like a bride, shines forth in gems 
 
 And pearl-white splendours. Then the north wind 
 
 blows ; 
 The many-coloured pageant of decay 
 Marches across the woods and leaves a trail 
 Of crimson and of gold. The bramble brakes 
 Show forth their blue-black fruit, the nuts hang down 
 In clusters and the bracken lies in sheets 
 Of red gold as from mines of Ophir. Next 
 The tracing finger of winter outlines trees. 
 Heath, bushes all in a diamond glory. Deep 
 In hollows lie the drifts that the pale sun 
 Makes sparkling with untold riches. So Time 
 Turns in his hands the crystal ball with tints 
 As of a broken rainbow in its heart ; 
 
 D 25
 
 And lo ! another year is gone, and we 
 
 Stand once again as many times before 
 
 We stood — in the New Forest, place of dreams ! 
 
 And in the heart of its deep peace, give ear 
 
 Unto the silence, for a thousand years 
 
 Unbroken by the voices of the world. 
 
 THE HUNTING SONG OF 
 WILLIAM RUFUS 
 
 Blow horns, and loose my leaping hounds 
 
 To chase the deer with me. 
 And all the long day will I ride 
 
 Like Jehu, furiously. 
 
 Away, away ! my hounds and I 
 To burst through copse and briar. 
 
 And find at last in speed and storm 
 The haven I desire. 
 
 My fathers loved their dragon-ships 
 
 That cleft the roaring seas ; 
 But better love I a fleet steed 
 
 And my hounds' harmonies. 
 
 My fathers hunted men and gold. 
 
 Their raven flags spelt fear ; 
 But through the sounding forest glades 
 
 I hunt the flying deer. 
 26
 
 My fathers in the battle slain 
 
 Valhalla longed to see ; 
 But in the chase it loved, my soul 
 
 Shall speed to Purgatory. 
 
 27
 
 BOOK II 
 
 Keep silence ! Hark ! 1 hear the drums of ivar 
 
 Who that has heard the muttering roll and sprung 
 
 Alert at that dread sound with spirit tense, 
 
 Hands clenched and lips hard set, remembers not 
 
 The thrill of the heart uplifted by a cause 
 
 He deemed a holy one, and felt himself 
 
 One of St Michael's legionaries, called up 
 
 To fight with the great Dragon ? Even so. 
 
 When sounded the stern call to arms at last, 
 
 We that had watched and waited for so long — 
 
 A few, a very few among the many — 
 
 Girt on our spiritual sword and raised 
 
 Rejoicing hearts, like Nero's martyrs, called 
 
 To face the stake, the sword or the wild beasts. 
 
 For this, for this, the mothers bore their sons, 
 
 That they might carry on the torch, and that 
 
 The lustre of our England's glory and 
 
 Our England's dead might not be dimmed. What 
 
 then. 
 If, like the greatest of all Mothers, a sword 
 Should also pierce their souls ? Had they not that 
 To give which is than gems more precious ? Men 
 Give rubies, women pearls ; the one their blood, 
 The other their tears. Of these the diadem 
 Of Britain is made. More rubies and more pearls ! 
 That it may be the richer ! What of us, 
 And of our petty pains and griefs ? Beyond 
 28
 
 This world and out in the courts of heaven, what reck 
 
 The blessed spirits how they left the flesh, 
 
 Or how they mourned before they left it ? What 
 
 Does a man remember of his childish woes 
 
 And of his childish scars ? Even so the soul, 
 
 Grown to its fullest stature, will forget 
 
 The grief and only bear in mind the glory. 
 
 Go out, my soul, to meet thy God, and know 
 
 He reigneth, not another, and from the fire 
 
 Shall bring forth gold purer than eye hath seen ; 
 
 Go praise Him in the furnace, like the Three ; 
 
 It is not we that perish, for we fight 
 
 By Michael's side. 
 
 So long we dreamt, the half 
 In faith, the half in fear, this day had come. 
 Now in our dreams we live. 
 
 And so it came 
 To the New Forest — place of dreams — where long 
 The echoes had not heard a sterner note 
 Than sounds the hunting horn. Where yesterday 
 The fairy revellers left their traces, rose 
 A new gigantic mushroom. The iron veins 
 Of the country-side throbbed with new life ; all night 
 The loaded trucks clanked past, and faces of strange 
 And weather-beaten men dawned on our roads, 
 Clad in the tint of Mother Earth, and urged 
 With shout and whip their slow strong horses on 
 To drag great roaring waggons through our lanes ; 
 And we that had dreamt our lives away, beheld 
 An army moving like a serpent, slow 
 
 29
 
 And certain with fixed eyes on the one end, 
 
 While we looked on and wondered. Till that day, 
 
 Though they had told us that the hunt was up 
 
 And the dread dogs of war unleashed, we heard 
 
 As those that hear not, having ears ; for here 
 
 There was no war, but peace, and summer waned 
 
 As gently as in years gone by, and we 
 
 Heard not the thundering of the guns nor saw 
 
 The flames that lighted up the midnight sky 
 
 With pyre funereal of villages. 
 
 Surely it was a tale and not the truth ? 
 
 Another of our dreams from far away 
 
 Past the dim bourne of space and time ? not we 
 
 That lived, but some pale shadow of ourselves. 
 
 In such an hour, when all the Seals of Heaven 
 
 Seemed to be broken, and the Vials of Wrath 
 
 Poured out. Not ours the bodily eyes that saw 
 
 Streets surging with dust-tinted multitudes 
 
 That might have been the warriors born of earth 
 
 That Jason slew. Yet many years we had heard 
 
 The voices crying in the wilderness 
 
 And seen the cloud on the horizon, small 
 
 As a man's hand, but threatening dark, and knew 
 
 It should one day o'ershadow all our sky. 
 
 It should not, like a thief in dead of night, 
 
 Have overtaken us that read the signs 
 
 Written in the stars. At last the hunt is up, 
 
 And what we waited for is on us. Still, 
 
 It seemed a mere intangible dream, until 
 
 We saw those white tents on our heather rise 
 
 30
 
 And heard the thundering transport wheels. Then 
 
 passed 
 All that had made our life, and lo ! we stood 
 Upon the threshold of new worlds. And thus 
 To the New Forest — home of dreams — there came 
 A new thing, yet an old, a call across 
 The sleeping ages. Clio stalked anew 
 Across our uplands, unseen, wonderful. 
 And so the stage was set that had stood bare 
 Since the King's men gave their view-halloo and 
 
 charged 
 The snuffling ranks of the psalm-singers. So 
 In ages far to come the books shall tell 
 Our children's children history was made 
 Once more in the New Forest : tell them how 
 Men mustered for the greatest of all wars, 
 And thinking of nothing but that plain straight thing, 
 Their duty, all unwittingly built up 
 A monument immortal that might stand 
 With the triumphal Roman arches, lone 
 In the fallen ruins of the world. But we. 
 The people of the New Forest — home of dreams — 
 Scarce knew it, and looked on like children, caught 
 By some new thing. We walked about our roads ; 
 And if we had to stand aside while passed 
 Rank behind rank a regiment marching, or 
 The guns that looked such little innocent things 
 Swaying behind their horses and all splashed 
 With strange bright colours, we like children smiled 
 And thought it a brave sight. One day we'd pass 
 
 31
 
 A wayside blacksmith's, thronged as ne'er before 
 
 With horses — sure he'd never handled such. 
 
 And ever the daylight hours would be alive 
 
 With the clear music of the bugle calls, 
 
 Which woke strange echoes in our souls. And slow 
 
 Like an awakening sleeper we roused up 
 
 Out of our dreams, and lo ! it was day, and true 
 
 The tale they told us, that the hounds of War 
 
 Had slipped the leash, and that the Eldest Child 
 
 Of Europe stood at bay ; and now the two 
 
 Great sleeping Giants that never knew their strength 
 
 Were stirring in their sleep at last, while men 
 
 Whose thoughts had outrun action, wrung their hands 
 
 And cried it was too late. Already crept 
 
 The shadow across the dial, menacing. 
 
 It was the Day they toasted, they whom years 
 
 Had nurtured in thoughts of warfare, they whom fate 
 
 Had of the nations brought to Europe last. 
 
 Last to be Christian, last to see the light. 
 
 And first to cast adrift the Christian's God. 
 
 Their hour had struck, their fiat had gone forth, 
 
 And all their manhood was a marching horde, 
 
 That as the sands of the sea-shore was like 
 
 To engulf the long-doomed land. Three months, 
 
 they said. 
 Would crown their enterprise. And one was past. 
 
 But what of all this recked our regiments 
 Encamped in the New Forest ? Plain their path 
 Lay through the days. Old soldiers all, as years 
 
 32
 
 Had passed with them, the days passed still 
 
 In the same duties training them for war. 
 
 They had come far to meet in the home of dreams, 
 
 From outposts of the Empire. Some of them 
 
 Came from the wind-swept Veldt, where our old foe 
 
 Stood now our friend and brother-in-arms ; and some 
 
 From isL.xxd strongholds set in bluer seas 
 
 Than the grey creek that parts us from the Wight ; 
 
 Some garrisoned the Rock ; and some came last 
 
 From Cairo of the minarets, where East 
 
 And West that cannot mingle, jostle each 
 
 The other in wide European streets. 
 
 But whencesoever they came, not one for years 
 
 Had trodden the soil of England, but had grown 
 
 To the full stature of manhood serving her 
 
 Whom yet they scarcely knew they loved — (so dumb 
 
 That strange and steadfast English soul) — and now 
 
 After long years came back a little while 
 
 To a land of their own — yet not their own — 
 
 Far from their homes — yet England — in the days 
 
 Of early sun-swept autumn, when the world 
 
 Is gold for all the hours of daylight and 
 
 Silver for all the hours of night, and with 
 
 The bite of early winter in the air. 
 
 As if the gods permitted them to see 
 
 If but for a few days how fair she was, 
 
 Their England, ere they died for her. 
 
 It chanced 
 That in those red-gold days my daily road 
 Took me to Lyndhurst. There each day I saw 
 
 E 35
 
 Our forest capital's once quiet streets 
 Alive as never before, for life moves not, 
 In lesser times, at this dread lightning speed, 
 When it is not seen standing at grips with Death. 
 And this was life, but yet it seemed unreal 
 And the mere setting of a puppet show. 
 The church that overhangs the street seemed like 
 A stage scene with the entrances and exits. 
 An amphitheatre as at Amergau, 
 And all the passing figures that climbed up 
 And down the steep steps no mere flesh and blood, 
 But mummers in a melodrama. Once 
 I saw the steps white with confetti and 
 A group of kilted men with the wild pipes 
 Of a long-gone barbaric age a-slung 
 Upon their stalwart shoulders. Passers-by- 
 Told me it was a Highland officer 
 That made his bridal in haste, one foot, to speak 
 In figures, in the stirrup. Many times 
 When I passed by the church bells called to prayer 
 (And much men need to pray), yet still they seemed 
 Not men and women, but mummers playing their 
 
 parts, 
 And set like boxes and stalls to view the play. 
 Over against the church the balcony 
 Of an old inn, where at all hours of the day 
 There sat the officers' women-folk, half dazed 
 With the crowding happenings of times 
 When Life at grips with Death moved fast. 
 And they had blindly come at call, nor recked 
 
 34
 
 Where the call led them, knowing not if this 
 Should be the ultimate act of love to those 
 That were their lives — the husbands, brothers, sons. 
 I saw their faces. 
 
 Yet I scarcely think 
 Half of them knew that they were smitten by 
 The sword that pierced the holiest Mother's soul. 
 The English spirit is not a harp that thrills 
 To every wayward blast of fancy that 
 Like the wind sweeps a more self-conscious soul. 
 Thank God for it, ye martyr women ! this 
 Is no love gift of the gods, but rather a scourge. 
 To see with the eyes of the spirit, to hear sounds 
 No mortal ear can catch, to overleap 
 The bounds of space and time, and race the stars 
 Down their long path towards eternity, 
 Is but to suffer all sorrows, taste the cup 
 Of all humanity tenfold more full 
 Of gall, and die a thousand times for once. 
 And what avail ? Oh, better far to be 
 A little slow, a little blind, to hear 
 Only the sounds of earth within the range 
 Of our material ears, and from one day 
 Unto the next to live, not dreaming dreams. 
 To see the play and think it but a play. 
 To those I love, oh Lords of Life and Death, 
 Bestow this gift and not the other ; and 
 Let me be their Cyrenian. 
 
 I too watched 
 The play that seemed to stage itself within 
 
 35
 
 This little citadel of ours, but I 
 
 Could not watch patiently from a fixed seat. 
 
 The wind called and I followed, for my heart 
 
 Was in my feet, and rest was not for them. 
 
 My place was not in the stalls and boxes, but 
 
 Along the alley way, and what I saw 
 
 Was glimpses only of the main set scene. 
 
 I roved the Forest, climbed the hills, and dipped 
 
 Into the sudden valley, following 
 
 The wind's course and the streams. At early morn 
 
 I'd hear the sound of marching feet and look 
 
 Forth from my rose-wreathed window eagerly 
 
 And through the holly-hedge see moving forms. 
 
 Earth-tinted, passing as a stream — I thought 
 
 Fantastically, the yellow stream that lapped 
 
 The seven hills that once o'erruled the world. 
 
 I closed the pane, and later in the day. 
 
 Far out across the Forest, I would come 
 
 On traces of that stream, as through the moss 
 
 A hidden rivulet bubbles up — a line 
 
 Of wire beside the roadway, further on 
 
 A single horseman riding slow, and round 
 
 A wooded corner, hiding them until 
 
 I reached it unsuspectingly, the guns. 
 
 Sure in those russet days, our home of dreams 
 
 Hummed with the dreams come true, the grim stern 
 
 stuff 
 That what we dream so fair is made of. Once 
 I stood beside the roadway on a mound 
 And all the pageant unrolled itself to me. 
 
 36
 
 There with my eyes I saw pass by me one 
 
 Of the Divisions of our little force 
 
 Which our foes thought they branded. But they made 
 
 Their epithet for ever noble. Thus 
 
 God turns mean things to gold ; even as He made 
 
 The Roman gibbet to all time the sign 
 
 Of all the world's salvation. 
 
 As I stood 
 An old man came out of the Forest and 
 Stood by my side. A little while he gazed 
 In silence down the sunlit road, then turned 
 And spoke to me, a stranger, falteringly. 
 But driven by the heart within him hot. 
 *' They say it is the Seventh Division," he said. 
 " That tells not much to me, a poor old man. 
 What does it mean ? A hundred thousand men 
 Already gone to their deaths ? The foe, I hear, 
 Counts his men by the million. Would that I 
 Had died a thousand times, nor lived to see 
 This bitter day." 
 
 " Might is not right," I said, 
 *' And these are British soldiers — leave it there. 
 They'll do their duty." 
 
 " Far be it from me," 
 He said, " to doubt it. But why must they die, 
 These fine young men, and leave a cumberer 
 Like me upon the earth ? " 
 
 " I envy them," 
 I said, " for that they are so young, so strong, 
 And have such riches in their hands to give 
 
 37
 
 For her that gave them birth — not the mere shreds 
 
 Of a life lived and wearied of, but all 
 
 Their golden future and what it held for them. 
 
 Away with pity ! Envy them, and most 
 
 The spirit in which they make their sacrifice. 
 
 That knows not it is gold beyond all price. 
 
 Pity ? what pity for them ? But pity us, 
 
 Who, left behind, lose all our world. For us 
 
 What is there if the one light in our sky 
 
 Be darkened ? all that's left to us to know 
 
 It set in honour. Save your pity for us. 
 
 Theirs is the glory, ours the price to pay. 
 
 Yet pity us not, in that we too may share 
 
 In this, the greatest gift a man can give 
 
 To his loved country, and his king, and God." 
 
 He scarcely seemed to listen, and his face 
 
 Brightened as down the winding road there came 
 
 The sound of stamping horses and the clash 
 
 Of their champed bits, while floating through the dust 
 
 There seemed to swim the fabric of a dream 
 
 Of the past ages — such a marching host 
 
 As the old Forest has seen full many a time. 
 
 Though new to us. The thought was in his mind, 
 
 Even as 'twas in mine. He turned to me : 
 
 " I like the red upon their caps," he said, 
 
 " But I would rather see the tossing plumes 
 
 That the great Duke wore. Where is now the pomp 
 
 And pageantry of war ? " 
 
 " Is it not here ? " 
 I said, " and if Red William could but rise 
 
 38
 
 And stand with us, to him would this not seem 
 As brave a show as his mailed knights to us ? 
 Is war a matter of garments or the soul ? " 
 *' Ah, true," he said, " and I am but an old 
 And foolish man that cannot comprehend 
 How immortality can come to earth, 
 Not as it came before, but in new guise. 
 Worthy indeed are these to follow in 
 The footsteps of our English redcoats, who 
 Nigh on a hundred years ago passed down 
 This road to fight at Waterloo." 
 
 And now 
 Came down the winding road the sound of drums. 
 Like the strong pulsing throb of brave men's hearts. 
 And then, before they choked us with the sound. 
 The shrilling fifes that danced above them, light 
 As shrieking winds above the thundering waves ; 
 And that wild spirit in me that laughs aloud 
 For the pure joy of living when it hears 
 A stirring strain of music or the roll 
 Of noble poetry, awoke and blazed. 
 Shaking my soul with visions half glimpsed at, sights 
 Of worlds of light and glory, never seen 
 On sea or land. Yet no great music this, 
 Shaped by a master of melody — a mere 
 Light marching tune to keep the feet in time 
 And the hearts cheered of weary men — no more. 
 What was it ? " Tipperary ? " or " The Black Bear ? " 
 Yet had it been sad Chopin's great dead March, 
 Or the wild lilt of the Gotterdammerung, 
 
 39
 
 It had not brought that spirit to my lips 
 That is one with the wind and immortal stars, 
 So readily as this jingle. 
 
 " Hark ! " I cried, 
 And to my mind the very age-old oaks 
 Were listening with me. 
 
 And that aged man. 
 Himself as gnarled as the Forest oaks, turned, smiled, 
 And seemed to beat the time. So they came on, 
 Those earth-clad regiments, rank on rank, at times 
 Singing or whistling to their marching tune. 
 Or shouting jests such as their souls loved, crude 
 But brimming with the spirit of their age. 
 Such young, such brave-eyed faces, and such forms 
 As the Greek sculptors would have gloated on. 
 Not for their beauty but their young trained strength, 
 The fineness of the straight and tempered sword. 
 Men of the English counties first there came. 
 From " Surrey's pleasant hills," or from the black 
 Plains of the Midlands, or the northernmost 
 Marches whose very name spells history 
 And high romance. Then, tripping like Agag, next 
 Came Capricornus, silky white, with bland 
 Bewildered countenance, but at the head 
 As ever of his regiment. Then came on 
 Men of the heart of England, of Arderne, 
 A Forest once as famous as our own. Then shrilled 
 A new note on our ears — the Highland pipes — 
 And to our eyes the rhythmic swing of kilts 
 Kept time to that incarnate spirit in sound 
 40
 
 Of all we mean by war ; and had it been 
 That we had flagged in fervour as we watched, 
 That sound must sure once more have whipped us on 
 To lift rejoicing hearts for Britain's glory and 
 Thank God she stood upgirt for the good fight. 
 The wailing pipes had passed away, once more 
 The lighter music of the fifes rang out, 
 And, following them, the sons of Anak marched. 
 The old man at my side, who stood till then 
 Wiping the simple tears from his old eyes, 
 Seemed to spring suddenly erect, with breath 
 Bated he said to me : " And what are these ? 
 Am I mistaken ? Is it not the Guards ? 
 The King's Guards ? " 
 
 And, not waiting for reply, 
 He bared his head. " The King," he breathed, " the 
 
 King 
 Of England, and these are his men." Then I, 
 A little jealous for the rest : " But all 
 Are soldiers of the King. Why not for them 
 Did you with bare head stand ? " 
 
 " But these," he said, 
 Are more the King's than all. They are the first 
 That served him, and on many a bloody field 
 Have borne his colour. And to me my king 
 Is next my God. I know that in these days 
 The ancient love and loyalty are dead. 
 A new creed has been preached, and hearts are cold, 
 And faith is dim, and hope evanished. 
 But all this is to me an empty tale ; 
 
 F 41
 
 I am not of this time, but of the old, 
 The better way. Nay more, this is my faith. 
 How could I love the God I have not seen 
 If I loved not and clave not to my King ? 
 So waste no breath rebuking me. I stand 
 And pay my homage to my English King, 
 As through his symbol." 
 
 And now, down the road, 
 Again came English county regiments ; first 
 The Down-bred men, in whose eyes is the light 
 Born of wide spaces ; then the men of the Dales, 
 Slow, sturdy and staunch ; the children of the Ouse 
 That Cowper loved ; and then again there smote 
 Upon our ears the thrilling of the pipes. 
 Visions arose before me : heather hills 
 And tawny streams, and crystal silences. 
 And of a past that throbbed with life 
 And the great deeds of greater men. I saw 
 An answering light within the old man's eye. 
 " Scotland again ! " he said, " that valiant land. 
 That ever bred true warriors. Hail to them ! " 
 And as the pipes died down to distance, I 
 Looked up as one that wakens from a dream. 
 The road was empty now, and all the still 
 Deep silence of the Forest closed again 
 About me, as though that had never been 
 Which I had gazed on — and those marching hosts 
 Passed like the kings that chased the deer of old 
 Into the land of shadows. From my side 
 The old companion of an hour was gone, 
 
 42
 
 As if the Forest swallowed him. All round 
 The twilight fell, and softly through the trees 
 Sighed the sad evening wind. A single star 
 Looked like an eye between the branches. Soft 
 A skimming bat swept by me. Night had fallen. 
 So I went home, and with me marched the pipes, 
 The ghostly pipes no ear but mine could hear, 
 That played a ghostly regiment through the gloom. 
 
 THE MARCHING SONG OF THE 
 SCOTS FUSILIERS 
 
 Our fathers fought for Scotland, a hardy race were they, 
 On oatmeal and in homespun reared, they broke the 
 
 stubborn clay ; 
 Their path they never wavered from for favour or for 
 
 fear, 
 And such as were our fathers is the Scottish Fusilier. 
 
 What if winter winds blow cold ? 
 
 Where's the soldier heeds their blowing ? 
 
 Somewhere there's a land of gold. 
 
 Lilies blooming, neap-tides flowing. 
 
 What if suns all blinding scorch ? 
 
 Think of that old hero-story 
 
 Of the handing on the Torch : 
 
 Men of Ayrshire, death or glory ! 
 
 Far down the fighting ages the tale is still the same, 
 Our fathers fought for Scotland, for altar, hearth and 
 hame ; 
 
 43
 
 Alone stood little Scotland then, and never blenched 
 
 for fear, 
 And as she stood till death now stands the Scottish 
 Fusilier. 
 
 Hear the pipes that play us by. 
 
 (Where's the heart that is not leaping ?) 
 
 See the feet that never fly. 
 
 (Who will not abide the Reaping ?) 
 
 When one day our fights are all 
 
 Tales to tell when we are hoary, 
 
 Still shall rise our slogan call : 
 
 Men of Ayrshire, death or glory ! 
 
 44
 
 BOOK III 
 
 Each life, like every century, must hold 
 
 Its halcyon hour ; and those that have not lived 
 
 In vain, look back across the gulf of years 
 
 And know what was their hour, although it seemed, 
 
 When they were living it, the very same 
 
 As any other hour, filled with the same 
 
 Dull duties, petty cares and transient joys. 
 
 So I look back and know that in a life 
 
 Lived in seclusion and illumined with 
 
 No light of high adventure or romance 
 
 I too have had my halcyon hour. For three 
 
 Short weeks which passed before I knew them gone, 
 
 'Twas given to me at least to catch a glimpse 
 
 Of all that makes up Life, the rosy skirts 
 
 Of the high gods ; to live as it were like one 
 
 Who sits beside a roaring cataract. 
 
 And hear the tide — in which I had no part — 
 
 Sweep by me like a flood. I did not know 
 
 How great was what I heard and saw, nor how 
 
 Through unborn ages should its echo ring. 
 
 Even as ring the magic names of old — 
 
 Senlac — CuUoden — Flodden — Waterloo — 
 
 The Lines of Torres Vedras — the Retreat 
 
 That cost us our great soldier — names they are 
 
 Of causes all but lost, yet more than won. 
 
 And England, greatest in adversity. 
 
 I could not peer into the future nor 
 
 Discern the signs even of the present. Drawn 
 
 45
 
 I knew not by what force to follow them, 
 Those marching multitudes, and when the eve 
 Came floating down the west wind, like a bird 
 With dusky pinions spread, I would stand by 
 And watch dark roads, until the distant drums 
 Made all the dimness throb expectantly ; 
 And when the regiments passed me by, my feet 
 Bore me in time to the music, and their step, 
 A little way — (it was not given to me 
 To follow to the end). 
 
 There was a church 
 In a back street, as if it hid from sight. 
 And many an evening I knelt there in the gloom, 
 Which the slight flickering sanctuary lamp 
 Seemed but to make the deeper. And I prayed 
 As never before to the Lord God of Hosts, 
 And to the Captain of the Angels, and 
 To all the soldier saints. And I rose up, 
 Sure of their aid for England. 
 
 Every day 
 I passed along the road — I knew it well — 
 That winds through pine-woods from the town towards 
 The port where the great liners lie before 
 They set forth, like the buccanneers of old. 
 Seeking the golden West, the Spanish Main, 
 The names that sing, the thoughts that flame, the quest 
 That changes with the ages, but is still 
 The same to-day and always. Down this road, 
 On either side, among the heather, lay 
 The camp that mushroom-like rose in a night. 
 
 46
 
 And there I stood afar off, and I watched 
 
 As one that, save in the spirit, had no part. 
 
 And there, amid the heather, trampled black, 
 
 Men went about their business, as in the days 
 
 Of Noe, recking not at all of what 
 
 So swiftly was to come. To them all this. 
 
 That was to me a drama moving fast 
 
 From scene to scene towards the fitting end. 
 
 Was but their own familiar task, devoid 
 
 Of all the glittering hues of that romance 
 
 Which in my eyes it wore. All day the camp 
 
 Lay quiet in the sunshine : rows of tents 
 
 Empty and as deserted, while the men 
 
 That slept in them were out in the Forest, far 
 
 Flinging their mimic battle line. The few 
 
 That moved across the dusty heather between 
 
 The pine-woods and the road passed the long day 
 
 In trivial duties, seeming like those that stand 
 
 And wait, yet serving still. One day I saw, 
 
 Tripping amidst the tents on hasty feet. 
 
 Come Capricornus, all his calm dispelled 
 
 By the ill-thought-of homage of one that passed 
 
 And plucked a handful from his snowy beard. 
 
 I paused and asked the warrior who led 
 The patriarch by a halter if it were 
 His destiny to front the German fire 
 And fall as would become a mountain goat 
 From gallant Wales ; but learnt 'twas also his 
 
 47
 
 To serve hy standing fast and waiting, not 
 Leading his regiment as in happier times. 
 
 So passed the days, until it seemed to me 
 
 That all my life I had been wandering 
 
 In the wake of an army, heeding nothing else. 
 
 Then the play closed. It was a Sabbath day, 
 
 First of the Hunter's Moon. I went to mass 
 
 And passed the hours as I was wont, until 
 
 Late in the afternoon I started on 
 
 My daily pilgrimage to Lyndhurst. Then 
 
 First dawned upon me a strange thing. The streets 
 
 Lay empty, save for peaceful citizens 
 
 Out for an idle Sunday stroll ; no more 
 
 They surged with those earth-tinted multitudes 
 
 That woke their dullness to new life. A hand 
 
 Seemed to have closed upon my heart. I sprang 
 
 With quickened step to meet what might betide : 
 
 And all the while a voice sang in my ear 
 
 And told me that I knew. Beyond the town, 
 
 Gone were the loiterers, and choked the road 
 
 With those that pressed towards the camp. Great 
 
 wains 
 Came swaying across my path, and motor cars. 
 With panting breath, sought passage, whilst between 
 The hasting figures of men wound in and out. 
 Who said to me " The regiments will parade 
 Before an hour is over, for the Front ? " 
 I could not tell, but suddenly I knew ; 
 And I too hastened on to see the end. 
 
 48
 
 Up on the heather, trampled into dust, 
 
 The camp hummed like a swarming hive. Between 
 
 The rows of tents men hastened to and fro, 
 
 With no heed to a stranger stumbling past. 
 
 The call had come even as the Trump of Doom, 
 
 When none awaited it. Not even those 
 
 In high command had thought it was so near. 
 
 Full half the men were in the woods, or gone 
 
 Their comrades knew not whither. None had time 
 
 To go and seek them. In this hour no man 
 
 His brother could deliver, nor to God 
 
 Make his agreement. Each was for himself, 
 
 And for the duty that lay nearest, and 
 
 Behind it all for the regiment, and still more. 
 
 Although he knew it not, for England and 
 
 Her honour and her Empire. 'Twas not this 
 
 They thought of as they girded up their loins 
 
 For their first step upon the road of honour. 
 
 But of the waiting that was over, and 
 
 The sweetheart or the wife that in an hour 
 
 Should bid them her God-speed. But as I passed 
 
 Across the track I thought of the deep things 
 
 Behind the trivial act, the common word ; 
 
 My spirit soared on wings and I forgot 
 
 The clogging burden of the flesh. The hours 
 
 Fled past me like a shadow, yet they seemed 
 
 To hold the heart's core of a lifetime. Thus 
 
 A moment of eternity will seem 
 
 When it is ours. 
 
 The regiments will parade 
 
 G 49 
 
 a
 
 Within one short hour for the Front." So speaks 
 
 The voice of Fate, in no beguiling words 
 
 But in the accent of our every day. 
 
 The autumn evening faded into dusk, 
 
 And mist rose from the heather hke a sea 
 
 That with soft waves would overwhelm the host. 
 
 Now rose the Hunter's Moon, and rode above 
 
 The tree-tops like a barque in a calm sea, 
 
 The dead world looking down on our unrest 
 
 That to its secular peace must seem to be 
 
 The turmoil of some scurrying insect life. 
 
 To look up lifted up the soul to all 
 
 That spells eternity ; to hear no more 
 
 The cry of earth. But on this night of nights 
 
 Earth held me and not heaven. This was no time 
 
 To dream, even in the home of dreams ; for life 
 
 Surged round us like a flood, and on its tide 
 
 My spirit floated out beyond my ken. 
 
 Reaching stretched hands to the eternal things. 
 
 And knew its own mortality no more. 
 
 As hung the Veil before the holiest shrine, 
 
 The grey mist billowed for a while, then rose 
 
 And vanished, ghost-like 'mid the serried trunks 
 
 Of the red pine-woods, and instead the smoke 
 
 Arose from countless fires, a holocaust 
 
 Of useless lumber, nothing more, but still 
 
 They seemed the sacrificial flames that rose 
 
 From the altars of the grim War-god — ^he 
 
 That was awake after long sleep, and drove 
 
 Once more his iron chariot over the necks 
 
 50
 
 Of men and hearts of women, as of old. 
 
 And through the mist and smoke and brooding gloom 
 
 The voices rose of men that sang, the choir 
 
 Of that same War-god's temple. Songs they sang 
 
 Of vulgar import, all but meaningless. 
 
 But none the less they were their battle chant. 
 
 And in the dimness sounded strangely sweet, 
 
 With haunting sadness, as of minor chords, 
 
 Although it was rejoicing lifted up 
 
 The hearts of those that sang, the long stern joy 
 
 Of all their Berserk forefathers in fight. 
 
 And ever and anon rang bugle-calls 
 
 That made the night air wonderful, or shrill 
 
 A breath of Scotland floated through the tents 
 
 With the high distant calling of the pipes. 
 
 And faintly from the distance came that sound 
 
 That grips the heart, the sound of English cheers, 
 
 As one by one the regiments moved forth 
 
 Across the heather to the road that wound 
 
 Like a white serpent to the clustering woods. 
 
 And closer by, within a long stone's-throw 
 
 Of where I stood, spell-bound and living seons 
 
 In one short mortal hour, dark masses of men 
 
 Were forming on parade, as every day 
 
 They formed, and nothing thought of it. But this 
 
 Was sure the mustering supreme of all their lives. 
 
 And I looked on beneath the Hunter's Moon. 
 
 Close to me stamped an officer's charger, roused 
 
 51
 
 To some dim dreaming sense, such as beasts have, 
 
 Of what concerns their masters, and ears cocked, 
 
 Seeming to hsten for a voice it knew. 
 
 And further, nearly as dumb, between the woods 
 
 And the first row of tents, a Httle knot 
 
 Of women hung, hovering Hke homing birds, 
 
 Too timid to draw nigher — for this was 
 
 Man's business and not theirs. For him the stern 
 
 And long-awaited joy of the fight, the day 
 
 So long prepared for, when vain words should cease 
 
 And there be room in the world for naught but deeds : 
 
 For them the vigil, the long prayers, the watch 
 
 On the unopened door, the empty arms. . . . 
 
 Yet they wept not, but watched in silence whence 
 
 No sound arose to turn the hearts of men 
 
 To water. Not one of that little band, 
 
 Even had she known what should befall, one word 
 
 Would have permitted her white lips to cross 
 
 That should have held him back who was her all. 
 
 Thus speak again the Berserk forefathers, 
 
 Whose dread was to be " niddering," and more, 
 
 The foremothers that stood on barren shores 
 
 And watched the ships hull under that for them 
 
 Bore the world's treasure, knowing not how long. 
 
 Nor if again they saw those dragon prows. 
 
 (Mary ! from the safe heaven where all the griefs 
 
 That pierced thy soul are dreams of the long past, 
 
 Look down on women.) 
 
 So 'neath the Hunter's Moon, 
 And the calm sky, stood in their ranks the men 
 
 52
 
 Whose breasts were Britain's bulwark, each his pack 
 
 Before him on the ground, and for a while 
 
 Waited, not silent, but with laugh and jest. 
 
 So all true warriors laugh in the face of the foe. 
 
 And as I heard them laugh it seemed to me 
 
 But that mine eyes were holden I might see 
 
 Standing by every man the shade of one 
 
 That also trod the road on which he set 
 
 His foot now, leading to the stars — such men 
 
 And warriors ! Rome's legionaries, that bore 
 
 The Eagles to the confines of the world — 
 
 The Knights of the Cross that stormed Jerusalem — 
 
 The Cavaliers around their martyr king — 
 
 The redcoats on the road to Waterloo — 
 
 These, brothers-in-arms of those I saw that night. 
 
 Must sure have risen from their unknown graves 
 
 And mustered with rejoicing hearts once more 
 
 At sound of the clash of battle, eager yet 
 
 To strike a blow once more with hands long stilled, 
 
 It must have been so. Would I could have seen 
 
 Those shadowy hosts, and Michael at their head. 
 
 And known (but sure I knew ?) the Dragon's time 
 
 On earth was but a short one, great although 
 
 His fury be, and blasted lie the paths 
 
 By which he passes. 
 
 Now the word rang out 
 That moved that thousand men as one, and I 
 Followed ; me too it called down the broad track. 
 Across the heather, as if with feet on wings ; 
 And shoulder to shoulder with the regiment, reached 
 
 53
 
 The road that lay in the moonlight silver-white. 
 
 Thence could I follow no more save in the spirit, 
 
 And with a little silent remnant stood 
 
 To watch the troops go by. And never in 
 
 The history of wars was there a march 
 
 So silent, as of ghosts, no braying band 
 
 To play them on their way, no cheering crowd — 
 
 No sound, but through the ranks from man to man 
 
 There swept a gale of laughter, high but hushed 
 
 And half beneath the voice, as ghosts might laugh. 
 
 So passed they from my ken into the woods 
 
 That swallowed them up in blackness ; and I stood- 
 
 How long I know not, time was not for me — 
 
 My spirit was among the stars, for I 
 
 Knew 'twas immortal what I saw and praised 
 
 With all my heart the God that let me see. 
 
 And regiment after regiment passed me by, 
 
 In all its pride and proud humility, 
 
 All state and panoply laid by, upgirt 
 
 For the stern work before them, nothing here 
 
 Of music or of colours heavy with gold, 
 
 Their battle honours written on their hearts. 
 
 Their marching tune unheard, yet keeping feet 
 
 In time to its well-known music — so they passed. 
 
 Nameless are they ? What signify the names 
 Of those that held Thermopylae ? And sad 
 To think of the passing of brave men ? Not so. 
 The best that God has in His gift is theirs, 
 And in the Courts above be sure there was 
 
 54
 
 A stir among the soldier-saints when first 
 
 Word came of their approach, those war-worn men, 
 
 With bearded lips and in their blood-stained rags, 
 
 Fresh from their hour, when they made of their breasts 
 
 A barrier unpassable between 
 
 The hordes of the obscene locust and their land 
 
 And all that they held sacred. Let the tears 
 
 That rain upon their nameless graves be tears 
 
 Of pride and not of pain, for that our stock 
 
 Still bred such valour and such steadfastness. 
 
 THE LITANY OF THE SOLDIER 
 SAINTS 
 
 As we believe in Christ our God, we know our cause is 
 
 just; 
 We know we fight with the good knights whose good 
 
 broadswords are rust. 
 And what we fight for will not die when we like them 
 are dust. 
 
 Michael, lead us ; 
 George, defend us ; 
 Martin, speed us ; 
 Soldier saints, your good swords lend us. 
 
 The trumpet blast that blew of old has echoed once 
 
 again, 
 The blast that all good warriors have never heard in 
 
 vain; 
 
 55
 
 And " God defend the right ! " is still its confident 
 refrain. 
 
 Ignace, call us ; 
 Louis, uphold us ; 
 Oswald, forestall us ; 
 Soldier saints, your prayers enfold us. 
 
 The Son of God goes forth to war, and with Him all 
 
 His host ; 
 Those fight with us that will not see our righteous 
 
 cause be lost ; 
 And he that shall stand highest is the one that giveth 
 most. 
 
 Ferdinand, hear us ; 
 Constantine, light us ; 
 Wenceslaus, cheer us ; 
 Soldier saints, your spirits delight us. 
 
 And if in fight we fall, it shall be ours to see the 
 
 Graal ; 
 Before the Gate that Peter guards our plea shall sure 
 
 prevail ; 
 And we in heaven shall tell the soldier saints our battle 
 tale. 
 
 Bastian, steel us ; 
 Joan, relieve us ; 
 Edmund, heal us ; 
 Soldier saints, your arms receive us. 
 
 56
 
 PART II 
 
 H
 
 BOOK I 
 
 What I have told I saw, yea, with the eyes 
 
 Of the finite mortal body. But the rest 
 
 I knew but in the spirit, heard as it were in dreams, 
 
 When men spoke in short sentences and few 
 
 By their own fireside, after the storm was stilled. 
 
 A word here or a look ; it is enough. 
 
 The eyes of the immortal spirit see. 
 
 The heart knows more than its own bitterness 
 
 When all that makes its life is passing through 
 
 The fires of Moloch. 
 
 Down the iron-grey tide, 
 And in the pearl-grey dawn, the steel-grey ships 
 Slid like their own grey ghosts ; and far inland, 
 Their long-drawn note in parting, like the sound 
 Of some grave trumpet at low knell-like pitch, 
 Reached to unsleeping ears. Not thus the ships, 
 That buzzed out like a nest of wasps disturbed, 
 To hang upon King Philip's flanks ; not thus 
 The wooden walls the one-armed Admiral led 
 To Victory or Valhalla ; but the quest 
 Is still the same, and the spirit of that quest. 
 As little knew the fathers of our race 
 As did their sons that they would sound a note 
 Upon the immortal bugle that should call 
 To unborn ages, and not call in vain. 
 But though the spirit is the same, the times 
 Are not the valiant days of old, when yet 
 The shadow lay upon our path that cast 
 
 59
 
 The sun of chivalry. Not now for us 
 Waited a noble enemy, a foe 
 A brave man, having vanquished, may well grasp 
 And call his brother-in-arms. But now beyond 
 The blue line of the offing there lurked one 
 That smites but in the dark at men unarmed. 
 As waits the hawk for the defenceless chick. 
 Hanging unseen above until he strikes, so he 
 Made all our gallant seas that once bore up 
 The hulls of CoUingwood and Frobisher, 
 A death-trap. So in silence stole our ships, 
 Not like our fathers' flying their brave flags. 
 But as ashamed — though theirs is not the shame. 
 A night and day they floated on the deep, 
 While that which we set forth to save was lost. 
 And on the third day glided into port. 
 So from the Norman William's Forest, hoar 
 With phantoms of the past, landed our men 
 On ground whose glory is to come, the strip 
 That, back to the sea and face to the foe, was all 
 The undaunted kingdom yet might call its own ; 
 And there saw first their enemy, for high 
 Above them, even as they disembarked, 
 Solitary floated on grey wings a Dove, 
 But not of Peace. A symbol of what lurked 
 Behind the horizon not so many miles. 
 None told our men then or thereafter what 
 Awaited them, as with light hearts they stepped 
 Into the Belgian trains. For what knew they 
 Of hordes let loose once in a thousand years, 
 60
 
 Like the sea-sand for numbers, and borne on 
 
 The wings of the east wind to overwhelm 
 
 All Europe like a sandstorm ? What knew they 
 
 Of Attila and of his yellow-faced 
 
 And slant-eyed followers, and of the slim 
 
 Sword that Saint Genevieve in their despite 
 
 Wielded before her Paris that she loved. 
 
 Sword of her prayers ? Or if they had but heard 
 
 The name of Hun, knew they its portent ? or 
 
 What had they heard of hammering Charles and of 
 
 The fierce sons of the desert, hot with faith 
 
 And reckless of their own as others' blood ? 
 
 Or of the pouring infidels that tore 
 
 The ancient sceptre from the nerveless hand 
 
 Of the last Constantine ? So oft unchained 
 
 Hell's legions, lest we lull ourselves to sleep 
 
 And think our times secure, or, worse, forget 
 
 It is not we that reign, but the Lord God. 
 
 Have we not learned the lesson ? must it still 
 
 Be read us, like slow stumbling scholars that 
 
 Cannot or will not heed except it be 
 
 Enforced by pain and sorrow ? True it is 
 
 The People are but children, nor will learn 
 
 Save as a child learns. (How long, holy God, 
 
 Holy and Mighty, will Thy patience hold ?) 
 
 At noon the City that was once called dead — 
 And better were it if long since she had 
 Been laid to honourable rest — received 
 
 6i
 
 Those whom she hailed as saviours, dreaming not 
 
 It was but for a season — and with pomp 
 
 Of drums and fifes they marched across the streets, 
 
 And marked, perhaps, her ancient monuments, 
 
 And that night rested in her ancient peace. 
 
 The morrow came. Rest was for them no more 
 
 For many an aching morrow, save alone ' 
 
 The rest eternal some attained. For first 
 
 Each day the order came to march, and when 
 
 A long day's march was over, came again : 
 
 "March," and still "March," and "March," once 
 
 more. The miles 
 Piled themselves on each other, till the souls 
 Of all the men waxed sick as bodies tired. 
 No foe they saw, and half they disbelieved 
 There was a foe at hand. Yet they could hear 
 The distant thunder, muttering of the storm 
 That yet should burst upon them. And they 
 
 saw 
 The piteous flotsam that choked up the roads 
 When rich and poor forlornly blent, with lives 
 And little else preserved them, fled, as Lot 
 Fled from the accursed cities of the plain, 
 Before the belching fire that overwhelmed 
 The fallen city on the Scheldt. At sight 
 So pitiful the very skies appeared 
 Constrained to weep, and the artillery 
 Of heaven to add its rolling to the sound 
 Of the still distant Krupp-forged guns. The miles 
 Piled themselves on each other, and the word 
 62
 
 Was " March " again, and still " March," and once 
 
 more, 
 And weary men, that knew not why, marched on. 
 
 So they returned to Bruges, and there beheld 
 
 The indomitable army which had held, 
 
 As hold the dykes against the angry sea, 
 
 That flooding host, not long enough to save 
 
 Their land from conquest, but yet long enough 
 
 To write their own name on the immortal roll 
 
 Which only a soul of mud can read without 
 
 A quickening of the heart. They marched by, horse, 
 
 Foot and artillery, in ordered ranks, 
 
 As if it were a mere parade, a thing 
 
 Of every day, nor knew themselves to be 
 
 Immortal, nor as they passed, recognized 
 
 Immortal brothers-in-arms. Yet so it was, 
 
 And lesser ages, reading reverently, 
 
 In a day of far smaller things, shall say : 
 
 " In those days there were giants in the land." 
 
 So pass us by the moments of the world 
 
 Which never die, as little marked as if 
 
 They should not stand for evermore, sign-posts 
 
 Pointing the way on honour's road. 
 
 But still 
 The order came to march, and " March " again, 
 To weary men that knew not why. And still 
 Nearer and nearer yet the tide flowed on 
 Of that devouring sea, as pitiless 
 As that which, year by year, eats into coasts 
 
 63
 
 And covers houses that have sheltered men, 
 And fields that have fed cattle, till they seem 
 Like a lost dream of the far past, which lived 
 In a tale only, nor was seen of man. 
 And still the order came to march, and still 
 The weary men marched on and knew not why. 
 
 The days shall come, perhaps far distant yet. 
 
 When men in the safe haven of their desire 
 
 Shall sit in firelit rooms in the deep peace 
 
 That those mud-stained and wayworn men preserved — 
 
 Unwittingly, but not unwillingly — 
 
 For them and for their women-folk ; and write 
 
 With pens dipped in the liquid fire of the gods 
 
 Of the great past and of the mighty dead 
 
 And as they write the weariness and toil 
 
 Of those long rain-swept days shall be forgot 
 
 And the march back and forth across the field, 
 
 Where Europe ever sought the quest of war, 
 
 Seem not the irksome task of weary men. 
 
 But the parade triumphal of such troops 
 
 As Hannibal, Leonidas, or one 
 
 Of the great captains of the days when wars 
 
 Was the sole enterprise deemed worthy of men 
 
 Might have led down a road — not mud-stained. 
 
 Bleak with the autumn rain and wind, but paved 
 
 With gold and brighter than gold. 
 
 So that small force, 
 A sole Division in all, with guns that seem 
 Like toys a child that ran along the sands 
 
 64
 
 Might shoot into the oncoming waves and think 
 Such trifles the resistless deeps would heed, 
 Passed back and forth across the Belgian plains 
 In face of that devouring sea of men. 
 Sure even now, when faith lies dead, a thing 
 Men laugh at, yet sometimes the Arm of God 
 Is stretched out as of yore and still can smite 
 With blindness. And thus far the hungry sea 
 Comes, and no further. For no arm of man 
 It was that wielded the invincible sword 
 That thus withstood the foe. 
 
 On the eighth day 
 Those weary men attained a city, once 
 A household word to English ears, and now 
 To echo through the ringing ages vwth 
 A voice of trumpets. Martyred, torn with shells, 
 Blackened with fire, its age-old glories all 
 Swept from the ken of man, its storied streets 
 And time-defying houses but a heap 
 Of crumbling stones and dust, and all that once 
 Its pious citizens looked on and loved 
 Through years six hundred, vanished like a dream, 
 She yet stands crowned among her peers, and dead 
 To the gross visible world, to glory lives. 
 When on the eighth day of their purgatory 
 Those weary men marched through her storied streets. 
 She yet stood, breathing of the giant past. 
 When faith inspired the hands of builders and 
 Stone lost beneath the master's chisel its grey 
 Solidity and was transformed to lace, 
 
 I 6s
 
 And men still gave the best and nothing but 
 The best to grace the glory of God. 
 
 And so 
 The long march ended which had sickened souls 
 And wearied bodies, for the force had reached 
 The goal that was to make its name and theirs 
 Ring with a clarion voice for ever. None 
 Knew it ; but who of all our fathers knew 
 Their halcyon hour when it was with them ? Who 
 Knew themselves numbered with the immortal band 
 And heard their names called on the immortal roll, 
 Until the hour was past and the call mute ? 
 And so, not many miles beyond the gates 
 Of the devoted city, our men stood, 
 As it were children on a sandy shore. 
 And faced the hungry sea. So far it came, 
 Wave upon wave, resistless, but to break 
 On a thin barrier which yet was rock 
 And stood, when as it seemed the world itself 
 Must fall before that overwhelming tide. 
 
 Will this not turn the peoples of the world 
 
 From the mean thoughts and earth-bound ways that 
 
 hold 
 Their souls in bondage, though they boast them free ? 
 Are they so dull of hearing that the call 
 Cannot pierce through their slumbers ? and so blind 
 They cannot see the light even when it shines 
 From east to west across the wondering sky ? 
 Can they pass by once more, and is the cross 
 66
 
 Nothing to them, and dross the crown ? For such 
 Should be the pity, not for those that fell 
 Nor those that made the offering of all 
 That life held of the dearest and that knew 
 Their offering was accepted by their God. 
 
 BATTLE SONG OF THE SEVENTH 
 DIVISION 
 
 England, my mother, the arms that have cradled me. 
 Is it a great thing that I should give back to thee, 
 That which thou gavest, a life that was sorrow-free ? 
 
 The best I can give for thee, how shall I grudge it thee ? 
 So thy green lanes and lush fields should inviolate be ? 
 So that thy little ones sleep sound and peacefully ? 
 
 What is the sorrow at this mowing down of us 
 Weighed in the balance against the renown of us ? 
 Warriors unborn yet shall envy the crown of us. 
 
 Oh, we held high and untarnished the light of us ! 
 What had our numbers to do vnth the might of us ? 
 Happy they count themselves who had a sight of us. 
 
 Those who have held us desire of their eyes to them, 
 Now will they hold us their glory and prize to them ; 
 Seeing the heights that we scaled, they will rise to them. 
 
 67
 
 BOOK II 
 
 Oh, that I had the silver tongue of one 
 
 Of the great bards of olden time ! that I, 
 
 Like Taliessin, could with trumpet notes 
 
 Awaken in my countrymen that high 
 
 And fiery spirit which makes nations great 
 
 And plain men martyrs ! For no lesser note 
 
 Can fitly sing of such great things as I 
 
 Have set myself to sing of, great indeed 
 
 Beyond what we that saw them can conceive. 
 
 Our children be the judge, as in our turn 
 
 We judge our fathers ; and we bow our heads 
 
 Before their greatness, yet can say that once 
 
 At least we touched the hem of the high gods' skirts 
 
 And with our eyes beheld a band of men 
 
 Worthy to be those fathers' sons. What more 
 
 Do we ask of our lives ? For we have lived. 
 
 Yet still the crowd is deaf and blind, and hearts 
 
 Faint at their want of faith. Once, long ago 
 
 (And still His Promise holds), the Lord declared 
 
 Unto His Faithful One that ten just men 
 
 Should save the cities justly doomed to fire. 
 
 Far distant be the day when even His Eye 
 
 No more can see the remnant in our land 
 
 To whom He makes that promise. But ten men 
 
 Amid a city are so few, so few 1 
 
 Yet it would seem that even in our time. 
 
 An age no more of Faith, God as of old, 
 
 When He commanded Gideon, sent a few 
 
 68
 
 Against a host that all the world should give 
 To Him the glory. Did it so ? Alas ! 
 What is the world ? 
 
 The tale is yet to tell 
 Of how the rock withstood the hungry sea, 
 And the thin line of England, as of yore, 
 Held back a swarming enemy, and died. 
 But did not let him pass. What of all this 
 Knew those mud-stained and travel-weary men, 
 When the low muttering thunder they had heard 
 Rolling along the distance broke in peals 
 Above their heads ? and at long last they saw 
 Their foe, the grey man, pitiless as a wolf, 
 And hunting like a wolf in packs, afraid 
 To stand in his iniquity alone. 
 Beyond the martyr city a few miles 
 The battle-shock came on them and the fight, 
 Which down the ringing centuries shall wing 
 Far worthier pens than mine, began. And thence 
 Their nights were days, and days were nights, nor 
 
 ceased 
 The crash, not even for a breathing space, 
 Of the oncoming hungry sea against 
 The barrier which looked so frail, but was 
 Invincible. Now broke at last the storm ; 
 Day after day and all the long night through 
 Roared on the guns, and wave on wave flowed on 
 The grey devouring sea, to break and melt 
 And leave upon the shore its broken waves. 
 And the fair features of that once beloved 
 
 69
 
 And happy land were blotted out, and passed 
 
 Into the realm of That which Was, as one 
 
 By one trees, houses, gardens, all that made 
 
 An Eden, where men dwelt in peace, and loved, 
 
 And gathered round them families and friends 
 
 And all the happiness of life — all met 
 
 The blasting breath of murderous guns. And this 
 
 Is Science, Culture, all the finest flower 
 
 Of that which man calls Progress — this the best 
 
 That he can do, to measure himself against 
 
 The Infinite, and claim that it is he 
 
 Who reigns on earth. The trees and flowers, the brooks 
 
 That tinkle through the mosses, and the birds 
 
 That make the woods melodious, these are but 
 
 The handiwork of an Almighty God. 
 
 Man cannot make them, he can but destroy. 
 
 How strange the destiny of which he is 
 
 So arrogant ! which does but even him 
 
 To the degraded insects, that pass o'er 
 
 The land of milk and honey, and transform 
 
 Its fruitful pasturage to dust and stones. 
 
 The Breath of God is life ; the breath of man 
 
 Death and obliteration. In these days 
 
 Man thinks himself a god. Behold and see. 
 
 Oh, thou that passest by. 
 
 Hour after hour. 
 Day after day, and lighting all the night 
 With the bale-fires of hell, still it roared on, 
 That cataract, and thin and thinner yet 
 Grew the thin line of men that held it back. 
 70
 
 And when men fell, as fall they must before 
 
 The unloosed death if 'tis their destined hour, 
 
 Here were there none to step into their place. 
 
 And to reply to all the rending guns, 
 
 That made the night one hideous din, a blot 
 
 Upon the world, an insult to the stars. 
 
 Only those few field pieces that I saw. 
 
 Swaying along the by-ways in the home 
 
 Of dreams. It was as if men should oppose 
 
 Their naked hands and nothing else against 
 
 Civilization's youngest children, pale 
 
 With all the power she has — the piteous power 
 
 Which only can destroy and bring to naught. 
 
 But still the thin line held. And though men died, 
 
 They did not yield. And every foot of that 
 
 Once happy land was bought and bought again 
 
 At such a price that not the high-heaped gold 
 
 That Ophir poured before the wisest king 
 
 Could count a tittle of it. Oh, such crown 
 
 It is not given to many to wear as won 
 
 That band of brothers that of late had passed 
 
 Across the home of dreams, to add one more 
 
 To all its crowding memories. And then 
 
 It seemed the end was come at last. No more 
 
 The hungry sea could be held back ; no more 
 
 The miracle be wrought that made so few 
 
 Withstand so many ; and from the foemen's eyes 
 
 The scales at last must fall and they discern 
 
 What slender weapon barred their ravening path. 
 
 Swift through the thin ranks, thinning every hour, 
 
 71
 
 But still indomitable — like the cross 
 
 Of fire that woke the bare-legged mountain men 
 
 To muster for their tribal war — there ran 
 
 The message, thunderous as a trumpet call : 
 
 " Hold on and quit yourselves like men. Help comes." 
 
 And even deafened ears could hear, and eyes 
 
 Blinded with weariness grew clear again ; 
 
 Almost the dead rose up, and the thin line, 
 
 Which would not bend nor break, was iron again. 
 
 This was the epic fight that waged the men 
 
 Whom we, secure in the home of dreams, thought on 
 
 As our defenders, specially our own. 
 
 Because our eyes had seen them march away 
 
 And our hearts went with them. Even so they died. 
 
 They passed as 'thwart the heavens a meteor shower 
 
 Lights up the wide arc with such searing blaze. 
 
 Seen but an instant, but upon our minds 
 
 Branded as such a vision of glory as 
 
 The door of heaven stood ajar. Such death 
 
 Their Berserk fathers prayed to die, yet dreamt 
 
 But dimly what such death might mean 
 
 For men secure of immortality. 
 
 Whether their mortal bodies lived or died. 
 
 So passed our Seventh Division, which so short 
 
 A while before was making all the roads 
 
 Of Norman William's Forest musical 
 
 More with the ordered tramping of their feet 
 
 Than with their fifes and drums and Highland pipes. 
 
 Our own Division let us count it, and 
 
 72
 
 Bless God that we had even so Uttle a part 
 In its immortal story that we stood 
 By the roadside and cheered it passing by. 
 Had we known then what we were gazing on 
 As if it were a show, beguiling hours 
 That otherwise were empty, would we not 
 Have stood as in a royal presence, bare 
 Of head, with reverence in our mien ? 
 
 What more 
 Can I tell of their passing ? Can I choose 
 One deed to tell of ? when at every hour 
 Men warred like Titans, and no age surpassed 
 The great deeds that they did, nor thought them great, 
 Nor anything beyond their duty. Yet 
 The greatest of our sea-kings, as he died. 
 Blessed God that he had done his duty. So 
 Might they. And in the presence of things so high 
 As these, our lips fall dumb. 
 
 When they came up, 
 The bearded men, fresh from their own great hour 
 Of the Homeric conflict on the banks 
 Of the two Rivers, there they found the line, 
 Unbroken yet, but ah ! how thin ! Perhaps 
 One boyish officer in sole command 
 Of tens where late a thousand marched 
 Under some honoured name. Yet even so, 
 The set task was accomplished and that which 
 England demanded of them done. And thus 
 The red sun set upon that redder field. 
 
 K 73
 
 CORONACH 
 
 The mountains shall know them no more and the 
 
 streams shall run swollen with tears ; 
 The light from their thresholds shall wane and grow 
 
 grey with the passing of years ; 
 A place at the fireside is void, hushed in silence a voice 
 
 that was known ; 
 The sickle has gathered the ear, ere ripe was the seed 
 
 that was sown. 
 The sapling has fallen to the axe, while the old fir 
 
 stands straight by the shore ; 
 Like a dream of the night they have passed, and the 
 
 mountains shall know them no more. 
 
 Yet the golden-winged hour that they lived shall out- 
 weigh our inglorious years ; 
 
 For them all the trumpets shall sound, for us are the 
 sighs and the tears ; 
 
 Por us are the dreams of the night, for them the glad 
 warmth of the day ; 
 
 For us is the black winter frost, for them all the promise 
 of May. 
 
 The Threshing of God shall abide, when the wheat 
 from the false grain is sieved ; 
 
 And what count the days of the years to the glorious 
 hour that they lived ?
 
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