TO BELGIUM

Champion of human honor, let us lave

Your feet and bind your wounds on bended knee. Though coward hands have nailed you to the tree And shed your innocent blood and dug your grave, Rejoice and live! Your oriflamme shall wave—

While man has power to perish and be free—
A golden flame of holiest Liberty,

Proud as the dawn and as the sunset brave.

Belgium, where dwelleth reverence for right
Enthroned above all ideals; where your fate
And your supernal patience and your might
Most sacred grow in human estimate,
You shine a star above this stormy night
Little no more, but infinitely great.

-EDEN PHILLPOTTS, in Plain Song.

MEN OF VERDUN

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

Frogs somewhere near the roadside

Chorus their chant absorbed :

But a hush breathes out of the dream-light
That far in heaven is orbed.

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

Beyond the hills it shines now
On no peace but the dead,

On reek of trenches thunder-shocked,
Tense fury of wills in wrestle locked,
A chaos crumbled red!

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

They wear clean cap and tunic,
As when they went to war; ̧

A gleam comes where the medal's pinned:
But they will fight no more.

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

But as if dead men were risen

And stood before me there

With a terrible fame about them blown
In beams of spectral air,

I see them, men transfigured

As in a dream, dilate
Fabulous with the Titan-throb
Of battling Europe's fate;

For history's hushed before them,
And legend flames afresh,-

Verdun, the name of thunder,
Is written on their flesh.

-LAURENCE BINYON, in The Cause.

OUT OF FLANDERS

Three of us sat on the firing-bench

Watching the clouds sail by

Watching the gray dawn blowing up

Like smoke across the sky.

And I thought, as I listened to London Joe

Tell of his leave in town,

That's good vers libre with a Cockney twang;

I'll remember, and write it down.

W'en I went 'ome on furlough,

My missus says to me, "Joe,
'Ow many 'Uns 'ave you killed?"
An' I says to 'er, "'Uns?"

Not thinkin' just wot she meant.

"Yes, 'Uns!" she says, "them sneakin', low-lived 'Uns!"

Bitter? Not 'arf, she ain't!

An' they're all the same w'y in Lunnon.

My old mate Bill, who's lame
An' couldn't enlist on that account,
'E staked me to a pint of ale

At the Red Lion. Proper stuff it was
Arter this flat French beer.

"Well, 'ere's to old times!" says Bill,
Raisin' 'is glass,

"An' bad luck to the 'Uns you've sent below! 'Ow many you think you did for, Joe?"

'E arsked if I'd shot an' seen 'em fall, Wanted the de-tails and wanted 'em all!

An' there was my old boss in Balham,
Gave me a quid w'ich I took, willin' enough,
Altho I made a stall at refusin'.

"That's all right, Joe, boy! Glad to do it!

It ain't much, but it'll 'elp you to 'ave a pleasant week. But w'en you goes back to the trenches,

I wants you to take a crack at the 'Uns fer me!

Get me a German fer every penny in that sovereign!" 'e

says,

Smashin' 'is fist on the table

An' upsettin' a bottle o' ink.

"Lay 'em out!" 'e says;

"Now tell me, 'ow many you killed, about?”

Speakin' o' 'ymns o' 'ate,

They sings 'em in Lunnon, I'm tellin' you straight! You ought to see their faces w'en they arsks you about

the 'Uns!

Lor' lummy! They ain't arf a bloodthirsty lot!

An' the wimmen as bad as the men.

I was glad to get back to the trenches again

W'ere there's more of a 'uman feelin'.

Now, us blokes out 'ere,

We knows old Fritzie ain't so bad as 'e's painted
(An' likely, they knows the same about us).
Wot I mean is, 'e ain't no worse than wot we are,
Take 'im man fer man.

There's good an' bad on both sides.

But do you think you can s'y anything good

About a German, w'en yer in Lunnon?
Strike me pink! They won't believe you!

'E's a 'Un, wotever that is,

Some kind o' wild beast, I reckon

A cross between a snake

An' one o' them boars with 'orns on their noses

Out at Regent's Park Zoo.

One night at the Red Lion,

I was talkin' about the time

Nobby Clark got 'it out in front of our barbed wire. Remember 'ow we didn't find 'im till mornin',

An' the stretcher-bearers brought 'im in;

Broad daylight it was,

An' not a German firin' a shot

Till we got 'im back in the trench?

Well, there was fifteen or twenty in the pub,

An' not one of 'em was glad old Fritzie acted w'ite!
Wouldn't that give you the camel's 'ump?

They'd sooner 'ad Nobby an' stretcher-bearers killed,
If only the 'Uns, as they call 'em,

'Ad played dirty an' fired w'ile they was bringin' 'im in.

Another time I was a-tellin' 'em,

'Ow we shout back and forth acrost the trenches W'en the lines is close together,