War Poems

(Southampton Docks: October, 1899)

HERE, where Vespasian’s legions struck the sands,And Cerdic with his Saxons entered in,And Henry’s army leapt afloat to winConvincing triumphs over neighbour lands,

Vaster battalions press for further strands,To argue in the self-same bloody modeWhich this late age of thought, and pact, and code,Still fails to mend.—Now deckward tramp the bands,Yellow as autumn leaves, alive as spring;And as each host draws out upon the seaBeyond which lies the tragical To-be,None dubious of the cause, none murmuring,

Wives, sisters, parents, wave white hands and smile,As if they knew not that they weep the while.

(Southampton Docks: October, 1899)

WHILE the far farewell music thins and fails,And the broad bottoms rip the bearing brine—All smalling slowly to the gray sea line—And each significant red smoke-shaft pales,

Keen sense of severance everywhere prevails,Which shapes the late long tramp of mounting menTo seeming words that ask and ask again:“How long, O striving Teutons, Slavs, and GaelsMust your wroth reasonings trade on lives like these,That are as puppets in a playing hand?—When shall the saner softer politiesWhereof we dream, have play in each proud land,And patriotism, grown Godlike, scorn to standBondslave to realms, but circle earth and seas?”

(Southampton Docks: October, 1899)

“THE quay recedes. Hurrah! Ahead we go! . . .It’s true I’ve been accustomed now to home,And joints get rusty, and one’s limbs may growMore fit to rest than roam.

“But I can stand as yet fair stress and strain;There’s not a little steel beneath the rust;My years mount somewhat, but here’s to’t again!And if I fall, I must.

“God knows that for myself I’ve scanty care;Past scrimmages have proved as much to all;In Eastern lands and South I’ve had my shareBoth of the blade and ball.

“And where those villains ripped me in the flitchWith their old iron in my early time,I’m apt at change of wind to feel a twitch,Or at a change of clime.

“And what my mirror shows me in the morningHas more of blotch and wrinkle than of bloom;My eyes, too, heretofore all glasses scorning,Have just a touch of rheum . . .

“Now sounds ‘The Girl I’ve left behind me,’—Ah,The years, the ardours, wakened by that tune!Time was when, with the crowd’s farewell ‘Hurrah!’’Twould lift me to the moon.

“But now it’s late to leave behind me oneWho if, poor soul, her man goes underground,Will not recover as she might have doneIn days when hopes abound.

“She’s waving from the wharfside, palely grieving,As down we draw . . . Her tears make little show,Yet now she suffers more than at my leavingSome twenty years ago.

“I pray those left at home will care for her!I shall come back; I have before; though whenThe Girl you leave behind you is a grandmother,Things may not be as then.”