Stand up, my heart, and strive
For the things most dear to thee!
Why should we care to be alive
Unless the world is free?
Henry Van Dyke, 1918 (1852-1933)
Pastor & Professor of English at Princeton Univ., 1900
The Peaceful Warrior
There is no joy in strife,
Peace is my great desire;
Yet God forbid I lose my life
Through fear to face the fire.A peaceful man must fight
For that which peace demands, —
Freedom and faith, honor and right,
Defend with heart and hands.Farewell, my friendly books;
Farewell, ye woods and streams;
The fate that calls me forward looks
To a duty beyond dreams.Oh, better to be dead
With a face turned to the sky,
Than live beneath a slavish dread
And serve a giant lie.Stand up, my heart, and strive
For the things most dear to thee!
Why should we care to be alive
Unless the world is free?Henry Van Dyke, 1918 (1852-1933)
Pastor and Professor of English at Princeton Univ., 1900
Scribner’s Magazine
In the Morning — Loos, 1915
The firefly haunts were lighted yet,
As we scaled the top of the parapet;
But the East grew pale to another fire,
As our bayonets gleamed by the foeman’s wire;
And the sky was tinged with gold and gray,
And under our feet the dead men lay,
Stiff by the loopholed barricade;
Food of the bomb and the hand-grenade;
Still in the slushy pool and mud —
Ah! The path we came was a path of blood,
When we went to Loos in the morning.A little gray church at the foot of a hill,
With powdered glass on the window-sill.
The shell-scarred stone and the broken tile,
Littered the chancel, nave and aisle —
Broken the altar and smashed the pyx,
And the rubble covered the crucifix;
This we saw when the charge was done,
And the gas-clouds paled in the rising sun,
As we entered Loos in the morning.The dead men lay on the shell-scarred plain,
Where Death and the Autumn held their reign —
Like banded ghosts in the heavens gray
The smoke of the powder paled away;
Where riven and rent the spinney trees
Shivered and shook in the sullen breeze,
And there, where the trench through the graveyard wound,
The dead men’s bones stuck over the ground
By the road to Loos in the morning.The turret towers that stood in the air,
Sheltered a foeman sniper there —
They found, who fell in the sniper’s aim,
A field of death on the field of fame;
And stiff in khaki the boys were laid
To the sniper’s toll at the barricade,
But the quick went clattering through the town,
Shot at the sniper and brought him down,
As we entered Loos in the morning.The dead men lay on the cellar stair,
Toll of the bomb that found them there,
In the street men fell as a bullock drops,
Sniped from the fringe of Hulluch copse.
And the choking fumes of the deadly shell
Curtained the place where our comrades fell, —
This we saw when the charge was done,
And the East blushed red to the rising sun
In the town of Loos in the morning.Patrick MacGill (1889-1963)
Irish author, poet, and playwright
Soldier Songs; Songs of the Dead End
Searchlights
You who have seen across the star-decked skies
The long white arms of searchlights slowly sweep,
Have you imagined what it is to creep
High in the darkness, cold and terror-wise,
For ever looked for by those cruel eyes
Which search with far-flung beams the shadowy deep,
And near the wings unending vigil keep
To haunt the lonely airman as he flies?Have you imagined what it is to know
That if one finds you all their fierce desire
To see you fall will dog you as you go,
High in a sea of light and bursting fire,
Like some small bird, lit up and blinding white,
Which slowly moves across the shell-torn night?Captain Paul Bewsher (1894-1966)
British writer, poet, & WWI aviator
London Graphic: The Bombing of Bruges and other poems, 1918
Gassed
He is blind and nevermore
Shall the shining earth entrance
Him, whose life once lay before
Ardour like a bright romance;
But another world is given
Youth thus robbed of half a heaven.His companions do not speak
When they would accost him: they
Need but touch his hand or cheek,
Then the sightless eyes survey
Love with love, which apprehends
Instantly compassionate friends.In each several kindly hand
Lies a warm identity:
Blind folk see and understand
Those whom they may never see,
And the deaf may hear Love’s word
Uttered, though it be unheard.When he walks about the streets
Every house means much to him;
Every wayfarer he meets
Modest-faced or proudly prim —
He divines: each rolling wheel’s
Movement in the town he feels.Eden’s gates to him are closed,
Yet new portals open wide,
Whence rare prospects are exposed;
These he visions open-eyed,
When imagination thrills
As he faces woods and hills.Every breath of air that stirs
Has a meaning: every leaf,
Touched by him, responds; the firs
Breathe a recompense for grief,
And the grasses whisper, too,
Words he does not misconstrue.Few can hear the clover’s voice
As he hears it: few are those
Who so thrillingly rejoice
When the gillyflowers disclose
Secrets that mean life to one
Robbed of stars, though not of sun.Touch becomes his very soul,
Giving sense of sound with sight:
He is ravaged yet made whole
Even in black fate’s despite:
Look! He carries sad renown
As an emperor wears a crown!Deaf and blind! Yet he will know
When old enemies cross his path;
For the devil-prompted foe,
Who inspired his quenchless wrath,
With incredible torment, gave
Gifts that make him more than brave.Rowland Thirlmere (1861-1932)
Collected Poems, Shakespeare Press, Oxford, 1934
In Flanders Fields
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarcely heard amid the guns below.We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders Field.Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders Fields.John McCrae
Canadian doctor & teacher - served in South African War & First World War
Punch 1915; In Flanders Fields and Other Poems
Red Poppies in the Corn
I’ve seen them in the morning light,
When white mists drifted by:
I’ve seen them in the dusk o’ night
Glow ‘gainst the starry sky.
The slender waving blossoms red,
Mid-yellow fields forlorn:
A glory on the scene they shed,
Red Poppies in the Corn.I’ve seen them, too, those blossoms red,
Show ‘gainst the Trench lines’ screen,
A crimson stream that waved and spread
Thro’ all the brown and green:
I’ve seen them dyed a deeper hue
Than ever nature gave,
Shell-torn from slopes on which they grew,
To cover many a grave.Bright blossoms fair by nature set
Along the dusty ways,
You cheered us, in the battle’s fret,
Thro’ long and weary days:
You gave us hope: if fate be kind,
We’ll see that longed-for morn,
When home again we march and find
Red Poppies in the Corn.Lieutenant-Colonel W. Campbell Galbraith, 1917 (1871-1946)
Westminster Gazette
The House of Death
Surely the Keeper of the House of Death
Had long grown weary of letting in the old —
Of welcoming the aged, the short of breath,
Sad spirits, duller than their tales oft-told.
He must have longed to gather in the gold
Of shining youth to deck his dreary spaces —
To hear no more old wail and sorrowing.
And now he has his wish, and the young faces
Are crowding in: and laughter fills Death’s places;
And all his courts are gay with flowers of Spring.Captain Austin Threlfall Nankivell (1885-1942)
Westminster Gazette
The Dead
I feared the lonely dead, so old were they,
Decrepit, tired beings, ghastly white,
With withered breasts and eyes devoid of sight,
Forever mute beneath the sodden clay;
I feared the lonely dead, and turned away
From thoughts of sombre death and endless night;
Thus through the dismal hours I longed for light
To drive my utter hopelessness away.But now my nights are filled with flowered dreams
Of singing warriors, beautiful and young;
Strong men and boys within whose eyes there gleams
The triumph-song of worlds unknown, unsung;
Grim death has vanished, leaving in its stead
The shining glory of the living dead.1st Lieutenant Sigourney Thayer (1896-1944)
American theatrical producer 1920s-1930s, WWI aviator, & poet
Atlantic Monthly
A Treasury of War Poetry
Poems of the World War 1914-1919; ©1919