General Books

BILLY KHAKI MARCHING somewhat out of order   when the band is cock-a-hoop,There's a lilting kind of magic in the swagger   of the troop,Swinging all aboard the steamer with her   nose toward the sea.What is calling, Billy Khaki, that you're foot-   ing it so free? Though his lines are none too level,   And he lacks a bit of style.And he's swanking like the devil   Where... more...

THE VAGABOND It was deadly cold in Danbury town  One terrible night in mid November,  A night that the Danbury folk rememberFor the sleety wind that hammered them down,That chilled their faces and chapped their skin,  And froze their fingers and bit their feet,And made them ice to the heart within,      And spattered and scattered      And shattered and batteredTheir shivering bodies... more...

I PRELUDE: THE TROOPS Dim, gradual thinning of the shapeless gloomShudders to drizzling daybreak that revealsDisconsolate men who stamp their sodden bootsAnd turn dulled, sunken faces to the skyHaggard and hopeless. They, who have beaten downThe stale despair of night, must now renewTheir desolation in the truce of dawn,Murdering the livid hours that grope for peace. Yet these, who cling to life with... more...

INTRODUCTION Because man is both militant and pacific, he has expressed in literature, as indeed in the other forms of art, his pacific and militant moods. Nor are these moods, of necessity, incompatible. War may become the price of peace, and peace may so decay as inevitably to bring about war. Of the dully unresponsive pacificist and the jingo patriot, quick to anger, the latter no doubt is the more... more...

THE RED FLOWER June 1914 In the pleasant time of Pentecost,  By the little river Kyll,I followed the angler's winding path  Or waded the stream at will.And the friendly fertile German land  Lay round me green and still. But all day long on the eastern bank  Of the river cool and clear,Where the curving track of the double rails  Was hardly seen though near,The endless trains of German... more...

In Flanders Fields In Flanders fields the poppies blowBetween the crosses, row on row,That mark our place; and in the skyThe larks, still bravely singing, flyScarce heard amid the guns below. We are the Dead. Short days agoWe lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,Loved and were loved, and now we lie,In Flanders fields. Take up our quarrel with the foe:To you from failing hands we throwThe torch; be yours... more...

TO OUR MOTHERSOurs the Great Adventure,Yours the pain to bear,Ours the golden service stripes,Yours the marks of care.If all the Great AdventureThe old Earth ever knew,Was ours and in this little book'Twould still belong to you!These Sketches were made during a year's service as a camion driver with the French army in the Chemin-des-Dames sector and a year's service with the A.E.F. as an... more...

Foreword I've tinkered at my bits of rhymesIn weary, woeful, waiting times;In doleful hours of battle-din,Ere yet they brought the wounded in;Through vigils of the fateful night,In lousy barns by candle-light;In dug-outs, sagging and aflood,On stretchers stiff and bleared with blood;By ragged grove, by ruined road,By hearths accurst where Love abode;By broken altars, blackened shrinesI've... more...

Strange Meeting It seemed that out of the battle I escapedDown some profound dull tunnel, long since scoopedThrough granites which Titanic wars had groined.Yet also there encumbered sleepers groaned,Too fast in thought or death to be bestirred.Then, as I probed them, one sprang up, and staredWith piteous recognition in fixed eyes,Lifting distressful hands as if to bless.And by his smile, I knew that... more...

AN UPBRAIDING Now I am dead you sing to me   The songs we used to know,But while I lived you had no wish   Or care for doing so. Now I am dead you come to me   In the moonlight, comfortless;Ah, what would I have given alive   To win such tenderness! When you are dead, and stand to me   Not differenced, as now,But like again, will you be cold   As when we lived, or how? "These... more...