Written by
Robert William Service |
My boy's come back; he's here at last;
He came home on a special train.
My longing and my ache are past,
My only son is back again.
He's home with music, flags and flowers;
With peace and joy my heart's abrim;
He got here in the morning hours
With half the town to welcome him.
To hush my grief, night after night,
How I have digged my pillow deep,
And it would be the morning light
Before I sobbed myself to sleep.
And how I used to stare and stare
Across the harbour's yeasty foam,
Thinking he's fighting far out there .
.
.
But now with bells my boy's come home.
There's Mrs.
Burke, she has her Ted,
But less the sight of his two eyes;
And Mrs.
Smith - you know her Fred -
They took his legs off at the thighs.
How can these women happy be,
For all their bravery of talk,
One with a son who cannot see,
One with a boy who'll never walk.
I should be happier than they;
My lad came back without a scar,
And all the folks are proud they say,
To greet their hero of the war.
So in the gentle eventide
I'll give God thanks my Bert's come home.
.
.
.
As peacefully I sit beside
His tiny mound of new-turned loam.
|
Written by
Robert William Service |
Oh ye whose hearts are resonant, and ring to War's romance,
Hear ye the story of a boy, a peasant boy of France;
A lad uncouth and warped with toil, yet who, when trial came,
Could feel within his soul upleap and soar the sacred flame;
Could stand upright, and scorn and smite, as only heroes may:
Oh, harken! Let me try to tell the tale of Jean Desprez.
With fire and sword the Teuton horde was ravaging the land,
And there was darkness and despair, grim death on every hand;
Red fields of slaughter sloping down to ruin's black abyss;
The wolves of war ran evil-fanged, and little did they miss.
And on they came with fear and flame, to burn and loot and slay,
Until they reached the red-roofed croft, the home of Jean Desprez.
"Rout out the village, one and all!" the Uhlan Captain said.
"Behold! Some hand has fired a shot.
My trumpeter is dead.
Now shall they Prussian vengeance know; now shall they rue the day,
For by this sacred German slain, ten of these dogs shall pay.
"
They drove the cowering peasants forth, women and babes and men,
And from the last, with many a jeer, the Captain chose he ten;
Ten simple peasants, bowed with toil; they stood, they knew not why,
Against the grey wall of the church, hearing their children cry;
Hearing their wives and mothers wail, with faces dazed they stood.
A moment only.
.
.
.
Ready! Fire! They weltered in their blood.
But there was one who gazed unseen, who heard the frenzied cries,
Who saw these men in sabots fall before their children's eyes;
A Zouave wounded in a ditch, and knowing death was nigh,
He laughed with joy: "Ah! here is where I settle ere I die.
"
He clutched his rifle once again, and long he aimed and well.
.
.
.
A shot! Beside his victims ten the Uhlan Captain fell.
They dragged the wounded Zouave out; their rage was like a flame.
With bayonets they pinned him down, until their Major came.
A blonde, full-blooded man he was, and arrogant of eye;
He stared to see with shattered skull his favourite Captain lie.
"Nay, do not finish him so quick, this foreign swine," he cried;
"Go nail him to the big church door: he shall be crucified.
"
With bayonets through hands and feet they nailed the Zouave there,
And there was anguish in his eyes, and horror in his stare;
"Water! A single drop!" he moaned; but how they jeered at him,
And mocked him with an empty cup, and saw his sight grow dim;
And as in agony of death with blood his lips were wet,
The Prussian Major gaily laughed, and lit a cigarette.
But mid the white-faced villagers who cowered in horror by,
Was one who saw the woeful sight, who heard the woeful cry:
"Water! One little drop, I beg! For love of Christ who died.
.
.
.
"
It was the little Jean Desprez who turned and stole aside;
It was the little bare-foot boy who came with cup abrim
And walked up to the dying man, and gave the drink to him.
A roar of rage! They seize the boy; they tear him fast away.
The Prussian Major swings around; no longer is he gay.
His teeth are wolfishly agleam; his face all dark with spite:
"Go, shoot the brat," he snarls, "that dare defy our Prussian might.
Yet stay! I have another thought.
I'll kindly be, and spare;
Quick! give the lad a rifle charged, and set him squarely there,
And bid him shoot, and shoot to kill.
Haste! Make him understand
The dying dog he fain would save shall perish by his hand.
And all his kindred they shall see, and all shall curse his name,
Who bought his life at such a cost, the price of death and shame.
"
They brought the boy, wild-eyed with fear; they made him understand;
They stood him by the dying man, a rifle in his hand.
"Make haste!" said they; "the time is short, and you must kill or die.
"
The Major puffed his cigarette, amusement in his eye.
And then the dying Zouave heard, and raised his weary head:
"Shoot, son, 'twill be the best for both; shoot swift and straight," he said.
"Fire first and last, and do not flinch; for lost to hope am I;
And I will murmur: Vive La France! and bless you ere I die.
"
Half-blind with blows the boy stood there; he seemed to swoon and sway;
Then in that moment woke the soul of little Jean Desprez.
He saw the woods go sheening down; the larks were singing clear;
And oh! the scents and sounds of spring, how sweet they were! how dear!
He felt the scent of new-mown hay, a soft breeze fanned his brow;
O God! the paths of peace and toil! How precious were they now!
The summer days and summer ways, how bright with hope and bliss!
The autumn such a dream of gold .
.
.
and all must end in this:
This shining rifle in his hand, that shambles all around;
The Zouave there with dying glare; the blood upon the ground;
The brutal faces round him ringed, the evil eyes aflame;
That Prussian bully standing by, as if he watched a game.
"Make haste and shoot," the Major sneered; "a minute more I give;
A minute more to kill your friend, if you yourself would live.
"
They only saw a bare-foot boy, with blanched and twitching face;
They did not see within his eyes the glory of his race;
The glory of a million men who for fair France have died,
The splendour of self-sacrifice that will not be denied.
Yet .
.
.
he was but a peasant lad, and oh! but life was sweet.
.
.
.
"Your minute's nearly gone, my lad," he heard a voice repeat.
"Shoot! Shoot!" the dying Zouave moaned; "Shoot! Shoot!" the soldiers said.
Then Jean Desprez reached out and shot .
.
.
the Prussian Major dead!
|
Written by
Thomas Hardy |
I said to Love,
"It is not now as in old days
When men adored thee and thy ways
All else above;
Named thee the Boy, the Bright, the One
Who spread a heaven beneath the sun,"
I said to Love.
I said to him,
"We now know more of thee than then;
We were but weak in judgment when,
With hearts abrim,
We clamoured thee that thou would'st please
Inflict on us thine agonies,"
I said to him.
I said to Love,
"Thou art not young, thou art not fair,
No elfin darts, no cherub air,
Nor swan, nor dove
Are thine; but features pitiless,
And iron daggers of distress,"
I said to Love.
"Depart then, Love!
Man's race shall perish, threatenest thou,
WIthout thy kindling coupling-vow?
The age to come the man of now
Know nothing of?
We fear not such a threat from thee;
We are too old in apathy!
Mankind shall cease.
.
-
So let it be,"
I said to Love.
|
Written by
Henry Lawson |
He'd been for years in Sydney "a-acting of the goat",
His name was Joseph Swallow, "the Great Australian Pote",
In spite of all the stories and sketches that he wrote.
And so his friends held meetings (Oh, narrow souls were theirs!)
To advertise their little selves and Joseph's own affairs.
They got up a collection for Joseph unawares.
They looked up his connections and rivals by the score –
The wife who had divorced him some twenty years before,
And several politicians he'd made feel very sore.
They sent him down to Coolan, a long train ride from here,
Because of his grey hairs and "pomes" and painted blondes – and beer.
(I mean to say the painted blondes would always give him beer.
)
(They loved him for his eyes were dark, and you must not condemn
The love for opposites that mark the everlasting fem.
Besides, he "made up" little bits of poetry for them.
)
They sent him "for his own sake", but not for that alone –
A poet's sins are public; his sorrows are his own.
And poets' friends have skins like hides, and mostly hearts of stone.
They said "We'll send some money and you must use your pen.
"So long," they said.
"Adoo!" they said.
"And don't come back again.
Well, stay at least a twelve-month – we might be dead by then.
"
Two greybeards down at Coolan – familiar grins they had –
They took delivery of the goods, and also of the bad.
(Some bread and meat had come by train – Joe Swallow was the bad.
)
They'd met him shearing west o' Bourke in some forgotten year.
They introduced him to the town and pints of Wagga beer.
(And Wagga pints are very good –- I wish I had some here.
)
It was the Busy Bee Hotel where no one worked at all,
Except perhaps to cook the grub and clean the rooms and "hall".
The usual half-wit yardman worked at each one's beck and call.
'Twas "Drink it down!" and "Fillemup!" and "If the pub goes dry,
There's one just two-mile down the road, and more in Gundagai" –
Where married folk by accident get poison in the pie.
The train comes in at eight o'clock – or half-past, I forget,
And when the dinner table at the Busy Bee was set,
Upon the long verandah stool the beards were wagging yet.
They talked of where they hadn't been and what they hadn't won;
They talked of mostly everything that's known beneath the sun.
The things they didn't talk about were big things they had done.
They talked of what they called to mind, and couldn't call to mind;
They talked of men who saw too far and people who were "blind".
Tradition says that Joe's grey beard wagged not so far behind.
They got a horse and sulky and a riding horse as well,
And after three o'clock they left the Busy Bee Hotel –
In case two missuses should send from homes where they did dwell.
No barber bides in Coolan, no baker bakes the bread;
And every local industry, save rabbitin', is dead –
And choppin' wood.
The women do all that, be it said.
(I'll add a line and mention that two-up goes ahead.
)
The shadows from the sinking sun were long by hill and scrub;
The two-up school had just begun, in spite of beer and grub;
But three greybeards were wagging yet down at the Two-mile pub.
A full, round, placid summer moon was floating in the sky;
They took a demijohn of beer, in case they should go dry;
And three greybeards went wagging down the road to Gundagai.
At Gundagai next morning (which poets call "th' morn")
The greybeards sought a doctor – a friend of the forlorn –
Whose name is as an angel's who sometimes blows a horn.
And Doctor Gabriel fixed 'em up, but 'twas not in the bar.
It wasn't rum or whisky, nor yet was it Three Star.
'Twas mixed up in a chemist's shop, and swifter stuff by far.
They went out to the backyard (to make my meaning plain);
The doctor's stuff wrought mightily, but by no means in vain.
Then they could eat their breakfasts and drink their beer again.
They made a bond between the three, as rock against the wave,
That they'd go to the barber's shop and each have a clean shave,
To show the people how they looked when they were young and brave.
They had the shave and bought three suits (and startling suits in sooth),
And three white shirts and three red ties (to tell the awful truth),
To show the people how they looked in their hilarious youth.
They burnt their old clothes in the yard, and their old hats as well;
The publican kicked up a row because they made a smell.
They put on bran'-new "larstin'-sides" – and, oh, they looked a yell!
Next morning, or the next (or next), from demon-haunted beds,
And very far from feeling like what sporting men call "peds",
The three rode back without their beards, with "boxers" on their heads!
They tried to get Joe lodgings at the Busy Bee in vain;
They did not take him to their homes, they took him to the train;
They sent him back to Sydney till grey beards grew again.
They sent him back to Sydney to keep away a year;
Because of shaven beards and wives they thought him safer here.
And so he cut his friends and stuck to powdered blondes and beer.
Until the finish came at last, as 'twill to any "bloke";
But in Joe's case it chanced to be a paralytic stroke;
The soft heart of a powdered blonde was, as she put it, "broke".
She sought Joe in the hospital and took the choicest food;
She went there very modestly and in a chastened mood,
And timid and respectful-like – because she was no good.
She sat the death-watch out alone on the verandah dim;
And after all was past and gone she dried her eyes abrim,
And sought the head-nurse timidly, and asked "May I see him?"
And then she went back to her bar, where she'd not been for weeks,
To practise there her barmaid's smile and mend and patch the streaks
The only real tears for Joe had left upon her cheeks
|
Written by
Robert William Service |
I'm sitting by the fire tonight,
The cat purrs on the rug;
The room's abrim with rosy light,
Suavely soft and snug;
And safe and warm from dark and storm
It's cosiness I hug.
Then petulant the window pane
Quakes in the tempest moan,
And cries: "Forlornly in the rain
There starkly streams a stone,
Where one so dear who shared your cheer
Now lies alone, alone.
Go forth! Go forth into the gale
And pass and hour in prayer;
This night of sorrow do not fail
The one you deemed so fair,
The girl below the bitter snow
Who died your child to bear.
"
So wails the wind, yet here I sit
Beside the ember's glow;
My grog is hot, my pipe is lit,
And loth am I to go
To her who died a ten-month bride,
Only a year ago.
To-day we weep: each morrow is
A littling of regret;
The saddest part of sorrow is
That we in time forget .
.
.
Christ! Let me go to graveyard woe,--
Yea, I will sorrow yet.
|
Written by
Robert William Service |
It's mighty lonesome-like and drear.
Above the Wild the moon rides high,
And shows up sharp and needle-clear
The emptiness of earth and sky;
No happy homes with love a-glow;
No Santa Claus to make believe:
Just snow and snow, and then more snow;
It's Christmas Eve, it's Christmas Eve.
And here am I where all things end,
And Undesirables are hurled;
A poor old man without a friend,
Forgot and dead to all the world;
Clean out of sight and out of mind .
.
.
Well, maybe it is better so;
We all in life our level find,
And mine, I guess, is pretty low.
Yet as I sit with pipe alight
Beside the cabin-fir
take to-night
The backward trail of fifty year.
The school-house and the Christmas tree;
The children with their cheeks a-glow;
Two bright blue eyes that smile on me .
.
.
Just half a century ago.
Again (it's maybe forty years),
With faith and trust almost divine,
These same blue eyes, abrim with tears,
Through depths of love look into mine.
A parting, tender, soft and low,
With arms that cling and lips that cleave .
.
.
Ah me! it's all so long ago,
Yet seems so sweet this Christmas Eve.
Just thirty years ago, again .
.
.
We say a bitter, last good-bye;
Our lips are white with wrath and pain;
Our little children cling and cry.
Whose was the fault? it matters not,
For man and woman both deceive;
It's buried now and all forgot,
Forgiven, too, this Christmas Eve.
And she (God pity me) is dead;
Our children men and women grown.
I like to think that they are wed,
With little children of their own,
That crowd around their Christmas tree .
.
.
I would not ever have them grieve,
Or shed a single tear for me,
To mar their joy this Christmas Eve.
Stripped to the buff and gaunt and still
Lies all the land in grim distress.
Like lost soul wailing, long and shrill,
A wolf-howl cleaves the emptiness.
Then hushed as Death is everything.
The moon rides haggard and forlorn .
.
.
"O hark the herald angels sing!"
God bless all men -- it's Christmas morn.
|
Written by
Thomas Hardy |
I said to Love,
"It is not now as in old days
When men adored thee and thy ways
All else above;
Named thee the Boy, the Bright, the One
Who spread a heaven beneath the sun,"
I said to Love.
I said to him,
"We now know more of thee than then;
We were but weak in judgment when,
With hearts abrim,
We clamoured thee that thou would'st please
Inflict on us thine agonies,"
I said to him.
I said to Love,
"Thou art not young, thou art not fair,
No faery darts, no cherub air,
Nor swan, nor dove
Are thine; but features pitiless,
And iron daggers of distress,"
I said to Love.
"Depart then, Love! .
.
.
- Man's race shall end, dost threaten thou?
The age to come the man of now
Know nothing of? -
We fear not such a threat from thee;
We are too old in apathy!
Mankind shall cease.
--So let it be,"
I said to Love.
|
Written by
Lucy Maud Montgomery |
If Mary had known
When she held her Babe's hands in her own
Little hands that were tender and white as a rose,
All dented with dimples from finger to wrist,
Such as mothers have kissed
That one day they must feel the fierce blows
Of a hatred insane,
Must redden with holiest stain,
And grasp as their guerdon the boon of the bitterest pain,
Oh, I think that her sweet, brooding face
Must have blanched with its anguish of knowledge above her embrace.
But if Mary had known,
As she held her Babe's hands in her own,
What a treasure of gifts to the world they would bring;
What healing and hope to the hearts that must ache,
And without him must break;
Had she known they would pluck forth death's sting
And set open the door
Of the close, jealous grave evermore,
Making free who were captives in sorrow and darkness before,
Oh, I think that a gracious sunrise
Of rapture had broken across the despair of her eyes!
If Mary had known
As she sat with her baby alone,
And guided so gently his bare little feet
To take their first steps from the throne of her knee,
How weary must be
The path that for them should be meet;
And how it must lead
To the cross of humanity's need,
Giving hissing and shame, giving blame and reproach for its meed,
Oh, I think that her tears would have dewed
Those dear feet that must walk such a hard, starless way to the Rood!
But if Mary had known,
As she sat with her Baby alone,
On what errands of mercy and peace they would go,
How those footsteps would ring through the years of all time
With an echo sublime,
Making holy the land of their woe,
That the pathway they trod
Would guide the world back to its God,
And lead ever upward away from the grasp of the clod,
She had surely forgot to be sad
And only remembered to be most immortally glad!
If Mary had known,
As she held him so closely, her own,
Cradling his shining, fair head on her breast,
Sunned over with ringlets as bright as the morn,
That a garland of thorn
On that tender brow would be pressed
Till the red drops would fall
Into eyes that looked out upon all,
Abrim with a pity divine over clamor and brawl,
Oh, I think that her lullaby song
Would have died on her lips into wailing impassioned and long!
But if Mary had known,
As she held him so closely, her own,
That over the darkness and pain he would be
The Conqueror hailed in all oncoming days,
The world's hope and praise,
And the garland of thorn,
The symbol of mocking and scorn
Would be a victorious diadem royally worn,
Oh, I think that ineffable joy
Must have flooded her soul as she bent o'er her wonderful Boy!
|
Written by
Robert William Service |
"But it isn't playing the game," he said,
And he slammed his books away;
"The Latin and Greek I've got in my head
Will do for a duller day.
"
"Rubbish!" I cried; "The bugle's call
Isn't for lads from school.
"
D'ye think he'd listen? Oh, not at all:
So I called him a fool, a fool.
Now there's his dog by his empty bed,
And the flute he used to play,
And his favourite bat .
.
.
but Dick he's dead,
Somewhere in France, they say:
Dick with his rapture of song and sun,
Dick of the yellow hair,
Dicky whose life had but begun,
Carrion-cold out there.
Look at his prizes all in a row:
Surely a hint of fame.
Now he's finished with, -- nothing to show:
Doesn't it seem a shame?
Look from the window! All you see
Was to be his one day:
Forest and furrow, lawn and lea,
And he goes and chucks it away.
Chucks it away to die in the dark:
Somebody saw him fall,
Part of him mud, part of him blood,
The rest of him -- not at all.
And yet I'll bet he was never afraid,
And he went as the best of 'em go,
For his hand was clenched on his broken blade,
And his face was turned to the foe.
And I called him a fool .
.
.
oh how blind was I!
And the cup of my grief's abrim.
Will Glory o' England ever die
So long as we've lads like him?
So long as we've fond and fearless fools,
Who, spurning fortune and fame,
Turn out with the rallying cry of their schools,
Just bent on playing the game.
A fool! Ah no! He was more than wise.
His was the proudest part.
He died with the glory of faith in his eyes,
And the glory of love in his heart.
And though there's never a grave to tell,
Nor a cross to mark his fall,
Thank God! we know that he "batted well"
In the last great Game of all.
|
Written by
Robert William Service |
"How good God is to me," he said;
"For have I not a mansion tall,
With trees and lawns of velvet tread,
And happy helpers at my call?
With beauty is my life abrim,
With tranquil hours and dreams apart;
You wonder that I yield to Him
That best of prayers, a grateful heart?"
"How good God is to me," he said;
"For look! though gone is all my wealth,
How sweet it is to earn one's bread
With brawny arms and brimming health.
Oh, now I know the joy of strife!
To sleep so sound, to wake so fit.
Ah yes, how glorious is life!
I thank Him for each day of it.
"
"How good God is to me," he said;
"Though health and wealth are gone, it's true;
Things might be worse, I might be dead,
And here I'm living, laughing too.
Serene beneath the evening sky
I wait, and every man's my friend;
God's most contented man am I .
.
.
He keeps me smiling to the End.
"
|