Various

“ Links forged by Love, Dad o' Mine,
Bonds of his binding are fast bound forever,
Future will prove, Dad o' Mine.
Your strength was mine since I first lisped your name, Dad,
Your thoughts were my thoughts at lesson or game, Dad,
In childhood's griefs, it was ever the same, Dad,
Your hand round mine, Dad o' Mine,
Your hand round mine.
Strengthened by shadow and shine borne together,
Comrades and chums, Dad o' mine,
We shall not falter thro' fair or foul weather,
Whatever comes, Dad o' Mine.
So in the years to be when you grow older,
Age puts his claims in and weakness grows bolder ”

“ Back to Rest
(Composed on the way back to the Rest Camp after severe fighting at Loos.)
A LEAPING wind from England,
⁠The skies without a stain,
Clear cut against the morning
⁠Slim poplars after rain,
The foolish noise of sparrows
⁠And starlings in a wood—
After the grime of battle
⁠We know that these are good.
Death whining down from Heaven,
⁠Death roaring from the ground,
Death stinking in the nostril,
⁠Death shrill in every sound:
Doubting we charged and conquered—
⁠Hopeless we struck and stood,
Now when the fight is ended
⁠We know that it was good. ”

“ The stars that spake not of Peace for our land.
Christmas Eve—and oh, to espy,
Like Bethlehem's shepherds, the hosts of the sky,
Their voices blent in rapturous mirth—
"Glory to God and Peace upon Earth!" ”

“ The deep, deep slumber that we know as Death,
If Death and Life are not all vain and hollow,
If Life is more than so much indrawn breath,
Then in the hush of twilight I shall come—
One with immortal Life, that knows not Death
But ever changes form—I shall come home ”

“ Put on the harness of our manhood's state,
And then with fearless heart and forward face
Went strongly forth to try a fall with fate:
And so we passed, and others had our place.
But well we know that here till days shall cease,
While the great stream goes seaward and trees bloom,
God's kindness dwells about these courts of peace. ”

“ His lips they were parted asunder,
And his smile was bliss.
And then the blind hell that envelops
Two armed and unpitying hates,
When Death to the banquet-hall gallops,
And man is the mock of the Fates. ”

“ The Jumna, through their tether
⁠Foams white, or plunges green.
The mountains stand and laugh at Time;
⁠They pillar up the Earth,
They watch the ages pass, they bring
⁠New centuries to birth.
They feel the daybreak shiver,
They see Time passing ever
As flows the Jumna river,
⁠As breaks the white sea-surf.
They drink the sun in a golden cup,
⁠And in blue mist the rain;
With a sudden brightening they meet the lightning
⁠Or ere it strikes the plain. ”

“ The lark who a lyric is trilling
O'er woodland and hollow and hill;
The streams who their fountains are filling,
No peace can instil.
No peace for the love that must languish;
No hope for the heart that is dead ”

“ Slunk swifter through the dark than does the sun,
We cannot rest, our work is scarce begun;
⁠We must make good the trench, ere morning light
⁠The Huns will come again in greater might.
No end to toil, no rest for anyone.
Thrice lucky we, who live to fight again,
⁠For Death was busy 'mongst the young and brave,
⁠Yet lucky they who wait a soldier's grave,
For some blind Death has made the guests of Pain
To tend awhile. Would Death had swiftly ta'en
⁠The fair young lives he had no mind to save! ”

“ See, how they close me in,
They, and the sisters' arms,
One eye is closed, the other lid
Is watching how my spirit slid
Toward some red-roofed farms,
And having crept beneath them, slept
Secure from war's alarms. ”

“ And slew some hope, or led away some friend.
Or be you dark, or buffeting, or blind,
We care not, day, but leave not death behind.
The hours that feed on war go heavy-hearted,
Death is no fare wherewith to make hearts fain. ”

“ Onward we trudge, a hostile herd,
⁠On through our night;
God's creatures less than beast or bird;
⁠A bloody sight.
Slaves to our own decree, burnt through of fires,
Doubting our Maker's love, or His desires. ”

“ He was swift to run and strong to strive
⁠And ready for any play.
He climbed to the top of the apple tree
⁠When nobody else would dare;
He couldn't get down and he feared he'd fall
⁠As the branch swayed in the air.
⁠O! the ground seemed such a way below,
⁠But he smiled a doubtful smile-a,
⁠And he grit his teeth and sang "Cheer-o!"
⁠Though the drop to the ground seemed a mile-a.
The song of the man in the khaki-coat
⁠As he stands in the wet and snow,
A smoking rifle in his hands
⁠And his feet in the mud below. ”

“ God-bound, god-tortured, god-consumed I stand.
All day the sun beats down upon the sand
⁠Scorching the listless air; and all the night
⁠The moon gleams cold with pale impassive light
Holding an icy sway—and still I stand! ”

“ No grime of smoke nor reeking blood hath smutched
⁠The virgin brow of this unconquered queen.
She is the Joy of Courage vanquishing
⁠The unstilled tremors of the fearful heart;
And it is she that bids the poet sing,
⁠And gives to each the strength to bear his part. ”

“ Avon, like a silver band
⁠Winds from Stratford down to Broome:
⁠All the orchards shimmer white
⁠For an April day's delight:
⁠We have risen in our might,
⁠Left this land we love, to fight,
Fighting still, that these may stand,
Orchard land! Orchard land! ”

“ Hills of Home
OH! you hills are filled with sunlight, and the green leaves paled to gold,
And the smoking mists of Autumn hanging faintly o'er the wold;
I dream of hills of other days whose sides I loved to roam
When Spring was dancing through the lanes of those distant hills of home.
The winds of heaven gathered there as pure and cold as dew;
Wood-sorrel and wild violets along the hedgerows grew,
The blossom on the pear-trees was as white as flakes of foam
In the orchard 'neath the shadow of those distant hills of home. ”

“ The growing mind took strength and spread its wings
In search of many things,
The father would display
Nothing that was not true and pure and fair,
Withholding whatsoe'er,
Being born of ugliness and pain,
Turns to its own again. ”

“ A song that touches in this place remote
Gladness supreme in its undying note,
And stirs to life the soul of memory—
'Tis strange that while you're beating into life
Men here below are plunged in sanguine strife. ”

“ She is known
In swamps that steam about the burning zone,
And dreaded in the last white lands that freeze.
For Her the glory that was Nineveh's
Is nought: the pomp of Tyre and Babylon
Nought: and for all the realms that Cæsar won—
One tithe of hers were more than all of these.
And she is very small and very green
And full of little lanes all dense with flowers
That wind along and lose themselves between
Mossed farms, and parks, and fields of quiet sheep.
And in the hamlets, where her stalwarts sleep,
Low bells chime out from old elm-hidden towers. ”

“ And viperous scorn stands sentinel
⁠Beside Truth's half-shut door.
Say, Spirit, what this England needs.
⁠Is it a common foe?
Must we through tears be led to smiles,
⁠To happiness through woe?
Shall blood of slaughtered sons buy grace? ”

“ One hears the knell of many friends and foes:
But yet, for ever boastful of our worth,
We vaunt ourselves and puff our chests with pride,
Saying that man was ne'er so civilized,
No age so cultured. ”

“ Yet for one day we'll let all slip behind us,
So that your birthday, Dad, still may remind us
How strong yet supple the bonds are that bind us
Through shade and shine, Dad o' Mine,
Through shade and shine. ”

“ Shells shriek, bombs crash and thunder, bullets whine,
⁠Tornado hideous, evil-boding,
That rolls in vain against our serried line,
⁠Alert for onslaught, calmly loading.
Now up and at them. Shouts exultant, harsh,
⁠A mêlée of cold steel colliding,
Gaunt shadows grappling in a bloody marsh,
⁠And low moans rising and subsiding. ”

“ Grasses and weeds already have their hold
Encroaching from the garden.
The road itself is seamed, pock-marked with holes
Where you might hide ten men, nor see their heads,
Those near the tiny stream filled to the brim
With dank and turbid water, in greening slime
The bloated body of a puny kitten
Floats, decayed and foul. ”

“ Boy and girl have, whispering, passed their way
To the security of scented lanes
To dream,—sweet fancies which the young enjoy,
The last thrush whistles in a distant copse,
As, only by the glowing of a pipe,
A smothered laugh, a restless infant's cry,
Is the blue silence of the Heavens broken
To show the stars humanity still lives. ”

“ Ere comes the light
Of morn brave men must arm, stern foes to fight.
The sentry stands his limbs with cold congealed;
His head a-nod with sleep; he cannot yield,
Though sleep and snow in deadly force unite. ”

“ The summer sky is dark with warlike forms
Of battling rains, and thunder-clouds that climb
Laden with danger up the blue sublime.
The night-born dew
Shall, on thy lip, be wine;
The worship of the wide stars shall be thine ”

“ Heaped with scattered stone, the uprooted graves
And broken crosses speak of holier days:
The nave, choked with charred rafters from the roof,
Pleads untended to the wind and rain
Mutely; shelter even bats despise. ”

“ Talk, jest and laugh, with tinkling glass or mug,
And smoke their red clay pipes, sweet smelling smoke
Of home-cured leaf, rising in pearly clouds:
Whilst women, some still toiling at their lace,
Gossip, the elder matrons of their homes,
Girlhood as all girls will, so why say more? ”

“ We are indebted to Lord Desborough for the use of these hitherto imprinted poems by his son, Captain Julian Grenfell, D.S.O., whose "Into Battle" (published in The Times on May 28th, 1915—the day his death from wounds was recorded—and afterwards included in Robert Bridges' Anthology, "The Spirit of Man," and in "A Crown of Amaranth") has been described as "the one incorruptible and incomparable poem which the war has yet given us in any language." ”

“ Both achievements are characteristic of the fine courageous spirit and all-round activities of the young Dragoon who "knocked out the champion boxer of South Africa in the intervals of writing poetry." ”

“ These verses were inspired while I was in the trenches, where I have been so busy that I have had little time to polish them. I have tried to picture some thoughts that pass through a man's brain when he dies. ”

“ God-sent maid leads fighting men.
This day they name her—LIBERTY . . .
God grant she'll win the victory!
Mother of Sons
YOUR hands are tired with their long day's labour,
⁠Toil-worn hands that have worked with a will ”

“ Other literary remains not included in this volume (excepting the following) are not yet available. The Sonnet—now first printed—was written in 1911, when the writer was about 16, and is much earlier than anything printed hitherto. The Faust lines are taken from a letter written in December, 1914, while in training. They are preceded by the words, "I think that Germany, in spite of her vast bigotry and blindness, is in a kind of way living up to the motto that Goethe left her in the closing words of Faust before he died." ”

“ Such as, "Although it does not yet appear,
To suffer is the sole beatitude.
"Life has, of course, good moments such as this
(A glass of sherry we should never spurn) ,
But where our brethren are, 'tis perfect bliss ”

“ SONGS OF THE FIGHTING MEN
A representative collection of new poems (not previously published in volume form) by:
E. d'A. B., Major, 55th Division, France.
S. Donald Cox, Rifleman, London Rifle Brigade.
Joseph H. Courtney, Lieut., R.A.M.C.
E. J. L. Garstin, Lieut., 12th Batt. Middlesex Regt.
Julian Grenfell, D.S.O., Capt., Royal Dragoons.
Wilfrid J. Halliday, Private, 13th Batt., West Yorks Regt.
G. Rowntree Harvey, Royal Flying Corps.
W. N. Hodgson, M.C., Lieut., Devon Regt.
Geoffrey Howard, Lieut., Royal Fusiliers.
Malcolm Humphrey, Lance-Corpl., A.O.C., B.E.F., East Africa. ”