More Songs by the Fighting Men - Soldiers Poets: Second Series. Galloway Kyle

Still calls us onward—onward tho' the soil

       Engulf both us and all that we defend?

       The spoken word holds true: the swords we wield

       Upended show the Cross that, potent yet,

       Shall prove each wound we suffer on the field

       No sacrifice made vainly to abet

       A senseless purpose. Wait but for the yield

       Of all our toil and—God shall not forget.

      Carroll Carstairs, Lieut., Grenadier Guards

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      CARROLL CARSTAIRS

      Lieut., Grenadier Guards

       Death in France

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      IF I should die while I am yet in France

       Before the battle clouds have rolled away,

       Give me to feel that death will but enhance

       Life's secret vision on its passing day.

       Grant then to me new, individual power

       In reverie, whilst whimsically I trace

       Thro' eager, breathless youth, each pulsing hour,

       The light and shadow on its fading face.

       And in death's soonest minute let me seek

      Life heightened by new splendour, poise, surprise, New colour flushing deep its paling cheek, New wonder looking from its tired eyes. Time's brought a rare patine to old Romance— Death has an ancient dignity in France.

      ⁠France, November, 1916.

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       The Lover's Mood

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      I SAID a careless word, then miserably⁠

       Repented, asked forgiveness in sweet rhyme;

       Your face had clouded so, and suddenly

       The day had grown a-weary ere her time.

       Life and Death

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      IF death should come with his cold, hasty kiss

       Along the trench or in the battle strife,

       I'll ask of death no greater boon than this:

       That it shall be as wonderful as life.

      Ernest K. Challenger, Corporal, R.E.

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      ERNEST K. CHALLENGER

      Corporal, R.E.

       The Harvest

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      SHADOWLESS lies the land

       Under the sun,

       Only the poplars stand

       With moveless boughs in the heat

       That broods o'er the blackened wheat

       And the ground so hardly won.

       No other tree in the waste.

       They only stand

       Where the straight white road is traced

       Athwart the land.

       And ever under the sky

       Do the slow-winged birds go by—

       The slow black birds of prey

       That wait but the close of day

       For the night to bring them food.

       The curse of the heat is here,

       And the curse of blood.

       Cold-lipped, and with eyes of fear,

       'Neath the sun's flood

       ​Wanders the spirit of death;

       And e'en in the burning noon is an icy breath

       And the red of the west is to me like the redness of blood.

       The village is still as the heat,

       From the ruined houses start

       The rats across the street.—

       There is never another sound,

       For the guns are silent to-day,

       And the endless lines of men that are bound

       For the place of death and the nameless mound

       Have taken another way.

       At the end of the ruined street

       Roodless the church yet stands

       To the God men praise with their lips

       While they mock Him with their hands;

       With hands that have scrawled for sport

       Their jests on the altar-stone,

       And their ribald words on the lips of Christ,

       The marred Christ hanging alone.

       Who has measured pain,

       And who has a plumb for that sea

       Where the soul shall know again

       Its own immensity?

       ​For the voice of the mind is dumb,

       But the voice of the soul is heard,

       Where the wild dark waters are come

       And the face of man's sky is blurred.

       Who shall say "Lo here

       Shall the glory of war be found,

       That a nation arose without fear

       And smote her foe to the ground

       For the wrong that he dared to dream,

       And the hell that he wrought on earth;

       That she pressed after Honour's gleam

       Though it led to a land of dearth"?

       Who has measured wrong,

       And who shall assign it a bond?

       Where the scornful might of the strong

       And the cry of the weak be found—

       Say, is the tale complete?

       Ah! myriad wrongs spring up

       Where one has set its feet,

       And the earth is a poisoned cup

       Where the goodly wine brings death,

       And one drop of venom there

       Shall