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

Of the winds in the upper air.

      ​What of the men who died

       Stout-hearted and steadfast-eyed

       For the good they might not share

       And the goal to them denied?

       For the lamp they strove to bear

       Should light another's way,

       And the boon that they might not share

       Is the boon we hold to-day.

       What of the god-like men

       Who lie in the dust to-day

       For the dreams that we hold so light

       And the hope that we fling away?

       Ah! shall we not vex their sleep,

       We men of the lesser mould,

       Who sully the name they bled to keep,

       And the honour they died to hold?

       A thousand ages ago

       Man fought with the axe of stone

       That the many might seize the thing they loved

       From the few, and hold it alone.

       For the will of the strong was law

       And the right of the weak was death

       When man was one with the beasts of the earth

       And battled with them for breath.

      ​And to-day with their coward lips

       Men prate of love in their creeds,

       And a thousand times to-day

       Do they spurn her with their deeds.

       For we talk of the law of truth

       While our God is the law of might,

       And the will of the strongest there

       Is the thing we hold as right.

       What have we gained with the years,

       But the greater power to lie?

       We, who speak of the truth,

       Smooth-voiced and with side-long eye;

       Better the axe of stone

       And the feet on the weakest throat

       Than the lying lips and the coward thrust

       And the stealthy eyes that gloat.

       Now for the one's desire

       Shall the many be crucified

       On the cross of a lawless power

       With the nails of a soulless pride.

       And the wrong goes deeper yet,

       Aye, deep as the springs of life,

       And has blossomed out at the 'hest of pride

       In the deadly flower of strife.

      ​And nothing shall purge the land

       Where the curse of sin has stood

       But the purge of the whetted steel

       And the drench of blood.

       While perchance at the end shall Peace

       Her impotent pinions spread

       O'er the ruined home and the smoking land

       And the blank eyes of our dead.

       Hark!—through the lazy air

       Comes the sound of guns again.

       Once more man reaps with a sickle of fire

       The harvest of the slain.

      Pont d'Essars, France.

      Eric Chilman, Private, East Yorks

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      ERIC CHILMAN

      Private, East Yorks

       After-days

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      WHEN the last gun has long withheld⁠

      ⁠Its thunder, and its mouth is sealed,

       Strong men shall drive the furrow straight

      ⁠On some remembered battlefield.

       Untroubled they shall hear the loud

      ⁠And gusty driving of the rains,

       And birds with immemorial voice

      ⁠Sing as of old in leafy lanes.

       The stricken, tainted soil shall be

      ⁠Again a flowery paradise—

       Pure with the memory of the dead

      ⁠And purer for their sacrifice.

      A. Newberry Choyce, Lieut., Leicestershire Regiment

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      A. NEWBERRY CHOYCE

      Lieut., Leicestershire Regiment

       Supermen

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      SOME souls there are

       Who in their trial hours

       Bathe in the very blood

       Which flows around the heart of Life,

       And know its joy—and know its agony.

       Daring to follow impulse

       That any God Himself would not resist.

       Stand back!

       You weaklings of the world

       Boasting the name of men.

       Preening yourselves

       And judging with your

       "God this——" and "God that——"

       Dare not to come

       Near these.

       Stay with your narrow Gods

       Who smugly sit

       Within four chapel walls

       On Sundays,

       ​You in some stiff God's house

       Who kneel and shiver

       Towards a judgment day

       Of your own setting.

       But if a Destiny too kind

       Bring you for one short second

       Closer to wisdom;

       To the breathing hills and spaces

       Where my God lives

       And makes His Throne in every leaf and flower

       And whispers in each wind,

       Then I will tell you this—

       That my God is so great

       I doubt if He will dare

       To judge these souls.