Dreams Dust | Page 6

a signal on
the night;?And now the bellowing guns are loud with the
wild lust of fight.
. . . . . .
And now, her flanks of steel apulse with all the
power of hell,?Forth from the darkness leaps in pride a hateful
miracle,?The flagship of their Admiral--and now God help
and save!--?We challenge Death at Death's own game; we
sink beneath the wave!
. . . . . .
Ah, steady now--and one good blow--one straight
stab through the gloom--?Ah, good!--the thrust went home!--she founders--
flounders to her doom!--?Full speed ahead!--those damned quick-firing guns
--but let them bark--?What's that--the dynamos?--they've got us, men!
--Christ! in the dark!
NICHOLAS OF MONTENEGRO
(1912)
HE speaks as straight as his rifles shot,?As straight as a thrusting blade,?Waiting the deed that shall trouble the truce?His savage guns have made.
"You have dared the wrath of a dozen states,"?Was the challenge that he heard;?"We can die but once!" said the grim old King?As he gripped his mountain sword.
"For I paid in blood for the town I took,?The blood of my brave men slain,--?And if you covet the town I took?You must buy it with blood again!"
Stern old King of the stark, black hills,?Where the lean, fierce eagles breed,?Your speech rings true as your good sword rings--?And you are a king indeed!
DICKENS
"The only book that the party had was a volume of Dickens. During the six months that they lay in the cave which they?had hacked in the ice, waiting for spring to come, they read this volume through again and again."--From a newspaper?report of an antarctic expedition.
HUDDLED within their savage lair?They hearkened to the prowling wind;?They heard the loud wings of despair . . .?And madness beat against the mind. . . .?A sunless world stretched stark outside?As if it had cursed God and died;?Dumb plains lay prone beneath the weight?Of cold unutterably great;?Iron ice bound all the bitter seas,?The brutal hills were bleak as hate. . . .?Here none but Death might walk at ease!
Then Dickens spoke, and, lo! the vast?Unpeopled void stirred into life;
The dead world quickened, the mad blast?Hushed for an hour its idiot strife?With nothingness. . . .
And from the gloom,?Parting the flaps of frozen skin,?Old friends and dear came trooping in,?And light and laughter filled the room. . . .?Voices and faces, shapes beloved,?Babbling lips and kindly eyes,?Not ghosts, but friends that lived and moved . . .?They brought the sun from other skies,?They wrought the magic that dispels?The bitterer part of loneliness . . .?And when they vanished each man dreamed?His dream there in the wilderness. . . .?One heard the chime of Christmas bells,?And, staring down a country lane,?Saw bright against the window-pane?The firelight beckon warm and red. . . .?And one turned from the waterside?Where Thames rolls down his slothful tide?To breast the human sea that beats?Through roaring London's battered streets
And revel in the moods of men. . . .?And one saw all the April hills?Made glad with golden daffodils,?And found and kissed his love again. . . .
. . . . . .
By all the troubled hearts he cheers?In homely ways or by lost trails,?By all light shed through all dark years?When hope grows sick and courage quails,?We hail him first among his peers;?Whether we sorrow, sing, or feast,?He, too, hath known and understood--?Master of many moods, high priest?Of mirth and lord of cleansing tears!
A POLITICIAN
LEADER no more, be judged of us!?Hailed Chief, and loved, of yore--?Youth, and the faith of youth, cry out:?Leader and Chief no more!
We dreamed a Prophet, flushed with faith,?Content to toil in pain?If that his sacrifice might be,?Somehow, his people's gain.
We saw a vision, and our blood?Beat red and hot and strong:?"Lead us (we cried) to war against?Some foul, embattled wrong!"
We dreamed a Warrior whose sword?Was edged for sham and shame;?We dreamed a Statesman far above?The vulgar lust for fame.
We were not cynics, and we dreamed?A Man who made no truce?With lies nor ancient privilege?Nor old, entrenched abuse.
We dreamed . . . we dreamed . . . Youth dreamed
a dream!?And even you forgot?Yourself, one moment, and dreamed, too--?Struck, while your mood was hot!
Struck three or four good blows . . . and then?Turned back to easier things:?The cheap applause, the blatant mob,?The praise of underlings!
Praise . . . praise . . . was ever man so filled,?So avid still, of praise??So hungry for the crowd's acclaim,?The sycophantic phrase?
O you whom Greatness beckoned to . . .?O swollen Littleness?Who turned from Immortality?To fawn upon Success!
O blind with love of self, who led?Youth's vision to defeat,?Bawling and brawling for rewards,?Loud, in the common street!
O you who were so quick to judge--?Leader, and loved, of yore--?Hear now the judgment of our youth:?Leader and Chief no more!
THE BAYONET
(1914)
THE great guns slay from a league away, the deathbolts
fly unseen,?And bellowing hill replies to hill, machine to brute
machine,?But still in the end when the long lines bend and
the battle hangs in doubt?They take