In Flanders Fields | Page 4

the shout of victory, the fame?Of them that vanquish in a stricken field.
That day of battle in the dusty heat?We lay and heard the bullets swish and sing?Like scythes amid the over-ripened wheat,?And we the harvest of their garnering.
Some yielded, No, not we! Not we, we swear?By these our wounds; this trench upon the hill?Where all the shell-strewn earth is seamed and bare,?Was ours to keep; and lo! we have it still.
We might have yielded, even we, but death?Came for our helper; like a sudden flood?The crashing darkness fell; our painful breath?We drew with gasps amid the choking blood.
The roar fell faint and farther off, and soon?Sank to a foolish humming in our ears,?Like crickets in the long, hot afternoon?Among the wheat fields of the olden years.
Before our eyes a boundless wall of red?Shot through by sudden streaks of jagged pain!?Then a slow-gathering darkness overhead?And rest came on us like a quiet rain.
Not we the conquered! Not to us the shame,?Who hold our earthen ramparts, nor shall cease?To hold them ever; victors we, who came?In that fierce moment to our honoured peace.
The Captain
1797
Here all the day she swings from tide to tide,?Here all night long she tugs a rusted chain,?A masterless hulk that was a ship of pride,?Yet unashamed: her memories remain.
It was Nelson in the `Captain', Cape St. Vincent far alee,?With the `Vanguard' leading s'uth'ard in the haze --?Little Jervis and the Spaniards and the fight that was to be, Twenty-seven Spanish battleships, great bullies of the sea, And the `Captain' there to find her day of days.
Right into them the `Vanguard' leads, but with a sudden tack The Spaniards double swiftly on their trail;?Now Jervis overshoots his mark, like some too eager pack,?He will not overtake them, haste he e'er so greatly back,?But Nelson and the `Captain' will not fail.
Like a tigress on her quarry leaps the `Captain' from her place, To lie across the fleeing squadron's way:?Heavy odds and heavy onslaught, gun to gun and face to face, Win the ship a name of glory, win the men a death of grace, For a little hold the Spanish fleet in play.
Ended now the "Captain"'s battle, stricken sore she falls aside Holding still her foemen, beaten to the knee:?As the `Vanguard' drifted past her, "Well done, `Captain'," Jervis cried, Rang the cheers of men that conquered, ran the blood of men that died, And the ship had won her immortality.
Lo! here her progeny of steel and steam,?A funnelled monster at her mooring swings:?Still, in our hearts, we see her pennant stream,?And "Well done, `Captain'," like a trumpet rings.
The Song of the Derelict
Ye have sung me your songs, ye have chanted your rimes?(I scorn your beguiling, O sea!)?Ye fondle me now, but to strike me betimes.?(A treacherous lover, the sea!)?Once I saw as I lay, half-awash in the night?A hull in the gloom -- a quick hail -- and a light?And I lurched o'er to leeward and saved her for spite?From the doom that ye meted to me.
I was sister to `Terrible', seventy-four,?(Yo ho! for the swing of the sea!)?And ye sank her in fathoms a thousand or more?(Alas! for the might of the sea!)?Ye taunt me and sing me her fate for a sign!?What harm can ye wreak more on me or on mine??Ho braggart! I care not for boasting of thine --?A fig for the wrath of the sea!
Some night to the lee of the land I shall steal,?(Heigh-ho to be home from the sea!)?No pilot but Death at the rudderless wheel,?(None knoweth the harbor as he!)?To lie where the slow tide creeps hither and fro?And the shifting sand laps me around, for I know?That my gallant old crew are in Port long ago --?For ever at peace with the sea!
Quebec
1608-1908
Of old, like Helen, guerdon of the strong --?Like Helen fair, like Helen light of word, --?"The spoils unto the conquerors belong.?Who winneth me must win me by the sword."
Grown old, like Helen, once the jealous prize?That strong men battled for in savage hate,?Can she look forth with unregretful eyes,?Where sleep Montcalm and Wolfe beside her gate?
Then and Now
Beneath her window in the fragrant night?I half forget how truant years have flown?Since I looked up to see her chamber-light,?Or catch, perchance, her slender shadow thrown?Upon the casement; but the nodding leaves?Sweep lazily across the unlit pane,?And to and fro beneath the shadowy eaves,?Like restless birds, the breath of coming rain?Creeps, lilac-laden, up the village street?When all is still, as if the very trees?Were listening for the coming of her feet?That come no more; yet, lest I weep, the breeze?Sings some forgotten song of those old years?Until my heart grows far too glad for tears.
Unsolved
Amid my books I lived the hurrying years,?Disdaining kinship with my fellow man;?Alike to me were human smiles and tears,?I cared not whither Earth's