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The Volunteer

Sez I: My Country calls? Well let it call.

I grins perlitely and declines wiv thanks.

Go, let ’em plaster every blighted wall,

’Ere’s one they don’t stampede into the ranks.

Them politicians with their greasy ways;

Them empire-grabbers — fight for ’em? No fear!

I’ve seen this mess a-comin’ from the days

Of Algyserious and Aggydear:

I’ve felt me passion rise and swell

But … wot the ’ell, Bill? Wot the ’ell?

Sez I: My Country? Mine? I likes their cheek.

Me mud-bespattered by the cars they drive,

Wot makes my measly thirty bob a week,

And sweats red blood to keep meself alive!

Fight for the right to slave that they may spend,

Them in their mansions, me ’ere in my slum?

No, let ’em fight wot’s something to defend:

But me, I’ve nothin’ — let the Kaiser come.

And so I cusses ’ard and well,

But … wot the ’ell, Bill? Wot the ’ell?

Sez I: If they would do the decent thing,

And shield the missis and the little ’uns,

Why, even I might shout “God save the King,”

And face the chances of them ’ungry guns.

But we’ve got three, another on the way;

It’s that wot makes me snarl and set me jor:

The wife and nippers, wot of ’em, I say,

If I gets knocked out in this blasted war?

Gets proper busted by a shell,

But … wot the ’ell, Bill? Wot the ’ell?

Ay, wot the ’ell’s the use of all this talk?

Today some boys in blue was passin’ me,

And some of ’em they ’ad no legs to walk,

And some of ’em they ’ad no eyes to see.

And — well, I couldn’t look ’em in the face,

And so I’m goin’, goin’ to declare

I’m under forty-one and take me place

To face the music with the bunch out there.

A fool, you say! Maybe you’re right.

I’ll ’ave no peace unless I fight.

I’ve ceased to think; I only know

I’ve gotta go, Bill, gotta go.

The Man from Athabaska

Oh the wife she tried to tell me that ’twas nothing but the thrumming

Of a woodpecker a-rapping on the hollow of a tree;

And she thought that I was fooling when I said it was the drumming

Of the mustering of legions, and ’twas calling unto me;

’Twas calling me to pull my freight and hop across the sea.

And a-mending of my fish nets sure I started up in wonder,

For I heard a savage roaring and ’twas coming from afar;

Oh the wife she tried to tell me that ’twas only summer thunder,

And she laughed a bit sarcastic when I told her it was War;

’Twas the chariots of battle where the mighty armies are.

Then down the lake came Half-breed Tom with russet sail a-flying,

And the word he said was “War” again, so what was I to do?

Oh the dogs they took to howling, and the missis took to crying,

As I flung my silver foxes in the little birch canoe:

Yes, the old girl stood a-blubbing till an island hid the view.

Says the factor: “Mike, you’re crazy! They have soldier men a-plenty.

You’re as grizzled as a badger, and you’re sixty year or so.”

“But I haven’t missed a scrap,” says I, “since I was one and twenty.

And shall I miss the biggest? You can bet your whiskers — no!”

So I sold my furs and started … and that’s eighteen months ago.

For I joined the Foreign Legion, and they put me for a starter

In the trenches of the Argonne with the Boche a step away;

And the partner on my right hand was an apache from Montmartre;

On my left there was a millionaire from Pittsburgh, U.S.A.

(Poor fellow! They collected him in bits the other day.)

But I’m sprier than a chipmunk, save a touch of the lumbago,

And they calls me Old Methoosalah, and blagues me all the day.

I’m their exhibition sniper, and they work me like a Dago,

And laugh to see me plug a Boche a half a mile away.

Oh I hold the highest record in the regiment, they say.

And at night they gather round me, and I tell them of my roaming

In the Country of the Crepuscule beside the Frozen Sea,

Where the musk-ox runs unchallenged, and the cariboo goes homing;

And they sit like little children, just as quiet as can be:

Men of every crime and colour, how they harken unto me!

And I tell them of the Furland, of the tumpline and the paddle,

Of secret rivers loitering, that no one will explore;

And I tell them of the ranges, of the pack-strap and the saddle,

And they fill their pipes in silence, and their eyes beseech for more;

While above the star-shells fizzle and the high explosives roar.

And I tell of lakes fish-haunted, where the big bull moose are calling,

And forests still as sepulchres with never trail or track;

And valleys packed with purple gloom, and mountain peaks appalling,

And I tell of my cabin on the shore at Fond du Lac;

And I find myself a-thinking: Sure I wish that I was back.

So I brag of bear and beaver while the batteries are roaring,

And the fellows on the firing steps are blazing at the foe;

And I yarn of fur and feather when the marmites are a-soaring,

And they listen to my stories, seven poilus in a row,

Seven lean and lousy poilus with their cigarettes aglow.

And I tell them when it’s over how I’ll hike for Athabaska;

And those seven greasy poilus they are crazy to go too.

And I’ll give the wife the “pickle-tub” I promised, and I’ll ask her

The price of mink and marten, and the run of cariboo,

And I’ll get my traps in order, and I’ll start to work anew.

For I’ve had my fill of fighting, and I’ve seen a nation scattered,

And an army swung to slaughter, and a river red with gore,

And a city all a-smoulder, and … as if it really mattered,

For the lake is yonder dreaming, and my cabin’s on the shore;

And the dogs are leaping madly, and the wife is singing gladly,

And I’ll rest in Athabaska, and I’ll leave it nevermore.

Pilgrims

For, oh, when the war will be over

We’ll go and we’ll look for our dead;

We’ll go when the bee’s on the clover,

And the plume of the poppy is red:

We’ll go when the year’s at its gayest,

When meadows are laughing with flow’rs;

And there where the crosses are greyest,

We’ll seek for the cross that is ours.

For they cry to us: Friends, we are lonely,

A-weary the night and the day;

But come in the blossom-time only,

Come when our graves will be gay:

When daffodils all are a-blowing,

And larks are a-thrilling the skies,

Oh, come with the hearts of you glowing,

And the joy of the Spring in your eyes.

But never, oh, never come sighing,

For ours was the Splendid Release;

And oh, but ’twas joy in the dying

To know we were winning you Peace!

So come when the valleys are sheening,

And fledged with the promise of grain;

And here where our graves will be greening,

Just smile and be happy again.

And so, when the war will be over,

We’ll seek for the Wonderful One;

And maiden will look for her lover,

And mother will look for her son;

And there will be end to our grieving,

And gladness will gleam over loss,

As — glory beyond all believing!

We point … to a name on a cross.

The Stretcher-Bearer

My stretcher is one scarlet stain,

And as I tries to scrape it clean,

I tell you wot — I’m sick with pain

For all I’ve ’eard, for all I’ve seen;

Around me is the ’ellish night,

And as the war’s red rim I trace,

I wonder if in ’Eaven’s height,

Our God don’t turn away ’Is face.

I don’t care ’oose the Crime may be;

I ’olds no brief for kin or clan;

I ’ymns no ’ate: I only see

As man destroys his brother man;

I waves no flag: I only know,

As ’ere beside the dead I wait,

A million ’earts is weighed with woe,

A million ’omes is desolate.

In drippin’ darkness, far and near,

All night I’ve sought them woeful ones.

Dawn shudders up and still I ’ear

The crimson chorus of the guns.

Look! like a ball of blood the sun

’Angs o’er the scene of wrath and wrong.…

“Quick! Stretcher-bearers on the run!”

O Prince of Peace! ’Ow long, ’ow long?

The Song of the Pacifist

What do they matter, our headlong hates, when we take the toll of our Dead?

Think ye our glory and gain will pay for the torrent of blood we have shed?

By the cheers of our Victory will the heart of the mother be comforted?

If by the Victory all we mean is a broken and brooding foe;

Is the pomp and power of a glitt’ring hour, and a truce for an age or so:

By the clay cold hand on the broken blade we have smitten a bootless blow!

If by the Triumph we only prove that the sword we sheathe is bright;

That justice and truth and love endure; that freedom’s throned on the height;

That the feebler folks shall be unafraid; that Might shall never be Right;

If this be all: by blood-drenched plains, by the havoc of fire and fear,

By the rending roar of the War of Wars, by the Dead so doubly dear.…

Then our Victory is a vast defeat, and it mocks us as we cheer.

Victory! there can be but one, hallowed in every land:

When by the graves of our common dead we who were foemen stand;

And in the hush of our common grief hand is tendered to hand.

Triumph! Yes, when out of the dust in the splendour of their release

The spirits of those who fell go forth and they hallow our hearts to peace,

And, brothers in pain, with worldwide voice, we clamour that War shall cease.

Glory! Ay, when from blackest loss shall be born most radiant gain;

When over the gory fields shall rise a star that never shall wane:

Then, and then only, our Dead shall know that they have not fall’n in vain.

When our children’s children shall talk of War as a madness that may not be;

When we thank our God for our grief today, and blazon from sea to sea

In the name of the Dead the banner of Peace … that will be Victory.