UNKNOWN FEMALE CORPSE

Headless, lacking foot and hand,
Horrible I come to land.

I beseech all women's sons
Know I was a mother once.

RAPED AND REVENGED

One used and butchered me: another spied Me broken-for which thing an hundred died. So it was learned among the heathen hosts How much a freeborn woman's favour costs.

SALONIKAN GRAVE

I have watched a thousand days
Push out and crawl into night
Slowly as tortoises.

Now I, too, follow these.

It is fever, and not the fight-
Time, not battle-that slays.

THE BRIDEGROOM

Call me not false, beloved,

If, from thy scarce-known breast

So little time removed,

In other arms I rest.

For this more ancient bride

Whom coldly I embrace

Was constant at my side
Before I saw thy face.

Our marriage, often set—
By miracle delayed—
At last is consummate,

And cannot be unmade.

Live, then, whom Life shall cure,

Almost, of Memory,

And leave us to endure

Its immortality.

V. A. D. (MEDITERRANEAN)

Ah, would swift ships had never been, for then we ne'er had

found,

These harsh Ægean rocks between, this little virgin drowned, Whom neither spouse nor child shall mourn, but men she nursed through pain

And-certain keels for whose return the heathen look in vain.

JUSTICE

OCTOBER, 1918

ACROSS a world where all men grieve
And grieving strive the more,

The great days range like tides and leave
Our dead on every shore.
Heavy the load we undergo,

And our own hands prepare,
If we have parley with the foe,

The load our sons must bear.

Before we loose the word

That bids new worlds to birth, Needs must we loosen first the sword Of Justice upon earth;

Or else all else is vain

Since life on earth began,

And the spent world sinks back again Hopeless of God and Man.

A People and their King

Through ancient sin grown strong, Because they feared no reckoning Would set no bound to wrong;

But now their hour is past,
And we who bore it find
Evil Incarnate held at last
To answer to mankind.

For agony and spoil

Of nations beat to dust,

For poisoned air and tortured soil

And cold, commanded lust,

And every secret woe

The shuddering waters saw

Willed and fulfilled by high and lowLet them relearn the Law.

That when the dooms are read,
Not high nor low shall say:-
"My haughty or my humble head
Has saved me in this day.'

That, till the end of time,

Their remnant shall recall

Their fathers' old, confederate crime

Availed them not at all.

That neither schools nor priests,
Nor Kings may build again
A people with the heart of beasts
Made wise concerning men.
Whereby our dead shall sleep
In honour, unbetrayed,

And we in faith and honour keep
That peace for which they paid.

SEVEN WATCHMEN

1918

SEVEN Watchmen sitting in a tower,

Watching what had come upon mankind, Showed the Man the Glory and the Power, And bade him shape the Kingdom to his mind. "All things on Earth your will shall win you.” ('Twas so their council ran)

"But the Kingdom-the Kingdom is within you," Said the Man's own mind to the Man.

For time-and some time—

As it was in the bitter years before

So it shall be in the over-sweetened hourThat a man's mind is wont to tell him more Than Seven Watchmen sitting in a tower.

TO THOMAS ATKINS

(Prelude to Barrack Room Ballads)

I HAVE made for you a song,
And it may be right or wrong,
But only you can tell me if it's true;
I have tried for to explain

Both your pleasure and your pain,

And, Thomas, here's my best respects to you!

O there'll surely come a day
When they'll give you all your pay,
And treat you as a Christian ought to do;
So, until that day comes round,

Heaven keep you safe and sound,
And, Thomas, here's my best respects to you!

BOBS

(Field Marshal Lord Roberts of Kandahar)

THERE'S a little red-faced man,
Which is Bobs,

Rides the tallest 'orse 'e can-
Our Bobs.

If it bucks or kicks or rears,

'E can sit for twenty years

With a smile round both 'is ears-
Can't yer, Bobs?

Then 'ere's to Bobs Bahadur-little Bobs, Bobs, Bobs! 'E's our pukka Kandahader

Fightin' Bobs, Bobs, Bobs!

'E's the Dook of Aggy Chel1;
'E's the man that done us well,

An' we'll follow 'im to 'ell-
Won't we, Bobs?

If a limber's slipped a trace,
'Ook on Bobs.

If a marker's lost 'is place,
Dress by Bobs.

'Get ahead.