THE YOUNG GUARD – World War I Poems & Author's Memoirs from The Great War. E. W. Hornung
things that were Rotten,
How I remember them year after year!
Some—it may be—that were better forgotten:
Some that—it may be—should still draw a tear . . .
More, many more, that are good to remember:
Yarns that grow richer, the older they grow:
Deeds that would make a man's ultimate ember
Glow with the fervour of ages ago!
Did we play footer in funny long flannels?
Had we no Corps to give zest to our drill?
Never a Gym lined throughout with pine panels?
Half of your best buildings were quarry-stone still?
Ah! but it's not for their looks that you love them,
Not for the craft of the builder below,
But for the spirit behind and above them—
But for the Spirit of Ages Ago!
Eton may rest on her Field and her River.
Harrow has songs that she knows how to sing.
Winchester slang makes the sensitive shiver.
Rugby had Arnold, but never had Thring!
Repton can put up as good an Eleven.
Marlborough men are the fear of the foe.
All that I wish to remark is — thank Heaven
I was at Uppingham ages ago!
FOOTNOTES
1. = Praepostors.
Wooden Crosses
(1917)
"Go live the wide world over—but when you come to die,
A quiet English churchyard is the only place to lie!"—
I held it half a lifetime, until through war's mischance
I saw the wooden crosses that fret the fields of France.
A thrush sings in an oak-tree, and from the old square tower
A chime as sweet and mellow salutes the idle hour:
Stone crosses take no notice — but the little wooden ones
Are thrilling every minute to the music of the guns!
Upstanding at attention they face the cannonade,
In apple-pie alinement like Guardsmen on parade:
But Tombstones are Civilians who loll or sprawl or sway
At every crazy angle and stage of slow decay.
For them the Broken Column—in its plot of unkempt grass;
The tawdry tinsel garland safeguarded under glass;
And the Squire's emblazoned virtues, that would overweight a Saint,
On the vault empaled in iron — scaling red for want of paint!
The men who die for England don't need it rubbing in;
An automatic stamper and a narrow strip of tin
Record their date and regiment, their number and their name—
And the Squire who dies for England is treated just the same.
So stand the still battalions: alert, austere, serene;
Each with his just allowance of brown earth shot with green;
None better than his neighbour in pomp or circumstance —
All beads upon the rosary that turned the fate of France!
Who says their war is over? While others carry on,
The little wooden crosses spell but the dead and gone?
Not while they deck a sky-line, not while they crown a view,
Or a living soldier sees them and sets his teeth anew!
The tenants of the churchyard where the singing thrushes build
Were not, perhaps, all paragons of promise well fulfilled:
Some failed—through Love, or Liquor—while the parish looked askance.
But—you cannot die a Failure if you win a Cross in France!
The brightest gems of Valour in the Army's diadem
Are the V.C. and the D.S.O., M.C. and D.C.M.
But those who live to wear them will tell you they are dross
Beside the Final Honour of a simple Wooden Cross.
Memoir
Notes of a Camp Follower on the Western Front
TO
THE KINDEST MAN
IN THE BOOK