Great Poems of the World War. William Dunseath Eaton

N a fateful day in 1914, without a warning flash or tremor, there fell upon the world such a blast of war as human reason could not have foreglimpsed, nor Apocalyptic vision raised, to appall the souls of men. Twenty-seven nations took the shock and were rocked to their foundations. Eleven were caught and knotted in the maddest agony of conflict that ever was known. Through four years the winds of destruction swirled and roared around the monstrous welter, before the evil forces failed and their exhaustion brought a breathing space such as lies at the heart of a typhoon. Around the widening edges of that space they still muttered for a while in gusts of blood and fire, slowly receding, slowly dying. But the great storm is gone; the long night that seemed the night of doom is over.

Its epic has not been written. The time is too near us, the motive too deep, the theme too vast. But out of the dark came many voices, voices of lamentation, of home and love and hope and heroism and loftiest ideality, of romance, of strange comedy. These had their inspiration from a gigantic spectacle of elemental passions in cross-play, from the thoughts and emotions not of a single people, but of all that were fighting for the life and light of civilization. Poets great and poets minor followed the war or fought in it, and expressed its spirit with a personal, passionate fidelity impossible to historians.

It would not be well were all these voices lost. Many are worth fixation where they may be heard again at will, and that is the reason for and purpose of this book. The finest and truest of them are given here.

In making selection, availability for recitation has been considered. There is no better way to stir the mind or fix the memory than by spoken words of beauty in rhythmic cadence, especially in schools. It is hoped they will be effective in such uses.

Readers will find in the captain notes many helpful sidelights upon topics and personalities. These will commend themselves for their own sake.

W. D. Eaton.

The Press Club, Chicago.

GREAT POEMS OF THE WORLD WAR

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BEFORE ACTION
LIEUT. WILLIAM NOEL HODGSON

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Military Cross, Devon Regiment—Killed in Battle

From “Verse and Prose in Peace and War.” John Murray, Publisher, London. Permission to reproduce in this book.

BY all the glories of the day,

And the cool evening’s benison;

By the last sunset touch that lay

Upon the hills when day was done:

By beauty lavishly outpoured,

And blessings carelessly received,

By all the days that I have lived,

Make me a soldier, Lord.

By all of human hopes and fears,

By all the wonders poets sing,

The laughter of unclouded years,

And every sad and lovely thing:

By the romantic ages stored

With high endeavor that was his,

By all his mad catastrophes,

Make me a man, O Lord.

I, that on my familiar hill

Saw with uncomprehending eyes

A hundred of Thy sunsets spill

Their fresh and sanguine sacrifice,

Ere the sun swings his noonday sword

Must say good-bye to all of this:

By all delights that I shall miss,

Help me to die, O Lord.

ALAN SEEGER
WASHINGTON VAN DUSEN

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in The Chicago Tribune

NO beauty could escape his loving eyes,

Not even ruthless war could hide from view

The smiling fields where crimson poppies grew,

Nor mar the sunset’s rose and purple dyes;

He watched a vine-clad slope, with glad surprise

To hear grapepickers sing, although they knew

Just on the other side, the cannon threw

Their deadly shells and woke the startled skies.

But over all that made Champagne so fair,

He saw the grandeur of the field of strife,

Exulting in the cause that placed him there,

He felt a calm, mid all the carnage rife,

And faced the battle with a spirit rare,

“For death may be

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Great Poems of the World War. William Dunseath Eaton