MOODS OF WAR

One of the seventy had a sword The day that Christ was crucified: He followed where they led his Lord, The man that could not stand aside. When that first hammer-stroke rang loud, And left and right the rabble swayed, He flashed from out the staring crowd, He died upon the Roman blade. His fruitless deed, his noteless name, By careless Rome were never told. Now shall we give him praise or blame? Account him base, acclaim him bold? Was he the traitor to his Lord, Deeper than Peter that denied, The loving soul that took the sword, The man that would not stand aside? Or did the glorious company Of Michael’s sworded seraphim With chivalrous high courtesy Rise up to make a place for him?

Why do you leap in the wind so wild, O Star-Flag, O Sky-Flag? And why do you ripple as if you smiled, Flag of my heart’s delight? “I laugh because I am loosed at last, Free of the cords that bound me fast Mute as a mummy, furled on the mast, Far from the beckoning fight! “I joy because I am aligned— The Star-Flag, the Sky-Flag— With these the noblest of my kind, Flags of the soul’s desire! And where the blended Crosses blaze, And where the Tricolor lifts and sways To the marching pulse of the Marseillaise, I may be tried in the fire!” Yea, not for gold and not for ease, My Star-Flag, my Sky-Flag, The Fathers launched you on the breeze, Flag of man’s best emprise! Yea, not for power and not for greed, But to fly forever, follow or lead, For the world’s hope and the world’s need, Flower of all seas and all skies! And better you were a riddled rag, My Star-Flag, my Sky-Flag, The faded ghost of a fighting-flag, Shredded, and scorched with flame, Than that you should now be satisfied Over splendid cities and waters wide To flutter and float in an idle pride, To flaunt in a silken shame! Then well may you leap in the wind so wild, O Star-Flag, O Sky-Flag! And well may you ripple as if you smiled, Flag of our hearts’ delight! We joy because you are aligned With these the noblest of your kind: We are yours and theirs with a single mind— Let us on to the beckoning fight!

Earth-brown armies, on the brown earth whither, Ant-like swarming, rush ye in your wrath? —We wrestle and we tug and we pull all together To shift the giant Dead Thing that lies across the path. Earth-brown armies, but should it roll and smother, Log-like topple, and crush you in the clod? —Earth would pour new armies, one behind another, To shift the giant Dead Thing that blocks the way of God!

Whether we lose the light Of love or of the sun, With body and blood and mind and might Must this sole thing be done: The world is a broken ball, Stained red because it fell Out of bounds, in a game of kings, Over the wall of hell: And now must the spirit of man Arise and adventure all— Leap the wall sheer down into hell And bring up the broken ball. Worth well, to lose the light Of love or of the sun, Worth endless fire or endless night, So this sole thing were done!

On a rock-altar stern In sacrificial fires, A man goes up to burn His memories and desires. Sweet savors of the earth, All innocence and ease, All pleasantness and mirth, He offers on his knees. His trembling, star-white dreams; His body’s secret fear; His life—how dear it seems, How knit with lives more dear! Last offering, and most dread— With blind arms thrust above His bowed and suffering head, He burns his brother-love: Yet from that altar springs, Magnificently bright, A Love with fiery wings To fill the world with light.

She said, “I will hide all the brave books away from him, With their scarlet letters that burn into the heart; I will lock their spell and their sovereign sway from him; I will rear him tenderly, a life apart.” But the day came and the hour came, And the foul deed struck him like a spur; And he felt the shame and the swift flame, And his eyes were strange to her. In the dreams of the night had the old Captains come to him, And the staunch old Admirals that died long ago; From the old fields of fight came the roll of the drum to him, With a call that his mother could not know; It seemed that a Sword gleamed blinding-bright At the dawn-edge of the sky; And he said, “O Mother, the Right is the Right: I must fight for it now though I die!”

What should we say to you, O glorious Mothers Sacred and full of sorrows, we childless ones? We kneel to you as haloed women, we others, The slighter lives that could not give their sons. Not ours the exquisite anguish of surrender, The deep, still courage that day by day endures, The rosary of memories piercing-tender, The travail and the triumph that are yours. The agony and the glory of creation You have partaken; in that steep way you trod You have made yourselves part of the world’s salvation, You have shared the passion and the joy of God. With splendor of sunrise and the surging morn, Out of your pain shall Man be newly born.

At the deep midnight hour Sleep, that makes all things whole, Indulged my tortured soul. In the jewel-chest of dreams He stirred the elusive gleams, And found the gift of power, Round, pure, and perfect power, And laid it in my hand. I said: “I have command Of the Prince of the Power of the Air; His own wings will I wear! I will soar as a great hell-kite To be named The Terror-by-Night, Over mine enemy’s land.” At the thought, I rode the sky, High over the sea, and high Over field and city and spire; I laughed; I had my desire. For I came to mine enemy’s roof, Safe in a valley aloof, And I knew, as I poised above, There lay his Hope and his Love, The twain that he held most dear, Nestled with cheeks together, Roses in summer weather, Sleeping without a fear. Gray Memory, close beside, Couched her old, kindly head. It was mine to strike them dead, Even as mine own had died. I cried with a great voice, To mine enemy I cried: “Come forth, come forth, to hear! Look up, look up, to see! Lo, what is in my choice! This deed of black disgrace, This have you done to me; This might I do to you; Yet this I would not do, Yea, this I could not do! Let the knowledge smite your pride Like a gauntlet in the face!” Mine enemy stood in his gate: He was sadder than I had thought. I hated what he had wrought, But him I could not hate. His eyes were startled wide. What would he have replied? I know not. Ere he spoke, The merciless morning broke. Hawkers in sunny streets Shrilled triumphs and defeats, Sold horrors and despairs. Bells called the world to prayers.

“He was likely, had he been put on, To have proved most royally; and for his passing The soldiers’ music and the rites of war Speak loudly for him.”—Hamlet.

He died in armor, died with lance in rest. The trumpet had not sounded for the charge; Yet shall his guerdon of golden fame be large, For he was ready; he had met his test. No sacrifice is more complete and clean Than that in the locked soul, secret and still. Take for a visible deed the perfect will; Crown with sad pride the accomplishment unseen. Hang his bright arms undinted on the wall. In all brave colors whereto his dreams aspired Blazon his blank shield as his heart desired, And write above: “The readiness is all.”

Splendor of chivalrous Youth, swift-soaring far In valorous venture of eagle-battle on high Fate of a falling star— Nay! a new Star in the sky!

Beauty’s boy-servant, far in Flanders dead, There shoots across the sea a shaft of pain To think you are gone—a memory garlanded With wilding flowers plucked in an Irish lane. Your songs were like sweet waters to the throat, Or tenderness and freshness of young leaves; Surely the blackbird checks his laughing note, And for your loss the dripping rainbow grieves. With Brooke you are gone, with Grenfell, on high ways Lost to our sense, beyond the chance of wrong; Singers fall silent in these thunderous days, But their bright death is radiance and a song. —God send kind sleep to those clear Irish eyes That saw the old earth still dewy with surprise!

I stood in the summer night, when the hosts of heaven seemed nigh, And I saw the powdery swirl of stars, where it swept across the sky, The wide way of the white stars, where it ran up and down, And my heart was sad for the man who said It was Main Street, Heaventown. He chose to walk in the Main Street, in the wide ways of men; He set wings to the common things with the kind touch of his pen; He caught the lilt of the old tune that the hearts of the plain folk beat; He might have dreamed on the far faint hills—but he walked in the Main Street. He knelt down with his fellows, in the warm faith of the throng; He went forth with his fellows to fight a monstrous Wrong; He marched away to the true tune that the hearts of brave men beat, Shoulder to brown shoulder, with the men in the Main Street. A road runs bright through the night of Time, since ever the world began, The wide Way of the White Souls, the Main Street of Man, The sky-road of the star-souls, beyond all wars and scars; And there the singing soul of him goes on with the marching stars. So, as I stand in the summer night, when the hosts of heaven seem nigh, And look at the powdery swirl of stars, where it sweeps across the sky, The wide way of the white stars, where it runs up and down, My heart shall be glad for the friend who said It was Main Street, Heaventown.

O Beauty, heal my heart! I lean to thee, Faint, having supped with horrors: give me drink! —Red slopes beneath tall pines, ranged tree on tree; Long cool gray lakes, with iris round the brink In knightly companies purple and proud; Birches as altar-candles slender and white; A late gold sun, traced curiously with cloud; The spacious splendors of the moon-filled night; Among the wild-rose crowds, the perfect one; White sea-gulls like white lilies, on brown bars That slant athwart blue bays; gulls in the sun Rising as galaxies of trembling stars: Lull me awhile, O Beauty, drug my dread! —To-morrow morn War stands beside my bed.

Here by the bright blue creek the good ships lie A-building, and the hammers beat and beat, And the wood-smell is pleasant in the heat; The strong ribs curve against the marsh and sky. Here the old men are mowing in the sun, And the hay-sweetness blends with the wild-rose; At the field’s edge the scarlet lily glows; The great clouds sail, and the swift shadows run, And the broad undulant meadows gloom and smile; Over the russet red-top warm winds pass, The swallow swoops and swerves, the cattle stand In the cool of shallow brooks—and all the while Peace basks asleep, she dreams of some sad land Leagues over sea, where youth is mown as grass.

Sweet France, we greet thee with our cheers, our tears, Our tardy swords! O sternly, wanly fair In that red martyr-aureole thou dost wear! Even for the sake of our bright pioneers, Chapman, and Seeger, and such dear dead peers Of thy dead sons, joyous and swift to dare All fiery danger of the earth and air, Forgive us, France, our hesitating years! Quenchless as thine own spirit is our trust That thou shalt spring resurgent, like the brave Pure plume of Bayard, from the blood and dust Of this grim combat-to-the-utterance, Fresh as the foambow of the charging wave, O plume of Europe, proud and delicate France!

Thou that a brave, brief space didst keep the gate Against the German, saving all the West By the subjection of thy shielding breast To the brute blows and utmost shames of Fate; Thou that in bonds of iron dost expiate Thy nobleness as crime! Even thus oppressed, Is not thy spirit mystically blest, O little Belgium, marvellously great? Thou that hast prized the soul above the flesh, Dost thou not, starving, eat of angels’ bread? With every sunrise crucified afresh, Has not this guerdon for all time sufficed— That thou shouldst wear upon thy haggard head The awful honor of the Crown of Christ?

In God our Father, and in all men’s Sonship; In Brother-love and breaking down of barriers; In Law that is the just will of the People Shaped, and still shaping, to the People’s need; In equal Freedom and in equal Service, Duties and Rights: in all these I believe. In these great States bound in a greater Union, Many in One, the framework of the Fathers, Nobly devised, a forecast of the future When all the Nations gather in God’s fold; The great Experiment, the high Adventure, The captain Hope: in all this I believe. In this bright Flag of Liberty and Union: Its red, the symbol of the blood of brothers That flows through men of every race and nation; Its white, the symbol of the peace between them That shall be when God’s Will has wrought as leaven; Its stars, the symbol of many Powers that move Clustering together without clash or conflict, In the deep blue of the vast, tender sky That is the all-enfolding mantle of God— With my whole soul in all these I believe. That I in peace must show my true allegiance To this bright Flag, this constellated Union, By square-done work and clean unselfish living; That I in war must show my true allegiance— While war shall linger in this world to threaten Such Sanctities as these—even by my dying: In all this I believe. Amen. Amen.

As men that labor in a mountain war— Scaling sheer cliffs, hewing out stairs of stone, Trenching the ice, quenching the torrent’s roar With rolling thunders in the gorges lone— Having seized a height, might stand with dazzled stare, Seeing, beyond, a highest heavenly peak Hung lucent as a cloud in the bright air, Still to be won: O thus, even thus, we seek Peace beyond War! and thus the Vision gleams Upon us battling, that snow-crest sublime, That holy mountain, that pure crown of dreams, Toward which Man’s soul has struggled up through Time. In blood and sweat we war that War may cease; And storming the last peak, we conquer Peace.

How shall we say “God rest him!” Of him who loved not rest, But the pathless plunge in the forest And the pauseless quest, And the call of the billowing mountains, Crest beyond crest? Hope rather, God will give him His spirit’s need— Rapture of ceaseless motion That is rest indeed, As the cataract sleeps on the cliff-side White with speed. So shall his soul go ranging Forever, swift and wide, With a strong man’s rejoicing, As he loved to ride; But all our days are poorer For the part of him that died.