Chapter XI: How to Read Poetry (10)

_I sing! sing! sing! the wrathful warrior’s song._
_Then ping! ping! ping! ’tis the wrathful warrior’s wrong._

I red in the heart of the foe,
Fulfilling the warrior’s woe.
But this I see before I go—
A beauty blackening battle’s show;
Pictures of home in heart and brain
That blot and blank in my war’s refrain.

A school, a teacher and pupils bright,
Lessons and laughter and play,
Girls and boys in their school-day joys,
Maid and youth in their search for truth;
Then home in the shades of the rounded day.

Sleep! sleep! sleep! my baby, sleep!
Christ is the shepherd of His sheep,
And lambs like you to His heart he folds,
And safely holds, all safely holds,
Till the dark night dies in the arms of day,
When He kisses my lamb awake to play.
Sleep! sleep! sleep! my baby, sleep.

In the German tongue this sleep-song sung.

_But why; why do the children cry,_
_As the husband true bids a brave good-by?_
_O why do the women and children weep_
_As the war-woes over their gladness creep?_

_O this red! red! red!_
_O this blood I have shed_
_When from rifles of warriors I leap;_
_And the pictures grow dim, and the pictures grow blank,_
_But the weeds on this field will grow poison and rank._
_Siep! siep! siep!_
_The blood runs apace, and gone is the face_
_Of baby and wife,_
_Of love and of life._
_Siep! siep! siep!_
_When from rifles of warriors I leap._

_This, this is why sweet children cry_
_And wives and mothers vainly weep._

III

I murder the peace of summer winds;
I startle the kine and make dogs whine;
I’m the fury of fight, I’m hell’s delight;
I’m the black of death with its stiffening breath;
I’m insanity’s shriek as I try to speak;
I am agony’s glare and its wild despair;
I’m the hiss elate of the warrior’s hate,
The mad, red hiss of the warrior’s hate.

_I sing! sing! sing! the wrathful warrior’s song._
_Then ping! ping! ping! ’tis the wrathful warrior’s wrong._

I red in the heart of the foe,
Fulfilling the warrior’s woe.
But this I see before I go—
A beauty blackening battle’s show;
Pictures of home in heart and brain
That blot and blank in my war’s refrain.

A hammer and anvil and lowly cot,
Blossoms ashine and the fruitful vine,
The flying of sparks, the singing of larks
And the rapturing stir of the voice of her,
Outsinging the larks in her joys divine.

Sleep! sleep! sleep! my baby, sleep!
Christ is the shepherd of His sheep,
And lambs like you to His heart he folds,
And safely holds, all safely holds,
Till the dark night dies in the arms of day,
When He kisses my lamb awake to play.
Sleep! sleep! sleep! my baby, sleep.

In joy-hearted France sings this love’s romance.

_But why; why do the children cry,_
_As the husband true bids a brave good-by?_
_O why do the children and women weep_
_As the war-woes over their gladness creep?_

_O this red! red! red!_
_O this blood I have shed_
_When from rifles of warriors I leap;_
_And the pictures grow dim, and the pictures grow blank,_
_But the weeds on this field will grow poison and rank._
_Siep! siep! siep!_
_The blood runs apace, and gone is the face_
_Of baby and wife,_
_Of love and of life._
_Siep! siep! siep!_
_When from rifles of warriors I leap._

_This, this is why sweet children cry._
_And wives and mothers vainly weep._

IV

I am rifle-sent, and the air is rent
In tatters and rags and stains;
I burn my path of the warrior’s wrath
Too hot to be cooled by rains;
I murder the song of the rapturing thrush
As I chant war’s wrath with its ripping rush.
The mad red wrath with its ripping rush.
His is a song of love and life,
Mine is a screech of hate and strife.

_I sing! sing! sing! the wrathful warrior’s song._
_Then ping! ping! ping! ’tis the wrathful warrior’s wrong._

I red in the heart of the foe,
Fulfilling the warrior’s woe.
But this I see before I go—
A beauty blackening battle’s show;
Pictures of home in heart and brain
That blot and blank in my war’s refrain.

A meadow alined by English lanes;
And Shelley’s lark is in the sky,
And Shakespeare’s sheep, in clover deep;
A house by the spring and a grapevine swing,
A mother’s song and a babe’s reply.

Sleep! sleep! sleep! my baby, sleep!
Christ is the shepherd of His sheep,
And lambs like you to His heart he folds,
And safely holds, all safely holds,
Till the dark night dies in the arms of day,
When He kisses my lamb awake to play.
Sleep! sleep! sleep! my baby, sleep.

Child hearts rejoice in this English voice.

_But why; why do the children cry,_
_As the husband true bids a brave good-by?_
_O why do the children and women weep_
_As the war-woes over their gladness creep?_

_O this red! red! red!_
_O this blood I have shed_
_When from rifles of warriors I leap;_
_And the pictures grow dim, and the pictures grow blank,_
_But the weeds on this field will grow poison and rank._
_Siep! siep! siep!_
_The blood runs apace, and gone is the face_
_Of baby and wife,_
_Of love and of life._
_Siep! siep! siep!_
_When from rifles of warriors I leap._

_This, this is why sweet children cry_
_And wives and mothers vainly weep._

V

I’m a blighting swift, outflying storms,
I ruin and run as I shriek my fun;
With a screech of fear in the startled ear,
I crush the hope and distill the tear,
The tear of love, the hope of hearts;
I blight and blast with Destruction’s arts.
With the mad, red blight of Destruction’s arts.

_I sing! sing! sing! the wrathful warrior’s song._
_Then ping! ping! ping! ’tis the wrathful warrior’s wrong._

I red in the heart of the foe,
Fulfilling the warrior’s woe.
But this I see before I go—
A beauty blackening battle’s show;
Pictures of home in the heart and brain
That blot and blank in my war’s refrain.

The Danube blue, the Alsatian heights,
And a lover who sings to his maiden true,
The song and the kiss, the troth and its bliss,
Two hearts abeat in the love complete,
And the brown eyes marry the eyes of blue.

Sleep! sleep! sleep! my baby, sleep!
Christ is the shepherd of His sheep,
And lambs like you to His heart he folds,
And safely holds, all safely holds,
Till the dark night dies in the arms of day,
When He kisses my lamb awake to play.
Sleep! sleep! sleep! my baby, sleep.

An Austrian sings these rapturings.

_But why; why do the children cry,_
_As the husband true bids a brave good-by?_
_O why do the children and women weep_
_As the war-woes over their gladness creep?_

_O this red! red! red!_
_O this blood I have shed_
_When from rifles of warriors I leap;_
_And the pictures grow dim, and the pictures grow blank,_
_But the weeds on this field will grow poison and rank._
_Siep! siep! siep!_
_The blood runs apace, and gone is the face_
_Of baby and wife,_
_Of love and of life._
_Siep! siep! siep!_
_When from rifles of warriors I leap._

_This, this is why sweet children cry_
_And wives and mothers vainly weep._

VI

I cut the air with growls of wrath;
I am black woe’s bite as I bark and fight,
I’m the mad dog’s fang, and I lead the gang
As we wolf together on war’s red path;
We rend the flesh, and we wreck the mind;
We’re the war-wrath’s lust, and we’re wild and blind,—
The red wrath’s lust that is wild and blind.

_I sing! sing! sing! the wrathful warrior’s song._
_Then ping! ping! ping! ’tis the wrathful warrior’s wrong._

I red in the heart of the foe,
Fulfilling the warrior’s woe.
But this I see before I go—
A beauty blackening battle’s show;
Pictures of home in heart and brain
That blot and blank in my war’s refrain.

A bearded peasant and Tolstoy’s book,
Fulfilling the Christ’s great way of peace,
His neighbors, dear as the ripened year;
’Twas a neighbor’s girl with laugh and curl
Who mothered his flock of the sweet increase.

Sleep! sleep! sleep! my baby, sleep!
Christ is the shepherd of His sheep,
And lambs like you to His heart he folds,
And safely holds, all safely holds,
Till the dark night dies in the arms of day,
When He kisses my lamb awake to play.
Sleep! sleep! sleep! my baby, sleep.

Like a Russian dove croons this song of love.

_But why; why do the children cry,_
_As the husband true bids a brave good-by?_
_O why do the children and women weep_
_As the war-woes over their gladness creep?_

_O this red! red! red!_
_O this blood I have shed_
_When from rifles of warriors I leap;_
_And the pictures grow dim, and the pictures grow blank,_
_But the weeds on this field will grow poison and rank._
_Siep! siep! siep!_
_The blood runs apace, and gone is the face_
_Of baby and wife._
_Of love and of life._
_Siep! siep! siep!_
_When from rifles of warriors I leap._

_This, this is why sweet children cry_
_And wives and mothers vainly weep._

VII

’Twas wild wrath-riot, ’twas riot of death,
This bacchanal black making war’s red wrack,
This blood debauch and delirium,
Love’s hand palsied, truth’s tongue dumb,—
Blotting brave brains of mothers’ refrains,
Voices of children, enchantments of home,
The-Cathedral-of-man’s earth-rounding dome
Which visioning together might well have wrought,
Out of the heart of brothering thought.

And now that our screaming wrath is done,
And our place in the sky is filled with birds
Whose songs seem the voice of the gracious sun,
Behind us the wrath and the ruin left,
We are bruised and broken in fields bereft
Of their gentle flocks and peaceful herds;
We know, we know in our black war-woe,
There’s not a grace of gain for it all,
There’s not a spear of grain from it all.

O woe are we in this rusted red,
And woe the hearts which we’ve pierced and bled;
No honor is here, no glory bright,
But shame that is deeper than speech can tell,
But shame that is blacker than pits of hell,
The shame of a night unblessed by light,
The shame of a brain with its murder stain,
And a heart in the grime of war’s red crime.

Woe! woe! woe, is the end of the path
That blackens and blights from war’s red wrath.
_This, this is why sweet children cry_
_And wives and mothers vainly weep—_
_As the war-woes over their gladness creep._

—Copyright, 1914, by John Milton Scott, and used by the author’s kind permission.