Chapter C: H. Bretherton

June 6, 1917.

By the Canal in Flanders

By the canal in Flanders I watched a barge's prow
Creep slowly past the poplar-trees; and there I made a vow
That when these wars are over and I am home at last
However much I travel I shall not travel fast.

Horses and cars and yachts and planes: I've no more use for such:
For in three years of war's alarms I've hurried far too much;
And now I dream of something sure, silent and slow and large;
So when the War is over--why, I mean to buy a barge.

A gilded barge I'll surely have, the same as Egypt's Queen,
And it will be the finest barge that ever you have seen;
With polished mast of stout pitch pine, tipped with a ball of gold,
And two green trees in two white tubs placed just abaft the hold.

So when past Pangbourne's verdant meads, by Clieveden's mossy stems,
You see a barge all white-and-gold come gliding down the Thames,
With tow-rope spun from coloured silks and snow-white horses three,
Which stop beside your river house--you'll know the bargee's me.

I'll moor my craft beside your lawn; so up and make good cheer!
Pluck me your greenest salads! Draw me your coolest beer!
For I intend to lunch with you and talk an hour or more
Of how we used to hustle in the good old days of war.

NORMAN DAVEY.
Sept. 5, 1917.

A Watch in the Night

"Watchmen, what of the night?"
"Rumours clash from the towers;
The clocks strike different hours;
The vanes point different ways.
Through darkness leftward and right
Voices quaver and boom,
Pealing our victory's praise,
Tolling the tocsin of doom."

"Optimist, what of the night?"
"Night is over and gone;
See how the dawn marches on,
Triumphing, over the hills.
Armies of foemen in flight
Scatter dismay and despair,
Wild is the terror that fills
War-lords that crouch in their lair."

"Pessimist, what of the night?"
"Blackness that walls us about;
The last little star has gone out,
Whelmed in the wrath of the storm.
Exhaustless, resistless in might,
The enemy faints not nor fails;
Thundering, swarm upon swarm,
He sweeps like a flood through the vales.

"Pacifist, what of the night?"
"We hear the thunder afar,
But all is still where we are;
Good and evil are friends.
Here in the passionless height
War and morality cease,
And the noon with the midnight blends
In perennial twilight of peace."

H. E. WILKES.
Feb. 6, 1918.

The Windmill

A SONG of VICTORY.

Yes, it was all like a garden glowing
When first we came to the hill-top there,
And we laughed to know that the Bosch was going,
And laughed to know that the land was fair;
Acre by acre of green fields sleeping,
Hamlets hid in the tufts of wood,
And out of the trees were church-towers peeping,
And away on a hillock the Windmill stood.

_Then, ah then, 'twas a land worth winning,
And now there is naught but the naked clay,
But I can remember the Windmill spinning,
And the four sails shone in the sun that day._

But the guns came after and tore the hedges
And stripped the spinneys and churned the plain,
And a man walks now on the windy ledges
And looks for a feather of green in vain;
Acre by acre the sad eye traces
The rust-red bones of the earth laid bare,
And the sign-posts stand in the market-places
To say that a village was builded there.

_But better the French fields stark and dying
Than ripe for a conqueror's fat content,
And I can remember the mill-sails flying,
Yet I cheered with the rest when the Windmill went._

Away to the East the grass-land surges
Acre by acre across the line,
And we must go on till the end like scourges,
Though the wilderness stretch from sea to Rhine;
But I dream some days of a great reveille,
When the buds shall burst in the Blasted Wood,
And the children chatter in Death-Trap Alley,
And a windmill stand where the Windmill stood.

_And we that remember the Windmill spinning.
We may go under, but not in vain,
For our sons shall come in the new beginning
And see that the Windmill spins again._

A. P. HERBERT.
April 10, 1918.

The Return

Into the home-side wood, the long straight aisle of pines,
I turned with a slower step than ever my youth-time knew;
Dusk was gold in the valley, grey in the deep-cut chines,
And below, like a dream afloat, was the quiet sea's fading blue.

Oh, it was joy to see the still night folding down
Over the simple fields I loved, saved by the sacred dead,
Playmates and friends of mine, brothers in camp and town,
The loyal hearts that leapt at the word that England said.

I paused by the cross-roads' sign, for a tinkling sound rang clear,
The small sharp sound of a bell away up the western road;
And presently out of the mist, with clank and clatter of gear,
Rumbled the carrier's cart with its tilt and its motley load:--

The old grey horse that moved in the misty headlight's gleam,
The carrier crouched on his seat, with the bellboy perched astride,
Voices from under the tilt, and laughter--was it a dream,
Or was I awake and alive, standing there by the cross-roads' side?

So I came to the village street where glinting lights shone fair,
The little homely lights that make the glad tears start;
And I knew that one was yearning and waiting to welcome me there,
She that is mother in blood and steadfast comrade in heart.

Oh, but my youth swept back like the tide to a thirsty shore,
Or the little wind at dawn that heralds the wash of rain;
And I ran, I ran, with a song in my heart to the unlatched door,
I returned to the gentle breast that had nursed me--a boy again!