Trench Ballads and Other Verses Part 12

Faiths esoteric, pedantic and recondite- Mystical creeds: False and insipid and brutal and selfish- And wrought to their needs.

They whom Ye nurtured from primal conceiving, And ne'er a flaw- They know Thee not, or in knowing, reject Thee, Thee and Thy law.

Saying, "We see Thee not, come to us, speak to us- Tangible stand.

Come in the purple, crowned, robed and resplendent- Sceptre in hand.

"Even as kings have done, through all the ages, Brave to behold- Fanfare of trumpets, be jeweled and refulgent And girdled with gold:

"Or in a chariot welded of star-dust- Glittering white- Pause at the cloud-line 'mid crashing of thunder And blazing of light.

"Rolling Thy voice till the Pleiades tremble- The spheres are amoan; The Earth for a footstool-the outermost planets Grouped for a throne.

"Thus would we see Thee, acclaim Thee; and worship Thee, Thou in Thy might- Concrete, conglomerate, human and splendid- Aflame in our sight."

II

They who have drunk of the River of Knowledge Only a quaff, Pity them, Father that know not Thy meaning, Children who laugh.

Atoms that reck not the wherefore of atoms- Dust of the dust: Groping in darkness, recusant and doubting- And bearing no trust.

They would make mock of Thee, saying the life-spark, Came not of Thee: Function by function in wonderful unison- Each mystery.

Sunshine and rain-fall and food to their needing, Air, sea and land: Seed-time and fruit-time and harvest and gleaning- Made to their hand.

They would gainsay Thee by calling it Nature, Calling it Chance: And by their impotent wonder, Thy glory, Only enhance.

But when in mercy the last word is spoken- When the gates yawn; Father of Nations-take Thou Thy children Into the dawn.

Crowning Thy marvelous works with a crowning- Ultimate-vast- Showing compa.s.sion and loving they knew not, E'en to the last.

THE GOLDEN DAY.

Have ye a day that bears the glare Of the flaming morning sun?

Have ye a day the mind may search, Weighing what ye have done?

Have ye a day ye are satisfied Will stand the acid test- From the first gray strand of the eastern skies To the last red glow in the west?

Have ye a day ye grappled with And hurled in mortal throes, When, 'bove the white horizon, The Great Occasion rose?

Mayhap the World bore witness To the things of your Golden Day: Mayhap it is locked from the gaze of men, And ye've thrown the key away.

NOTES

NOTES.

*Trenches*

French Lorraine Lorraine is now French, but, of course, it was not so during the war.

Kultur The so-called German culture.

*Barb-Wire Posts*

Herein is described a common optical illusion or phenomenon seen by all soldiers, old and young, experienced or green, during the long night vigils looking through the wires, across No Man's Land.

Boche A German.

Hun A German. The people of Germany take great exception to being called "Huns," protesting that they are not of this stock. After the defeat of Attila and his Huns at Chalons, in 451 A. D., by the combined efforts of the Celts themselves, the indigenous people of France, the Romans, who were still masters of the country, the Franks, who had already become a power in the land, having advanced as far south as the Somme, and the Visigoths, who, early in the same century, had established their great empire in southern France and Spain; after this great battle the Huns retreated back into Germany, where many of their descendants must still be, but of course the majority of the German people are not, from an ethnological standpoint, Huns.

The reason for this appelation being applied to them is simply that when a people have the attributes of a Hun, they must expect to be so designated. A man may very properly be called a pig without any misapprehension that he actually travels upon four hoofs. However, it is possible, though not probable, that the leopard may change his spots; and time, and contact with civilization, and a democratic form of government may eventually eradicate the present very marked idiosyncrasies of the German race.

*Your Gas-Mask*

"full-field"

The full-field pack, consisting of blankets, shelter-half, clothing, extra shoes, etc., weighing over 50 pounds, on the back of an infantryman, and guaranteed to increase 50 pounds in weight every five kilometers after the first ten kilometer mark has been pa.s.sed.

full marching-order The full-field pack as described above, plus rifle, cartridge-belt with a hundred rounds of ammunition, two bandoliers, each containing a hundred extra rounds, gas-mask, mess outfit and the steel helmet, commonly known as your tin hat.

*Slum and Beef Stew*

Josephus Josephus Daniels, Secretary of the Navy during the war.

gobs Nickname for sailors.

Brains of the Army Any order apparently wrong or ridiculous is generally provocative of the soldiers saying, "Brains of the Army."

Thotmes III, (or Thutmose or Thutmosis) Of the Eighteenth Dynasty, who began his reign about 1500 B. C., Egypt's greatest conqueror, and under whom the Egyptian Empire attained its largest extent. Rameses II (the Great) of the following Dynasty, is, however, the more generally known.

Cyrus' doughboys swept etc.

Refers to the pa.s.sage of Cyrus and his great army through the Cilician Gates, on his way from his conquest of Lydia in Asia Minor, to his descent of the Euphrates Valley to Babylon, whose easy capitulation in 539 B. C. finally brought to an end the old glory of the Babylonian Empire, which, after a long period under a.s.syrian rule, had blossomed forth in a glorious recrudescence, in the latter part of the Seventh Century B. C, under Nebopola.s.sar and his famous son Nebuchadnezzar-and then known as the Neo-Babylonian Empire, or, more commonly, as Chaldea. The reader will doubtless remember that it was through the same pa.s.sage in the Taurus Mountains that Ashurbanapal, le Grand Monarque of a.s.syria when at the apogee of her power in the Seventh Century B. C, and also Alexander the Great, sweeping to his eastern conquests, both pa.s.sed.